Now that a federal court has overthrown the map the Texas Legislature drew for the Texas House in the spring, it has drawn a new one.
Related stories:
- First Reading: Map points to smaller GOP majority in Texas House.
- Texas Dems could gain seats under revised voting maps.
Ross Ramsey points out that, as with previous maps, this one is drawn to protect incumbents and guarantee that the winner in November will be the member of a specific party. The general election really doesn't matter that much in Texas:
. . . if recent political history is your guide, you know that a large
number of incumbents won’t draw serious opposition even in a
redistricting year. They’ll effectively be elected when filing closes.
And unless the judges do something shocking to the election recipes (as
opposed to some limited surgery to make the maps legal), most of the
political districts will remain toxic to candidates from one party or
the other.
Most of the Republican districts — nearly two-thirds in
the maps drawn by the Legislature — are configured to be nearly
impossible for Democrats or Libertarians or anyone other than
Republicans to win. It’s the same with the Democratic districts — there
are just fewer of them.
The people who represent those districts
will effectively be chosen in March, in the party primaries. The
November election will hold some surprises. It always does. But the real
decision-making in Texas politics increasingly happens in March.
