DOCSLIB.ORG

State and Federal Law Governing Redistricting in Texas

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
State and Federal Law Governing Redistricting in Texas State and Federal Law Governing Redistricting in Texas Prepared by the Staff of the Texas Legislative Council Published by the Texas Legislative Council P.O. Box 12128 Austin, Texas 78711-2128 Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst, Joint Chair Speaker Joe Straus, Joint Chair Debbie Irvine, Executive Director August 2011 The mission of the Texas Legislative Council is to provide professional, nonpartisan service and support to the Texas Legislature and legislative agencies. In every area of responsibility, we strive for quality and effi ciency. Copies of this publication have been distributed in compliance with the state depository law (Subchapter G, Chapter 441, Government Code) and are available for public use through the Texas State Publications Depository Program at the Texas State Library and other state depository libraries. An online version of this publication can be found at http://www.tlc.state.tx.us/redist/publications.html. Additional copies of this publication may be obtained from House Document Distribution: In person: Room B.324, Robert E. Johnson, Sr., Legislative Offi ce Building 1501 N. Congress Avenue By mail: P.O. Box 12128, Austin, TX 78711-2128 By phone: (512) 463-1144 By fax: (512) 463-2920 By e-mail: [email protected] By online request form (legislative offi ces only): http://bilreq/House.aspx Table of Contents Introduction ....................................................................................................................................1 Chapter 1 The Texas Redistricting Process ......................................................................................................5 Chapter 2 One Person, One Vote: The Equal Population Requirement .........................................................23 Chapter 3 Minority Vote Dilution and Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act ....................................................55 Chapter 4 Federal Preclearance: Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act ............................................................79 Chapter 5 Constitutional Prohibitions Against Racial Discrimination and Racial Gerrymandering ............................................................................101 Chapter 6 Partisan Gerrymandering .............................................................................................................121 Chapter 7 Substantive Redistricting Standards in the Texas Constitution ...................................................137 Chapter 8 Court-Ordered Redistricting Plans ...............................................................................................153 Introduction In Wesberry v. Sanders, the landmark voting rights case extending the principle of one person, one vote to the election of members of the U.S. Congress, the U.S. Supreme Court stated that “[n]o right is more precious in a free country than that of having a voice in the election of those who make the laws under which, as good citizens, we must live. Other rights, even the most basic, are illusory if the right to vote is undermined.”1 It has long been recognized that manipulating legislative, congressional, and other elective districts can be just as effective in fencing disfavored groups out of the political system as directly prohibiting the right to vote itself. However, before 1962, federal courts and the courts of most states refused to hear cases challenging the composition of those districts. The courts took the position that redistricting is an exclusively political matter in which judicial involvement would be inappropriate. The supreme court summarized that position in 1946 in Colegrove v. Green, a suit challenging the validity of Illinois’ congressional districts on a number of constitutional grounds, including the population inequality among the districts: It is hostile to a democratic system to involve the judiciary in the politics of the people. The petitioners urge with great zeal that the conditions of which they complain are grave evils and offend public morality. But due regard for the Constitution as a viable system precludes judicial correction.2 The court concluded that the federal judiciary should not enter the “political thicket” of redistricting.3 Until the supreme court reversed its position in the 1962 case Baker v. Carr,4 courts routinely dismissed redistricting challenges. In Baker, the court fi nally abandoned the hands-off approach exemplifi ed by Colegrove, holding that the federal courts must consider and decide claims by disgruntled voters that legislative redistricting plans violate their federal constitutional rights. The need for judicial scrutiny of districting plans was especially apparent in light of the extreme population disparities among districts that existed in many states. Since those who suffered most from such malapportioned districts lacked the very legislative representation needed to remedy that malapportionment in the redistricting process, federal judicial intervention was necessary to break the incumbents’ stranglehold. The court recognized that, as a matter of political reality, incumbent state legislators could not be relied on to fully protect the voting rights of all citizens at the cost of their own political power. Since the Baker decision opened the federal courthouse to legal challenges to the composition of electoral districts, challenges under state and federal law against both state and local redistricting plans have become commonplace. U.S. Supreme Court decisions handed down since Baker have recognized three major constitutional standards governing redistricting plans: (1) districts must be of equal population to ensure that the value of every person’s vote is substantially equal; (2) a plan may not intentionally dilute the voting strength of members of a racial or ethnic minority group; and (3) a plan that contains districts drawn primarily on the basis of race or ethnicity requires a compelling justifi cation. 