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Rezoning usually occurs after it is counted according to the former population count or court decision by the US Census Bureau. Now Texas Republicans want to break that tradition – and other states can follow suit.
Democrats in the Texas House have left the state to send five more Republicans to Washington after the 2026 midterm elections, and to prevent votes on a district plan promoted by President Donald Trump, who will send Democrats back to Washington to blunt the president’s agenda.
The state has 38 seats in the house. The Republicans currently hold 25 members and 12 Democrats, with one seat open since the Democrats’ death.
Doug Spencer, chairman of constitutional law at the University of Colorado, said:
Other states are waiting to see what Texas is doing and whether they should follow it.
Rezoning rules may be vague and fluctuating. Each state has its own set of rules and procedures. Politicians measure what voters accept when it comes to politically motivated cartography.
Here’s what you need to know about the rules for rezoning councils:
When does re-partitioning normally occur?
Every ten years, the Census Bureau collects population data used to divide 435 House seats into 50 states based on updated head counts.
This is a process known as reallocation. A growing state compared to others can earn seats at the expense of people whose population has stagnated or declined.
The state uses its own procedures to draw lines for the number of districts allocated. The smallest state receives only one representative. This means that the entire state is a single legislative district.
The constitutions of some states require independent committees to devise political boundaries and advise Congress. Once Congress takes the lead, lawmakers can risk drawing boundaries challenged in courts, usually in violation of the Voting Rights Act. Cartifiers will have another opportunity to resubmit a new map. Sometimes the judges draw their own maps.
Is mid-cycle repartitioning allowed?
By the first midterm elections after the latest population numbers, states are ready on their maps, but those districts aren’t always stuck. The court can determine that political boundaries are unconstitutional.
The nations seeking to redraw their districts in the middle of the decade have no national obstacles to the nation trying to do so for political reasons, such as an increase in political reasons.
“The rezoning law just says that you must rezone your district after any census,” Spencer said. “And some state legislatures have gotten a little smarter and I said, I won’t say we can’t do any more.”
Some states have laws that prevent central rezoning or make it difficult to do so in a way that benefits one party.
D-Calif Gov. Gavin Newsom has threatened to retaliate against a GOP push in Texas by pulling out a democratic seat that is more favorable to his state. But that goal is complicated by constitutional amendments that require independent committees to lead the process.
Is Texas’ efforts unprecedented?
Texas has done it before.
When Congress disagreed with the rezoning plan after the 2000 census, federal courts intervened via their own maps.
Tom Delay, a Republican from Texas, who was the leader of the US House majority at the time, believed that his state should have five districts that are friendly to his party. “I’m a majority leader and we want more seats,” he said at the time.
A state Capitol Democrat fled to Oklahoma and protested to steal enough votes from the legislature to officially do any business. However, the delay ultimately won his way, with Republicans replacing Democrats with five seats in 2004.
Now, the majority of Texas Democrats have decided to take the same route, heading to Illinois and breaking the quorum.
What does the court say about gerrymandering?
In 2019, the Supreme Court ruled that federal courts should not engage in debates over political gerrymandering, a practice of portraying districts for partisan interests. In that decision, Supreme Court Justice John Roberts said the district was “very partisan on any measure.”
However, if they believe that parliamentary boundaries will dilute voting for racial minority groups in violation of the Voting Rights Act, the court may request a new map.
Can other states follow suit?
Suzan Delvene, a Washington lawmaker who leads the House Democrats’ campaign division, showed at a Christian Science Monitoring event that democrat-led states will see their own political boundaries as Texas follows through a new map.
“If they went down this path, people would definitely be dealing with the whole country,” Delvene said. “We are not sitting with one hand behind our back while Republicans try to undermine the voices of the American people.”
In New York, Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul recently joined the new prime minister and expressed his openness to bringing up districts along the way. However, state laws that mandate independent committees and slow down the capacity of gerrymanders will emerge.
Within the Republican-led states, Ohio was able to try to further expand the 10-5 edge that the GOP holds in its House delegation. The quirk of state law requires Ohio to redraw the map before mid-2026.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said he is considering early changes in districts and “working through what it looks like.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott disagreed with questions Tuesday about whether the state responded appropriately to the fatal flooding in Kerrville. “All soccer teams make mistakes. The losing team is the one that tries to point out who is responsible.”
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