By Jake Sonderman
2021 has already proven to be a year full of politics. Blogger Jake looks toward one state’s 2020 census in particular and what it means and “predicts” for our government in 2021.
I’m sure everybody reading the news knows that we have a census every ten years. What is the purpose of this census beyond just knowing our approximate population? One very important outcome is apportionment and redistricting.
Apportionment
We have 435 representatives in the House of Representatives. After each ten-year census, those 435 representatives are redistributed slightly to account for population changes. Texas is expected to get about three new representatives (that’s a lot) since their population has grown by about four million people in the last ten years.
Redistricting
States legislatures use the census data to draw new congressional districts (state and federal). Districts must be relatively equal in population (about 710,000) and not discriminate based on race or ethnicity. Unfortunately, the Constitution does not prevent partisan gerrymandering, which is where the party in power of the state legislature draws the districts to favor their party. In practice, this means cracking and packing: cracking some districts by giving your party a small majority, and packing some districts by giving the opposing party an extremely large majority. “Packing” will give one party significantly fewer districts they can win. Gerrymandering is used extensively by both parties.
Texas
As mentioned earlier, Texas is set to gain three representatives, the most of any state (Houston Public Media). Texas’s state legislature is controlled by the GOP and has a history of gerrymandering. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has allowed partisan gerrymandering in the last decade, saying that the federal court does not have jurisdiction on the subject (Oyez). In 2013, Texas approved new congressional districts that greatly favored Republicans by drawing very odd districts like their 2nd and 22nd districts (which are both Republican).
Though Texas was expected to be more blue this year, it really was not. Trump got over one million more votes in Texas than he did in 2016 and beat Biden by about 600,000 votes (pretty much the same as 2016) (AP). Texas also elected 23 Republicans out of a total 36 representatives allotted. My prediction for 2021 is that the Texas state legislature will further gerrymander their congressional districts, helping keep the GOP in charge of the state legislature and giving the GOP more say in the House in the coming decade.
Sources:
https://www.oyez.org/cases/2012/12-96
https://www.nytimes.com/elections/2016/results/texas
https://www.ap.org/media-center/understanding-the-election
2021 Predictions Editor: Sara Habibipour