What President Trump described as a “simple redrawing” of congressional districts in Texas has explored into a partisan battle across many states. The long-standing tradition of drawing political lines only once a decade, after each census is giving way to endless redistricting. In fact, we are entering “New Times.”
This will not stop with congressional districts. The ones with the power to redraw districts are state Legislators and Governors. We can look for this redistricting issue to become a part of future campaigns for those offices.
Redistricting battles will be fought to control both the House and Senate in state legislatures and, of course, the office of the Governor. With that in the background you can expect aggressive “politicians” to care little if they take down a Governor…to advance their own future.
Districts could be reshuffled even between elections…depending on the law in each state. Decision makers could look at a districts’ make up beyond partisanship registration.
The recent decision by Trump’s Supreme Court nearly ended the Voting Rights Act which helped assure minority representation in congressional and state legislative districts. Now it is causing chaos in various southern states.
Not to be overlooked many states have created independent redistricting commissions to help develop new maps. You can expect some states to terminate existing commissions and others to try and use them to keep their hands clean.
Let’s not lose sight of national political parties engaging in state legislative races and/or gubernatorial contests. Even Presidents, as we have seen with Trump, will care who controls the various branches of state government. District and state courts will not be left to chance.
Up until all of this erupted little thought was given to the makeup of congressional and legislative districts between elections…not so any longer…these are “New Times.”