All it takes is a glance at the proposed redistricting map for the Texas Senate to know, especially as it pertains to Tarrant County, it is just plain wrong.
The 104,703 residents of southeast Fort Worth, Forest Hill and Everman, 78.2 percent of them black or Hispanic, would be pulled out of Sen. Wendy Davis' District 10 and moved to Sen. Brian Birdwell's 80.7 percent Anglo District 22, which extends south beyond Waco."What were they thinking?" jumps to mind. "How could they be so stupid? Isn't that a blatant violation of the Voting Rights Act, and won't the Justice Department or the courts throw this out immediately?"But give it some time. Remember that the people who came up with this plan are definitely not stupid.Anyone who watched the 2003 redistricting drama directed by then-U.S. House Majority Leader and now convicted felon Tom DeLay knows the people who do this sort of thing are both smart and crafty. The Senate map effort is led by Sen. Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo.Republicans painted a target on Democrat Davis the moment she beat one of their valued insiders, 20-year legislator Kim Brimer, in the 2008 general election. Davis and everyone else who follows local politics knew that, this year, she would be hit with a redistricting blast that would make it very hard for her to win again.That means separating her from the people who delivered the votes she needed to topple Brimer. And that would be the minority communities southeast of downtown and on the near north side.The new map shows the southeast's black neighborhoods going to Birdwell and the north side Hispanic areas going to District 12, represented by Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound. Davis is left with a district that is even more white and Republican."Partisan greed," she says of the plan, promising a court battle.But it's not about her, she says. It's about "the human impact of the decisions being made." Fort Worth's minority neighborhoods "will no longer have the opportunity to elect someone who will be that voice for them."She's right: It is all about the voters. And those minority neighborhoods would be swallowed up and outnumbered by rural Republicans.But saying that is far different from winning a court fight. That's when it becomes apparent how smart the people behind this redistricting are. Seliger says it's all "fair and legal."The Voting Rights Act is harsh on discrimination by redistricting, but standards of proof are high, or at best hard to pin down.Davis will have to show that minority groups in her district are large and geographically compact, that they are politically cohesive and vote as a bloc, and that Anglos vote in a bloc in numbers high enough that they usually defeat minorities.Having only been elected in District 10 once, a narrow victory amid heavy turnout for Democrat Barack Obama's presidential bid, she has no history there to fall back on.Her case will have to analyze Fort Worth elections over an extended period of time, examining any racially polarized voting. It will hurt if minority voter turnout is low, which it is. It will be a problem for her if any differences between minority and Anglo voting patterns can be explained away by party affiliation, because that doesn't represent racial or ethnic discrimination.She'll have to show how a new, compact district could be drawn with new population numbers.There's a long road ahead for this redistricting plan. It will be a difficult one for Davis, and whether she's right at first glance won't really matter once the court fight begins.Have more to add? News tip? Tell us
