Applied Video Analysis to investigate the politics of Texas’s redistricting through a documentary of Texas Legislative Branch Processes and Politics examining the role of the Census in the State’s reapportionment and re-districting activities.
Objective: Students will learn the causes and effects of gerrymandering, and how court decisions authorizing race-based gerrymandering have reshaped American politics and created complex legacies of the state’s mapmaking capabilities reflect the balance of power in Congress has shifted geographically over time.
Topic Background and Overview Texas has 36 districts, second-most in the country only to California. Since becoming a state in 1845, Texas has never lost a congressional district.
Texas’ congressional delegation is currently made up of 23 Republicans and 13 Democrats. Starting in 2022, it will have two new members, whose seats will be in Austin and Houston.
In 2020, Trump won 22 districts and Biden won 14 districts. In 18 districts, the election was competitive, with neither candidate winning by 10 percentage points.
If the 2020 elections were held after redistricting, Trump would have won 25 districts and Biden would have won 13 districts. In 13 districts, the election would have been competitive, with neither candidate winning by 10 percentage points.
The Texas Senate’s 31 seats are currently divided among 18 Republicans and 13 Democrats. Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, chairs the chamber’s redistricting committee and has described its map-drawing process as “race blind.” The new map includes no additional districts where people of color make up the majority of eligible voters.
In 2020, Trump won 16 districts and Biden won 15 districts. In 15 districts, the election was competitive, with neither candidate winning by 10 percentage points.
If the 2020 elections were held after redistricting, Trump would have won 19 districts and Biden would have won 12 districts. In 16 districts, the election would have been competitive, with neither candidate winning by 10 percentage points.
The State Board of Education, which dictates what Texas’ approximately 5.3 million public school students are taught in classrooms, is currently made up of nine Republicans and six Democrats. Each of these 15 huge districts includes 1.9 million residents.
In 2020, Trump won 8 districts and Biden won 7 districts. In 9 districts, the election was competitive, with neither candidate winning by 10 percentage points.
If the 2020 elections were held after redistricting, Trump would have won 9 districts and Biden would have won 6 districts. In 8 districts, the election would have been competitive, with neither candidate winning by 10 percentage points.
The Texas House’s 150 seats are currently divided among 83 Republicans and 66 Democrats. Its new map would increase not only the number of districts where a majority of eligible voters are white, but also the number of districts that would have voted for Trump in 2020.
In 2020, Trump won 76 districts and Biden won 74 districts. In 60 districts, the election was competitive, with neither candidate winning by 10 percentage points.
If the 2020 elections were held after redistricting, Trump would have won 85 districts and Biden would have won 65 districts. In 54 districts, the election would have been competitive, with neither candidate winning by 10 percentage points.
Prompt Topics: Select 1 from the list to write your essay on.
In your own opinion, is re-redistricting, before the decennial census, a crime, based on statutory and constitutional law?
Required Materials and Content
District Time Machine Interactive Immersion into History your Texas District by ACLU website
https://what-the-district.aclu.org/?ids=8068-8098-8128-8158-8205-8234-8277-8517-8540-8562-8585-8608-8632-8656-8683
Watch Movie: The Big Buy: How Tom Delay Stole Congress Copy for access and streaming movie. (120 minutes long). http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6rzv(Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
Useful Resources:
(interactive) What Redistricting Looks Like in Every State: An updating tracker of proposed congressional maps — and whether they might benefit Democrats or Republicans in the 2022 midterms and beyond.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/redistricting-2022-maps/texas/
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Discipline: Government