Last week, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a Texas redistricting case that has the potential to the change the balance of political representation in congressional and legislative districts across the South and the country.
Currently, political lines are drawn to capture roughly equal numbers of residents – including children and non-citizens ineligible to vote. But in Evenwel v. Abbott, two Texas voters in districts where most of the population is eligible to vote argue that the state Senate map based on total population weakens their vote compared to districts with significantly fewer eligible voters. Rather than drawing lines based on total population, they say, lines should be drawn based on the number of eligible voters.
Doing so would have important political implications, especially for the South. By discounting people ineligible to vote – those under 18, non-citizens and former felons, all populations that are disproportionately non-white – political representation would shift away from places that tend to be younger, more racially diverse and lean Democratic to areas with fewer nonvoters that tend to be older, whiter and lean Republican.
“Basing district lines on voting population exacerbates the exclusion of people who already face barriers to the ballot, especially people of color,” said Penda Hair, co-director of the Advancement Project, a civil rights advocacy group.
Andrew Beveridge, a Queens College sociology professor and president and co-founder of the online research tool Social Explorer, recently mapped the potential impacts of a ruling in favor of the plaintiffs. In a report and an accompanying graphic, Beveridge showed the estimated share of the population in current districts that would not be represented if Evenwel were to prevail. He found that nearly two-thirds of congressional districts and about half of state legislative districts would need to be redrawn.
According to Beveridge’s estimates, districts in Texas and the West that have higher shares of Latino populations would be most affected. But many areas in the South, a region that has experienced significant growth in its immigrant population since 1990, would also see a significant impact. (Click here for an interactive map.)
At the congressional level, districts in and around Atlanta, North Carolina’s central Piedmont region and northwest Arkansas have the highest shares of population that would lose representation. In Georgia’s 7th Congressional District currently represented by Rep. Rob Woodall (R), 42 percent of the population are not citizens of voting age and would not be counted. In North Carolina’s 12th Congressional District – named the nation’s most gerrymandered and represented by Rep. Alma Adams (D) – over a third of the population would not be represented.
At the state level, legislative districts in cities including Nashville, Tennessee and Louisville, Kentucky – major new immigrant hubs in the region – would also lose representation. And in Arkansas’ state House District 89 – home to Springdale, where immigrants make up a large share of the population – nearly 60 percent of residents would not be represented.
Beveridge found that districts likely to lose representation at congressional and state levels are more racially diverse and tend to have lower average incomes and levels of educational attainment and higher unemployment than districts that wouldn’t lose representation. Five congressional seats nationwide would switch from Democratic to Republican, according to Beveridge’s analysis, while current Republican majorities would gain even more power in state legislatures in Florida and Texas.
Last November, a lower court in Austin, Texas upheld the state’s right to use total population to apportion districts. But rather than affirming the lower court’s decision, the Supreme Court decided in May to hear arguments in the case. It was brought by the Project on Fair Representation, a conservative advocacy group that also brought the 2013 case Shelby County v. Holder, which led to the gutting of the Voting Rights Act.
A decision in the Evenwel case is expected next year.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy