Key facts on the plan to redraw American house cards from Texas

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The Republicans representing Texas at the Congress are planning this week to push their state legislature to take the unusual measure to redraw the district lines to consolidate the advantage of the GOP in the American house.

But the contours of the plan, especially if Governor Greg Abbott would call a special session of the Legislative Assembly to redraw the cards, would remain largely uncertain.

The idea is motivated by the political advisers of President Donald Trump, who want to write new cards that would give Republicans a better chance of returning the seats currently held by the Democrats, according to two collaborators of the Congress of the Familiar Gop with the issue. This proposal, which would involve moving the voters of the GOP of red districts safely in neighboring blue districts, aims to protect the thin majority of republicans in the congress, where they control the lower chamber, 220-212.

The Redecoupage proposal, and the Role of the Trump team in the push, was reported for the first time by the New York Times on Monday.

Without a republican majority at the Congress, Trump’s legislative program would likely be caught, and the president could face chairs of the newly autonomous Democratic Committee determined to examine the White House.

Here is what we know of the plan so far:

What do the Texans feel at the conference of the proposal?

In Capitol Hill, members of the Texas GOP delegation huddled on Monday evening to discuss the prospect of reshaping their districts. Most of the 25 members of the group have expressed reluctance to the idea, invoking concerns about the endangerment of their mid-term districts next year if the new cards have highlighted the advantage of the GOP, according to the two GOP aids, which spoke subject to anonymity to discuss private deliberations.

Representative Jodey Arrington, R-Lubbock, was skeptical about the idea.

“We recently worked on new cards,” said Arrington to Texas Tribune. To reopen the process, he said: “There should be a significant advantage for our state.”

The delegation has not yet been presented with new cards models, two assistants said.

Is a M-Cycle redistribution like this legal?

The political cards of each state must be redesigned once by decade, after each cycle of the American census, to take into account demographic growth and guarantee that each district of Congress and Legislative has roughly the same number of people. Texas legislators revised their district lines in 2021.

There is no federal law that prohibits states from restarting district cards in the middle of the cycle, said Justin Levitt, professor of electoral law at the University of Loyola Marymount and former deputy attorney of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. The laws around the calendar to redraw the cards of the congress and the state district vary depending on the state. In Texas, the constitution of the State does not specify timing, therefore the restart of the cards is left to the discretion of the governor and the legislative assembly.

The legislators released their regular 140 -day session last week, which means that they should be recalled for a special session to change state political cards. Abbott has the only power to order overtime sessions and decide what legislators are authorized to consider.

If Texas redesigns its cards, what would that mean for the current trial on existing maps?

A trial is underway in El Paso in a long -standing challenge to the cards of the legislative district and the congress congress, Texas attracted the American census of 2020.

If Texas redesign its cards from the congress, state officials would then ask the court to throw complaints contesting these districts “which no longer exist,” said Levitt. The part of the case on the maps of the state legislative district would continue.

If the judge agrees, the two parties should file new legal complaints for the updated cards.

How would this decision affect Texas voters?

It is not clear how many cards could change, but the voters could find themselves in new districts, and Levitt said that redrawing the lines in the middle of the redistribution cycle is a bad idea.

“If the inhabitants of Texas think that their representatives have done bad job, then when the [district] The lines change, they no longer vote on these representatives, “said Levitt.” New people vote on these representatives. »»

The National Democratic Rediscussion Committee, the National Arm of Democrats for having disputed the GOP card of the State, said that the proposal to extend the Bastion of the Republicans to Texas was “another example of Trump trying to suppress votes in order to maintain power”.

“The Congress of Texas Congress is already continued to violate the law on voting rights because it reduces the voting power of the Latin-American population of rapid growth,” said John Bisognano, president of the NDRC. “Drawing an even more extreme Gerrymander, would only assure that the dam of legal challenges against Texas will continue.”

Why does Trump’s political team consider Texas as a target of choice to collect seats for the republicans of the room via the redistribution?

When the Republicans in charge of the Legislative Assembly restarted the district lines after the 2020 census, they focused on strengthening their political support in the districts already controlled by the GOP. This redistribution proposal would probably adopt a different approach.

In the current state of things, the Republicans hold 25 of the 38 seats of the State Congress. Democrats have 12 seats and should regain control of a vacant Texas seat during a special election this fall.

Most of the Texas GOP -controlled districts strongly lean Republicans: in the elections last year, 24 of these 25 seats were worn by a republican winner who received at least 60% of the votes or was without opposition. The exception was the American representative Monica de la Cruz, R-EDINBURG, who captured 57% of the votes and gained in a comfortable margin of 14 points.

With little competition to speak, Times reported, Trump’s political advisers believe that at least some of these districts could bear the loss of GOP voters who would be reworked in neighboring and democratic districts – giving republican hopes a better chance of returning these seats from red to red.

The party which controls the White House frequently loses seats during the mid-term cycles, and Trump’s team probably seeks to compensate for the potential losses of the GOP in other states and to improve the chances of keeping a narrow majority of the house. The outgoing republicans, however, do not like the idea of ​​sacrificing a comfortable breed in a safe neighborhood for the possibility of collecting some seats, according to GOP aid.

Has it already happened?

In 2003, after the Texas Republicans initially left the courts to trace new lines after the 2000 census, the head of the majority of the United States Chamber, Tom Delay, a republican of the sugar land, rather launched a daring line of conduct to consolidate Gop Power in the state. He, with his republican allies, redrawn the lines as a salvo of opening to a redistribution plan with several states aimed at accumulating the power of his party in the states across the country.

Enranged by the power game, the Democrats fled the state, depriving the Texas house of the quorum he needed to work.

The rebels finally yielded under the threat of an arrest, a rare power in the Constitution of Texas used to oblige the absent members to return to Austin when the Legislative Assembly is in session. The lines were then redesigned, cementing the majority of the GOP that the delegation appreciated in Washington in the past two decades.

However, what is at stake this time is different from that of the early 2000s, when the Republicans had a new majority in the Legislative Assembly and had a number of vulnerable democratic holders that they could pick up. Now, the Republicans have been rooted in the majority for decades and will have to answer the question of whether there is really more to win, said Kareem Crayton, vice-president of the Brennan Center for Justice Washington office.

“This is the compromise. You can do this too much for you to make them so competitive that the other team wins,” said Crayton. “It’s always a danger.”

What comes next?

The Texas Republicans are planning to be recalled on Thursday to continue to discuss the plan, according to representative Beth Van Duyne, R-IRVING, and representative Wesley Hunt, R-HOYON, who said they would attend the meeting. Trump’s political team members should also attend, according to Hunt and two GOP Congress collaborators who know the question.

Natalia Contreras is a voting journalist in partnership with Texas Tribune. It is based in Corpus Christi. Contact natalia at ncontreas@votebeat.org.

Disclosure: The New York Times was a financial supporter of Texas Tribune, a non -profit non -supported press organization which is partly funded by donations of members, foundations and business sponsors. Financial supporters do not play any role in the journalism of the gallery. Find a full list of them here.

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