Editors at Issues and Insights consider the impact of Texas’ ongoing redistricting controversy.
Consider what has transpired in the past few weeks and ask yourself which political party is acting like petulant children.
Earlier this year, the Justice Department found that four Texas districts drawn in 2021 are “unconstitutionally racially biased” because they violate the equal protection clause and “must be rectified immediately.”
Hans von Spakovsky, an election law expert at the Heritage Foundation, notes that not only did those Texas districts violate the Constitution, but the boundaries they drew in 2021 were based on faulty 2020 Census data, which had missed half a million Texans, and didn’t reflect the influx of 2 million people over the past five years.
So, the state redrew districts to pass constitutional muster and reflect the reality of Texas’ population, which, because it ends up creating more Republican-favored districts, sparked an unhinged national outrage.
Democratic state legislators fled Texas so they could block a vote on the new district boundaries – a flagrant attempt to thwart the democratic process that also violates Texas law.
Democratic leaders around the country lost their collective minds, beclowning themselves and the party they lead in the process.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries promised that “Democrats are going to respond from coast to coast and at all points in between to this effort to steal the midterm elections.” (In 2021, Jeffries called Trump a “pathological liar” a “sociopath” and a “malignant narcissist” for claiming that Democrats stole the 2020 election.)
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker proudly claimed to be providing sanctuary to the runaway Texans, “’cause we know they’re doing the right thing, we know that they’re following the law.”
Pritzker claims to be fighting a valiant battle against “gerrymandering” – in which district lines are drawn purposely to favor one party or another. It’s is an unfortunate reality in politics, one hated by whichever party is on the losing end.
But Illinois is one of the most gerrymandered states in the land, with districts that bob and weave all over the place to guarantee the maximum number of seats that can be controlled by Democrats.