1 Within three years of the supreme court’s decision in Baker, Congress enacted the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965, which was substantially revised in 1982.5 The act introduced a whole new body of statutory law to help enforce the guarantees of the U.S. Constitution against racial and ethnic discrimination in the electoral process. The Voting Rights Act is the single most important law protecting the voting rights of racial and ethnic minority groups. The act has had a revolutionary effect on state and local voting practices in general and on redistricting plans in particular. Section 5 of the act requires certain jurisdictions, including the State of Texas, to obtain from federal authorities prior approval of any redistricting plan. Section 2 of the act allows members of a racial or language minority group to challenge a redistricting plan that limits or diminishes their opportunity to participate in the electoral process and to elect representatives of their choice. In addition to challenges based on these federal constitutional and statutory grounds, a substantial amount of litigation has occurred in state courts challenging redistricting plans as violative of state constitutional requirements. Since no two states have identical constitutional provisions governing redistricting, this litigation has developed independently in each state. The interplay between sometimes inconsistent state and federal requirements and the diffi culty of complying completely with both further complicate redistricting law. There has been a great deal of continuity in redistricting law since the 2001 edition of this publication, but several areas of the law are still developing. The tolerance for population deviations in redistricting plans for districts other than congressional districts appears to be uncertain once again (see Chapter 2). Congress’s 2006 renewal of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act raises questions about the application of the reworded statute and even the future viability of the preclearance requirement applicable to jurisdictions such as Texas based on coverage formulas derived from 40-year-old elections (see Chapter 4). Citizenship data has become a necessary component of a Section 2 vote dilution analysis in Texas (see Chapter 3), and yet the source and reliability of that data have changed substantially in the last decade (see Chapter 1). Racial gerrymander claims were prominent in litigation in the 1990s, while in the 2000s they have largely faded away (see Chapter 5). Claims of partisan gerrymandering, which have never succeeded, continue to fade away as well, although the possibility of such a legal challenge remains (see Chapter 6). This publication is intended to assist the Texas Legislature in carrying out its redistricting responsibilities and to provide information about Texas legislative redistricting to the public and other interested persons. It focuses on the legislative redistricting process under Texas law and the redistricting rules provided by state and federal law applicable to the four statewide bodies for which the legislature is to draw new districts after publication of the 2010 federal census: the state’s congressional delegation, the Texas Senate, the Texas House of Representatives, and the State Board of Education. Local governments in Texas are also subject to the federal constitutional standards and the Voting Rights Act. After publication of the 2010 census, election districts for local governmental bodies, such as county commissioners precincts, city council wards, and school board districts, must be redrawn to eliminate
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The 2004 Venezuelan Presidential Recall Referendum
    Statistical Science 2011, Vol. 26, No. 4, 517–527 DOI: 10.1214/09-STS295 c Institute of Mathematical Statistics, 2011 The 2004 Venezuelan Presidential Recall Referendum: Discrepancies Between Two Exit Polls and Official Results Raquel Prado and Bruno Sans´o Abstract. We present a simulation-based study in which the results of two major exit polls conducted during the recall referendum that took place in Venezuela on August 15, 2004, are compared to the of- ficial results of the Venezuelan National Electoral Council “Consejo Nacional Electoral” (CNE). The two exit polls considered here were conducted independently by S´umate, a nongovernmental organization, and Primero Justicia, a political party. We find significant discrepan- cies between the exit poll data and the official CNE results in about 60% of the voting centers that were sampled in these polls. We show that discrepancies between exit polls and official results are not due to a biased selection of the voting centers or to problems related to the size of the samples taken at each center. We found discrepancies in all the states where the polls were conducted. We do not have enough information on the exit poll data to determine whether the observed discrepancies are the consequence of systematic biases in the selection of the people interviewed by the pollsters around the country. Neither do we have information to study the possibility of a high number of false or nonrespondents. We have limited data suggesting that the dis- crepancies are not due to a drastic change in the voting patterns that occurred after the exit polls were conducted.
