Most people can agree that gerrymandering is wrong, whether done by the Democrats or Republicans, as it is designed to undermine the will of the voters. But it’s been done by both Dems and Reps to gain an improper advantage. We’re long past the question of who started it or who is more at fault. It’s wrong, and yet both parties have employed it.
But now that Trump has ordered his Texas minions to redistrict to add five House seats to the Republican roster to bolster the Republican majority in the House and stave off the potential midterm backlash against him, the Democrats in the Texas lege have taken to the wind, having no ability to prevent the Republicans from doing Trump’s bidding.
Democratic members of the Texas House of Representatives left the state on Sunday in a last-ditch attempt to stop Republicans from adopting an aggressively redrawn congressional map. Their absence is expected to prevent the House from reaching the quorum needed to hold a vote this week.
The only “power” the minority possesses is the ability to deny the majority a quorum, such that it is unable to conduct a vote on any issue. And to do this, the Democratic legislators have chosen to visit friendly states that might, using their own Democratic majorities, compensate for the five seats “stolen” by Trump.
Most of the Democratic lawmakers who took part headed to Chicago shortly after 5 p.m. Central time. Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois has been weighing whether his state will respond to the move in Texas by redrawing its own congressional map in the Democrats’ favor.
The Texas Democrats who flew to Chicago stood with Mr. Pritzker during a news conference late Sunday at a local Democratic Party office near the city.
“This is not just rigging the system in Texas,” Mr. Pritzker said of the Republicans’ efforts. “It’s about rigging the system against the rights of all Americans for years to come.”
The lack of a quorum has not been taken quietly by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who has called their walkout an “abandonment or forfeiture of an elected state office” and says he will remove them from office and charge them with felonies. Whether any of that can or will happen is highly doubtful, but it’s a very manly thing for Abbott to say. On the other hand, the fleeing legislators have to come home eventually, and when they do, the performance will be over and the lege, if so inclined, can redistrict away.
Even before Mr. Abbott’s threat, the ultimate outcome for Texas Democrats was far from certain: The walkout could delay action in the Legislature for several weeks or more, but comparable past attempts to block Republican legislation and redistricting in Texas eventually failed.
Was fleeing the state the right response from Texas Democratic legislators? Even if it was mostly performative, as they lack the votes to ultimately prevent the redistricting to gerrymander an additional five House seats, or as Trump likes to call it, “rigging” the election, they have managed to highlight the Republicans efforts to deprive Texans of the ability to have majority districts that will not vote as Trump commands? Or lacking the votes in the Texas lege, have they denied the majority of Texans the ability to have their legislature do as they will?
Should Texas eventually gerrymander its districts, will this set off a war of gerrymandering in other states, controlled by Democratic legislatures, to counteract the gain of five seats by denying their own citizens the ability to have House districts that reflect their choice? Will this be justified by the argument that Texas did it first, and they’re just leveling the playing field?
Or should the Texas Dems have stayed and fought, making as big a stink as possible about the gaming of the state’s districts without trying to game the quorum system to prevent the lege from redistricting, even if redistricting is playing dirty? Is fleeing the state a legitimate mechanism to try to prevent a state legislature from doing its job, even if the job it’s about to do is wrong?
*Tuesday Talk rules apply.
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Deciding to take a group field trip has a certain superficial appeal. But as a lawyer, I can’t imagine my client (let alone the court) being overly enamored with me if I decided to seek a continuance by simply not showing up. Then again, I don’t tend to vote based on performances like these, so it’s hard for me to say if it has the sort of election-year appeal that, uh, appeals to some.
The well-behaved do not often garner the most attention… but I still can’t justify leaving. Stay, vote, and raise all holy hell about it.
The above replies seem to suggest that there is a system of some sort to fight within. There is no such thing. Raise holy hell to whom, exactly? Respectfully, one party explicitly bowing down to an Executive’s orders is quite a leap from a continuance in a courtroom.
This is a gyre that is going to get bigger and bigger.. All sides are breaking whatever is left.
They should leave. They should do whatever they need to do to stop this thing. One thing is worse than the other.
The redistricting mid-census is unusual.
Trump beat Harris 56:42 (statewide %).
The current House ratio R:D is 66:32 (25:12, 1 vacant position), so there is already substantial bias.
The proposed redistricting could produce 79:18, very far from Presidential race voting of 56:42.
This non-representative gerrymandering appears to be OK with the Supreme Court. So why shouldn’t the Democrats in blue states respond in the same fashion? So what’s the answer if we end up with a small minority holding a (super)majority of political positions? Would it be time to scrap the system and start anew?
Blue urban centers in red rural areas makes gerrymandering easy. [Put in a blue center (however many needed), then add bits of blue to surrounding red areas.]
I take it you haven’t looked at the congressional maps for Southern California, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Michigan or Illinois recently.
(Ed. Note: Mid-census is a key distinction.)
Had the Democrats not fled, the foul deed would be done. The flight of the Democrats is why the state and the country are still talking about it. Just talk? Well, talk is how you teach. Not just in Texas, but in the places where folks would not hear about and understand it, given the shark attacks and the weather stories.
Why should the Democrats surrender without at least that benefit — education about the cheating? And knowing about it will in newly educated minds excuse Democrat states’ fighting back against the apparently inevitable success of Abbott’s cohorts. As to that fighting back, it’s about time. How long will Democrats accept Trump/Republican “cheating,” and not respond in any way that is effective?
Oregon State Senate Republicans use this maneuver frequently to extract concessions from the majority…while there isn’t any track record of this succeeding in Texas, the presumption that walkouts-to-deny-a-quorum do not work in the U.S. is not true.
Additionally, Texas legislators make a princely $600 a month plus a per diem of $221 a day when the legislature is in session (every odd-numbered year for 140 days—this year was January 14 to June 2), typically amounting to $38,140 a year…not exactly a difficult income to walk away from, especially if the Texas governor is already attempting to remove these legislators from office.
More to the point, time might not be on the side of redistricting in Texas…the primary is on March 3. Removing Texas legislators from office triggers special elections, and if the quorum rules remain in reference to the entire 150 member body, this redistricting might not be possible if they run out the clock…