Something About Texas

What is it about Texas, anyhow? That is the question that catches our attention in the Supreme Court’s decision vindicating the Lone Star State on redistricting. The Nine overruled a lower court that had found that the legislature that promulgated new electoral maps was tainted by an “intent” to discriminate against Latinos. Yet for such a finding, the Justices decided (by a vote of five to four), the lower courts failed to meet the burden of proof. That’s a serious failure.The thing that gets us, though, is the cause of the redistricting in the first place. The Nine noted it in a decision in January. In that decision, the Supreme Court, acting per curiam, directed the lower court in Texas to take a fresh look at maps it had proposed to replace the maps the legislature had set up. The Nine, incidentally, were unanimous. There were no disclosed dissenters. Plus, in that January decision, the Nine got right to the curious point.They began by pointing out that the 2010 census “showed an enormous increase in Texas’ population, with over four million new residents.” It said such growth “required the State to redraw its electoral districts for the United States Congress, the State Senate, and the State House of Representatives” and to add four congressional districts. The court then sketched a contradiction on the part of those objecting to the districts the legislature had drawn.Those who’d filed the case, the Nine said, “alleged, inter alia, that Texas’ enacted plans discriminate against Latinos and African-Americans and dilute their voting strength, notwithstanding the fact that Latinos and African-Americans accounted for three-quarters of Texas’ population growth since 2000.” The Supreme Court seemed to have been bewildered as to why so many Latinos and African-Americans would flood into a state whose legislature was biased against them.After all, both sides acknowledge that the vast majority of the population boom in Texas comes from minorities. So what is driving it? Why are so many minorities seeking to live in the Lone Star? No doubt some of it lies in the fact that Texas borders Mexico. Could it be, though, that millions of Latinos and African Americans want a piece of the astounding economic success and job-creating machine that Republican governance has permitted to flower in Texas?We don’t raise that question in order to excuse discrimination. The Supreme Court did conclude that one district for the Texas House was, in fact, a racial gerrymander. For the rest of the state and federal districts, though, the Nine concluded the critics failed to meet a proper burden of proof. The population trends suggest that minorities are at the van of those eager to get into Texas. Just saying. Republican policies net out as a huge plus for persons of all races in need of work.

Something About Texas

Something About Texas

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