    [Show full text]
  • Wyoming Pre-Statehood Legal Materials: an Annotated Bibliography
    Wyoming Law Review Volume 7 Number 1 Article 2 January 2007 Wyoming Pre-Statehood Legal Materials: An Annotated Bibliography Debora A. Person Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.uwyo.edu/wlr Recommended Citation Person, Debora A. (2007) "Wyoming Pre-Statehood Legal Materials: An Annotated Bibliography," Wyoming Law Review: Vol. 7 : No. 1 , Article 2. Available at: https://scholarship.law.uwyo.edu/wlr/vol7/iss1/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Law Archive of Wyoming Scholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Wyoming Law Review by an authorized editor of Law Archive of Wyoming Scholarship. Person: Wyoming Pre-Statehood Legal Materials: An Annotated Bibliography WYOMING LAW REVIEW VOLUME 7 2007 NUMBER 1 Editor's Note The following bibliography is Part I of a two-part guide to the history and development ofWyoming law, compiled and annotated by University ofWyoming College of Law Associate Law Librarian Debora A. Person. Part I on Wyoming Pre-statehood Legal Materials contains both primary and selected secondary resources covering pre-Wyoming Territory, the administration of the Wyoming Territory, and the establishment of Wyoming as a state. This section was previ- ously published in 2005 in PrestatehoodLegal Materials: A Fifty-State Research Guide, Including New York City and the District of Columbia, edited by Michael Chiorazzi, J.D., M.L.L. and Marguerite Most, J.D., M.L.L. It is reprinted here with permission from Haworth Press, Inc. Part II of the annotated bibliography is forthcoming in Wyoming Law Review, Volume 7, Number 2, which will be published in summer, 2007.
    [Show full text]
  • Would You Let This Man Drive Your Daughter Home? Public Sector Focus, August/September, August 30Th, Pp.14-17
    Dorling, D. (2019) Would you let this man drive your daughter home? Public Sector Focus, August/September, August 30th, pp.14-17. https://flickread.com/edition/html/index.php?pdf=5d67acffb3d60#17 Would you let this man drive your daughter home? Danny Dorling In the early hours of July 19th 1969, a few days before the first man stepped on the moon; a car swerved on a bridge in Chappaquiddick, Massachusetts. Ted Kennedy, the 37-year-old younger brother of the President of the United States of America was at the wheel. The car plunged into the water. Ted managed to swim free. He left Mary Jo Kopechne, his 28-year- old passenger to die in the vehicle. At some point, as it slowly submerged, she drowned. Ted notified the police of the accident ten hours later. Another man had recovered the vehicle and found Jo’s body. Jo was very pretty, a secretary, a typist, a loyal political activist and a dedicated Democrat. She died just over a week before her 29th birthday. It was at first seen as a joke when Lord Ashcroft asked the question ‘Would you rather allow Jeremey Hunt or Boris Johnson to babysit your children’.1 The Daily Telegraph newspaper reported that ‘in a curious little snippet from the weekend. According to a poll by Lord Ashcroft, only 10 per cent of voters would let Boris Johnson babysit their children.’2 However, it was more than curious, some 52% of all voters said they would not allow either of the two candidates vying for the leadership of the Conservative party such access to their children.
