The census results are in, and we now know which states gain and which states lose representatives to the United States House of Representatives (nickname: Congress, but it isn’t really Congress).
This is very complicated, way too complicated to trust most political reporters and their bone headed editors to properly explain to to the largely uninformed people what is happening. At least not right away.
Take Texas. Texas gains two seats. The reporting on this is, like, “Republican stronghold gets two more members of Congress! OMG there will be two more Republicans!!!!11!!” But no. Texas got two more seats because Texas grew in population size a tiny bit more than other states (but since Texas is huge, that small increase added up to two seats), but that growth was in people least likely to be Republicans. A fair redistricting would produce two more Democrats in Texas.
The new numbers are all the result of the same demographic changes that we are expecting to blue-up the country generally. If redistricting is done fairly, these plus ones and minus ones around the country are simply the jiggle on the jell-o of the demographic shudder caused by old white men croaking off at a reasonable rate while younger brown people step in to take their part of the Great Pie Diagram of population.
The important thing now is to find your state-wide redistricting activist groups, and support them. Do that right now, time is of the essence.
And, keep elections free, dammit.
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As long as Republicans are in control of so many states there will be little chance, perhaps no chance, of overall fairness in redistricting or of equal voting opportunity for all citizens. We’ve already seen ample evidence of Republicans’ shameless power grabs based on overt lies and cheating at the state and national levels to believe this.
Georgia has already passed much more stringent voting laws aimed at decreasing the number of people who aren’t likely to vote for Democratic Party candidates and Texas is soon to follow with even more restrictive laws. Looking ahead, it has been reported that Republican states are looking to decouple national and state elections to work around any past or future federal voting rights laws. We’ve already seen how Congress can essentially nullify much of a President’s agenda.
With so many so-called “conservative” but often unqualified federal judges now in place and a Supreme court with a supermajority of the same, we can no longer depend on the courts to curtail the worst of the abuses of power; for instance Arizona’s latest attempt to reverse the 2020 election by giving the actual ballots to a company headed by a Qanon conspiracy theorist. That company now refuses to let any but right-wing media representatives observe the process and refuses to divulge any details of that process. (My opinion is that they’ll just void most Biden votes and announce that Trump won in a landslide and then move on to Michigan.)
“A fair redistricting would produce two more Democrats in Texas.”
But will it be fair? The Texas Tribune predicts a fight over that.
“Republicans will control that process in 2021. But the mapmaking will be complicated and challenging, given the state’s recent demographic shifts, the inevitable legal battles, Texas’ long history of voter suppression and the fact that it will be happening in the middle of a pandemic.”
https://www.texastribune.org/2020/12/29/texas-redistricting-2021/
Meanwhile, analysis by the Texas Monthly, although a bit dated, goes into more detail. For example:
“The Amarillo-based district held by Ronny Jackson, who served as the White House physician for five years under both Barack Obama and Trump, will fall more than 110,000 residents short of the population requirement for a 2022 district. The Lubbock-based seat of Jodey Arrington, a second-term representative who advised George W. Bush, will fall about 60,000 short.”
https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/texas-redistricting-2021/
Oh please please please may it be the same for Louie Gohmert!
In today’s Washington Post, Jennifer Rubin points out that the GOP may have undercut their own attempts to turn the census in their favor. The original comes from Democracy Docket.
https://www.democracydocket.com/2021/04/the-real-census-news/