REdistributing Democracy - How texas congressional maps are racist

This is an article on gerrymandering that critiques the modern practice of gerrymandering and the current limitations of gerrymandering coverage in news content.

Citizens in the U.S. think they choose their representatives, but it’s the reverse.

This shift didn’t happen by accident. By design, the U.S. democratic system weakens the influence of voters through gerrymandering — the practice of redrawing districts to affect the outcome of an election. This is always an effort by the party in power to skew voting outcomes in their favor.

Such is the case in places like Texas, among other states, where TX Congressional District 35 was recently ruled unconstitutional by federal judges due to “an impermissible racial gerrymander”.

News outlets often show the deviance of wildly gerrymandered districts with images highlighting the area on a map. Some maps even show if the District was scored red or blue. But these monochromatic district colors conceal the racial discrimination embedded within them. For example in TX District 35, stretching from San Antonio along I-35 to Austin. While the shape is contorted at best, there isn’t outrageous evidence of racial bias available in this common depiction.

Yet TX District 35 is condemned of racial gerrymandering. So, is it true?

To test if there is racial discrimination, we can compare the district to racial distribution mapping data (based off the 2010 Census and the 2011–2015 American Community Survey). This data informs the shape of the district, revealing the racial impact evident from the current gerrymandering practices in Texas.

Here, purple/pink areas represent a plurality of white persons in an area; blue areas represent a plurality of Latinx persons in the area.

While the decision making process behind drawing district lines is rarely revealed, the outcome of gerrymandering is that U.S. citizens in districts all over Texas — and the country — are having their voting rights suppressed.

The distortion in Texas 35th is not an isolated incident — crooked districts exist throughout the state. For these maps, any red sections indicate a plurality of black persons, while green sections indicate a plurality of Asian persons.

Assembled in these images are blatant successes at dismantling our voting rights. It isn’t enough for news outlets to cover these issues with grey shaded, funny looking district visuals missing crucial context. We need to demand more from our public officials and news organizations covering policies like gerrymandering.

While fixing gerrymandering won’t totally solve our extreme partisan politics, end voter suppression, or fix politician accountability — it is a start. Gerrymandering solutions are available and diverse, including redistricting efforts from non-partisan groups, creating proportional representation, and designing maps that account for efficiency gap measurements or maximize compactness.

Additionally, the Supreme Court has the chance to redefine gerrymandering in their upcoming Gill vs Whitford decision, but in the meantime, we could update ‘gerrymander’ to represent its 21st century iteration. And since the term ‘gerrymander’ came from 1812 redistricting efforts drawing resemblance to a salamander, maybe ‘gerry-gecko’ is a more appropriate label for 2017.