    [Show full text]
  • Exit Poll 25Th May, 2018
    Thirty-sixth Amendment to the Constitution Exit Poll 25th May, 2018 RTÉ & Behaviour & Attitudes Exit Poll Prepared by Ian McShane, Behaviour & Attitudes J.9097 Technical Appendix Sample Size Fieldwork Location The sample was spread Interviews were conducted throughout all forty Dáil face-to-face with randomly The results of this opinion constituencies and undertaken selected individuals – poll are based upon a at 175 polling stations. representative sample of throughout the hours of 3779 eligible Irish voters polling from 7am to 10pm in aged 18 years +. accordance with the 1992 Electoral Act. 2 Technical Appendix Informational Reporting Accuracy Coverage Guidelines Extracts from the report may The margin of error is Three questionnaire versions be quoted or published on estimated to be plus or minus were fielded. Each version condition that due 1.6 percentage points on the included five common acknowledgement is given to five common questions and questions, along with six to RTÉ and Behaviour & plus or minus 2.8 percentage eight questions unique to Attitudes. points on the questions that particular version. unique to each of the three questionnaire versions. 3 Research Methodology ● A face-to-face Exit Poll was conducted among voters immediately after leaving polling stations on Referendum Day, 25th May, 2018. ● An effective sample of 3779 voters was interviewed. ● The Poll was undertaken in all forty Dáil constituencies. ● 175 polling stations were sampled, distributed proportionate to the Referendum Electorate in each constituency. ● A list of the electoral divisions at which surveying was conducted is included in Appendix A. ● The questionnaires used are included in Appendix B.
    [Show full text]
  • State of Wyoming
    2018 18LSO-0490 TATE OF YOMING S W HOUSE BILL NO. HB0167 The Marriage and Constitution Restoration Act. Sponsored by: Representative(s) Lone and Edwards A BILL for 1 AN ACT relating to marriage and sexual orientation; 2 prohibiting any state action that treats sexual orientation 3 as a suspect class; prohibiting the state and its political 4 subdivisions from granting, endorsing, respecting or 5 recognizing any marriage not between a man and woman; 6 providing legislative findings; and providing for an 7 effective date. 8 9 Be It Enacted by the Legislature of the State of Wyoming: 10 11 Section 1. 12 13 (a) The legislature finds that: 14 15 (i) Parody marriages and policies that endorse 16 parody marriages are nonsecular in nature for purposes of 1 HB0167 2018 STATE OF WYOMING 18LSO-0490 1 the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the 2 United States Constitution; 3 4 (ii) Marriages between a man and a woman and 5 policies that endorse marriages between a man and a women 6 are secular in nature for purposes of the Establishment 7 Clause of the First Amendment to the United States 8 Constitution; 9 10 (iii) Civilizations for millennia have defined 11 marriage as a union between a man and a woman; 12 13 (iv) Marriage between a man and a woman arose 14 out of the nature of things and is natural, neutral and 15 noncontroversial unlike parody marriages; 16 17 (v) The state of Wyoming has a duty under 18 article 6 of the United States Constitution to uphold the 19 United States Constitution; 20 21 (vi) The First Amendment applies to
    [Show full text]
  • OPINION and Exit Polls Remained at the Centre Of
    Published in: Seminar. 539; July 2004; 73-77 Understanding polls and predictions OPINION and exit polls remained at the centre of media attention both during the 2004 election and after, though for different reasons and with a difference in our attitude towards them. The media attention on polls was heightened by the attempt initiated by the Election Commission to ban opinion polls and exit polls. It witnessed on the one hand a unanimous agreement among various political parties in favour of the ban and, on the other, a near unanimous expression of disapproval of the ban from the media houses. The Supreme Court’s refusal to ban the exit poll in the recently concluded elections notwithstanding, many have suggested that media must exercise restraint in publishing them during the election process. However, both the visual and print media in the country was vying with each other to inform the public with the latest status of each political party with respect to the seats they would eventually win. It was precisely for these predictions that the pollsters were once again in the spotlight, though this time as the underdogs. In the above context it may be worthwhile to critically examine the implications of opinion and exit polls for democracy. Though there was some debate on this in the media itself but sadly most arguments seem to centre around the primacy of ‘evidence’ and ‘facts’ in support of either the camps that condemn the purported ban or welcome such a ban, reflecting a ‘positivist’ prejudice that worships ‘facts’ as a ‘holy cow’.
    [Show full text]
  • Vietnamese Glossary of Election Terms.Pdf
    U.S. ELECTION AssISTANCE COMMIssION ỦY BAN TRợ GIÚP TUYểN Cử HOA Kỳ 2008 GLOSSARY OF KEY ELECTION TERMINOLOGY Vietnamese BảN CHÚ GIảI CÁC THUậT Ngữ CHÍNH Về TUYểN Cử Tiếng Việt U.S. ELECTION AssISTANCE COMMIssION ỦY BAN TRợ GIÚP TUYểN Cử HOA Kỳ 2008 GLOSSARY OF KEY ELECTION TERMINOLOGY Vietnamese Bản CHÚ GIải CÁC THUậT Ngữ CHÍNH về Tuyển Cử Tiếng Việt Published 2008 U.S. Election Assistance Commission 1225 New York Avenue, NW Suite 1100 Washington, DC 20005 Glossary of key election terminology / Bản CHÚ GIải CÁC THUậT Ngữ CHÍNH về TUyển Cử Contents Background.............................................................1 Process.................................................................2 How to use this glossary ..................................................3 Pronunciation Guide for Key Terms ........................................3 Comments..............................................................4 About EAC .............................................................4 English to Vietnamese ....................................................9 Vietnamese to English ...................................................82 Contents Bối Cảnh ...............................................................5 Quá Trình ..............................................................6 Cách Dùng Cẩm Nang Giải Thuật Ngữ Này...................................7 Các Lời Bình Luận .......................................................7 Về Eac .................................................................7 Tiếng Anh – Tiếng Việt ...................................................9
    [Show full text]
  • Section IX the STATE PAGES
    Section IX THE STATE PAGES THE FOLLOWING section presents information on all the states of the United States and the District of Columbia; the commonwealths of Puerto Rico and the Northern Mariana Islands; the territories of American Samoa, Guam and the Virgin Islands; and the United Na­ tions trusteeships of the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and the Republic of Belau.* Included are listings of various executive officials, the justices of the supreme courts and officers of the legislatures. Lists of all officials are as of late 1981 or early 1982. Comprehensive listings of state legislators and other state officials appear in other publications of The Council of State Governments. Concluding each state listing are population figures and other statistics provided by the U.S. Bureau of the Census, based on the 1980 enumerafion. Preceding the state pages are three tables. The first lists the official names of states, the state capitols with zip codes and the telephone numbers of state central switchboards. The second table presents historical data on all the states, commonwealths and territories. The third presents a compilation of selected state statistics from the state pages. *The Northern Mariana Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and the Republic of Belau (formerly Palau) have been administered by the United Slates since July 18, 1947, as part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (TTPl), a trusteeship of the United Nations. The Northern Mariana Islands separated themselves from TTPI in March 1976 and now operate under a constitutional govern­ ment instituted January 9, 1978.
    [Show full text]
  • Status of Opinion Polls
    ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846 Status of Opinion Polls Media Gimmick and Political Communication in India PRAVEEN RAI Vol. 49, Issue No. 16, 19 Apr, 2014 Praveen Rai ([email protected]) is a political analyst at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi. Election surveys are seen as covert instruments used by political parties for making seat predictions and influencing the electorate in India. It is high time opinion polls take cognizance of the situation to establish their credibility and impartiality. The very mention of the word opinion Poll[i]” immediately brings to the mind of people in India election surveys, exit polls[ii] and seat predictions that appear in mass media every time an election takes place in the country. Psephology, the study of elections, began as an academic exercise at the Centre for the Study of Developing Studies (CSDS), Delhi in the 1960s for the purpose of studying the voting behaviour and attitudes of the voters. Psephology is now equated with pre poll surveys and exit polls which are being rampantly done by media houses to predict the winners during the elections. It has now been reduced to a media gimmick with allegations that it is used as communication tool for influencing the voters by a conglomerate of political parties, media and business houses with vested interests. Media houses and television anchors in India have become the modern day “Nostradamus” in using opinion poll findings in forecasting election results, before the actual votes are cast, which have gone wrong on many occasions. Accuracy of sample surveys depend on the following factors: one, the sample should be large enough to yield the desired level of precision.
    [Show full text]
  • The Uniform Enforcement of Support Act in Wyoming
    Wyoming Law Journal Volume 8 Number 3 Legal Problems Relating to Wyoming Article 10 Youth December 2019 The Uniform Enforcement of Support Act in Wyoming Roger McKenzie Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.uwyo.edu/wlj Recommended Citation Roger McKenzie, The Uniform Enforcement of Support Act in Wyoming, 8 WYO. L.J. 237 (1954) Available at: https://scholarship.law.uwyo.edu/wlj/vol8/iss3/10 This Comment is brought to you for free and open access by Law Archive of Wyoming Scholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Wyoming Law Journal by an authorized editor of Law Archive of Wyoming Scholarship. NoTEs child whom (along with the wife) the husband refused to support, even though he was able to. The wife instituted a divorce proceeding in which she prayed for support money and custody of the child. The district court refused the divorce but retained the case in order to dispose of matters relating to the child. The court eventually awarded the custody of the child to the wife and ordered the father to pay $10 per month for the child's support. The Supreme Court, in upholding this action of the district court ,held that the lower court had the powers of a court of equity to determine the custody of the child; and that it also had jurisdiction, by virtue of Wyo. Comp. Stat. 1945, sec. 3-5919 (supra), to entertain a pro- ceeding by a wife to compel the husband to support the minor child when both husband and wife are separated. Here is a case where our Supreme Court approved an order for future support even though both spouses were still married.
    [Show full text]
  • Research Memo
    10/31/2005 Research Memo 05 RM 083 Date: October 31, 2005 Author: Joy N. Hill, Associate Research Analyst Re: Comparison of Wyoming and Other States’ Constitutional Prohibition Against Loans and Gifts to Individuals, Private Entities, etc. QUESTION 1. With respect to providing public assistance to individuals and private entities, do western states, particularly Arizona, have a Constitutional prohibition similar to Wyoming Constitution Article 16, Section 6? 2. What has Wyoming, or western states, done in an attempt to circumvent this prohibition? ANSWER 1. Most of the western states reviewed do have Constitutional prohibitions similar to Wyoming’s Article 16, Section 6, which states, in part: Neither the state nor any county, city, township, town, school district, or any other political subdivision, shall loan or give its credit or make donations to or in aid of any individual, association or corporation, except for necessary support of the poor...1 To begin, it would be helpful to provide a brief background on the creation of the Wyoming Constitution: Wyoming’s desire to come into statehood was exemplified by the fact that the framers of the Wyoming Constitution took only 25 days to write the document. The document was a compilation of provisions from various other state Constitutions, particularly from those states admitted to the union just prior to Wyoming. These states- North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, and Washington-were the states Wyoming framers borrowed most heavily from, but included Colorado’s Constitution as well.2 For purposes of this request, it is important to note that Arizona was not admitted to the union until 1912, whereas the above- referenced states were admitted prior to 1890, with Wyoming being admitted in that year.
    [Show full text]
  • The Exit Poll Phenomenon
    Chapter 1 The Exit Poll Phenomenon n election day in the United States, exit polls are the talk of the nation. Even before ballot- O ing has concluded, the media uses voters’ responses about their electoral choices to project final results for a public eager for immediate information. Once votes have been tallied, media commentators from across the political landscape rely almost exclusively on exit polls to explain election outcomes. The exit polls show what issues were the most important in the minds of the voters. They identify how different groups in the electorate cast their ballots. They expose which character traits helped or hurt particular candidates. They even reveal voters’ expectations of the government moving forward. In the weeks and months that follow, exit polls are used time and again to give meaning to the election results. Newly elected officials rely on them to substantiate policy mandates they claim to have received from voters. Partisan pundits scrutinize them for successful and failed campaign strategies. Even political strategists use them to pinpoint key groups and issues that need to be won over to succeed in future elections. Unfortunately, these same exit poll results are not easily accessible to members of the public interested in dissecting them. After appearing in the next day’s newspapers or on a politically ori- ented website, they disappear quickly from sight as the election fades in prominence. Eventually, the exit polls are archived at universities where only subscribers are capable of retrieving the data. But nowhere is a complete set of biennial exit poll results available in an easy-to-use format for curious parties.
    [Show full text]