Supreme Court case on partisan gerrymandering could touch Texas

AUSTIN — U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett has represented three districts, jumping from one to the next as Republicans repeatedly and unsuccessfully have sought to boot the Democrat out of Congress through redistricting.

“I say this with reverence: Doggett is a bit like a cockroach in the sense that in a nuclear winter, he would be the one that survives,” said Matt Mackowiak, a Republican consultant who is the new chairman of the Travis County Republican Party.

If the U.S. Supreme Court limits partisan gerrymandering in a Wisconsin case it has agreed to hear this fall, efforts like those aimed at Doggett could be restricted and potentially give Democrats at least two more congressional seats in Texas, experts say.

“The case clearly could have an impact on Texas, because Texas on its congressional maps has pretty significant partisan bias. It’s not the highest in the country, but it’s statistically significant, and it’s one of the six or seven states that are the main drivers of partisan bias in the Congress as a whole,” said Michael Li, senior redistricting counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law.

The Wisconsin case turns on whether Republicans in that state gave their party too much of an advantage in drawing districts for their state assembly. A federal court panel last year ruled that they did.

Those who challenged partisan gerrymandering said Democratic votes were wasted when Democrats either were packed into districts where their party already had a majority or allocated among Republican-majority districts in numbers too small to make a difference in the outcome.

The high court is taking up the Wisconsin case in the wake of a ruling by a federal court panel in Texas in another suit claiming that three congressional districts drawn in 2011 by the Republican-dominated Legislature violated the Voting Rights Act by diluting minority voting strength. They are District 35, represented by Doggett; District 23, represented by Republican U.S. Rep. Will Hurd of Helotes; and District 27, represented by Republican U.S. Rep. Farenthold of Corpus Christi.

A court proceeding starts next month on whether racial problems continued in fresh redistricting in 2013, including a look at those three districts and others. Besides the racial claim, the Texas Democratic Party also asserted there was partisan gerrymandering.

Matt Angle, who directs the pro-Democratic Lone Star Project, said there is “no question” that Texas has experienced partisan gerrymandering. He said Democrats have an opportunity to be elected in 12 of the 36 congressional districts “if you count (District) 23, a very marginal seat which we don’t hold.”

“Out of 36, that’s obviously just 33 percent,” he said. “In our worst years, our worst campaigns get 39 percent of the vote.”

The San Antonio court has said it won’t adjudicate a claim until the Supreme Court lays down a standard, said Chad Dunn, the Texas Democratic Party’s general counsel.

“When the San Antonio court makes its final determination, we expect to appeal to the Supreme Court and ask it to strike down the Texas map as a partisan gerrymander in addition to a racially discriminatory gerrymander,” said Dunn.

Dunn said the number of seats that Democrats could gain if they prevail could be anywhere from two to three or four — numbers mentioned by other experts — to as high as six.

Doggett’s congressional district, Dunn said, is “an unfortunate example of racial gerrymandering and partisan gerrymandering.”

The Austin congressman started his career representing District 10, the one held by legendary Texas Democrats J.J. “Jake” Pickle and Lyndon B. Johnson.

When that district was split up in 2003, in a redistricting effort urged on by then-U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Doggett ran and won in District 25, which stretched south to the border.

When District 25 was turned into Republican territory in subsequent redistricting, Doggett switched again to run in District 35, which is anchored in San Antonio. He won again.

The redistricting changes have left Doggett as the sole Democratic congressman with a toehold in Travis County, which former Gov. Rick Perry has called “the blueberry in the tomato soup” of Texas because of its liberal leanings. The other four congressmen with a piece of Travis are Republican.

“It’s given me a chance to travel across Texas and meet a lot of good people, just not all at once,” Doggett quipped.

“With Republicans determined to put me in districts with people who didn’t know me and my values, I have had to repeatedly redouble my efforts,” he added. “I believe I am the only representative to have served here in three separately numbered districts — the 10th, 25th and now the 35th. But redistricting is really not about me. Gerrymandering reduces the accessibility and accountability that folks deserve.”

Doggett said Tuesday that he’ll soldier on regardless of what the future holds.

“I have always taken the view that wherever the Republicans place me and whatever the courts rule, I am on the ground working to represent and respond,” Doggett said. “My plan is to file for reelection in the district exactly as it is configured today, until such time as the U.S. Supreme Court says otherwise.”

Political scientist Mark Jones of Rice University said that Doggett is in a “difficult category” as an Anglo Democrat, since Republicans under the Voting Rights Act are required to draw a number of majority minority districts, giving more protection to Latino and African American incumbents.

Angle, of the Lone Star Project, said correcting the racial problems asserted by Democrats also could address the partisan issue.

“If you correct for the racial discrimination in Texas, you go a long way toward resolving the partisan problems, because the only way that in a state like Texas that’s got a huge minority population that the Republicans can get a considerably larger number of seats than just the politics say they should is to overtly undermine the voting strength of blacks and Hispanics,” he said.

Li, of the Brennan Center, said one possible remedy to partisan gerrymandering would be to create an additional Latino opportunity district in the Dallas-Fort Worth area “which would be a Democrat seat almost guaranteed,” along with an additional seat in South Texas and a Democratic seat anchored in Travis County.

Mackowiak said he hasn’t been directly involved in redistricting, “but I can say that Republicans don’t want to disenfranchise any voters. We believe Hispanic voters are naturally aligned with Republicans on values alone.”

On the partisan aspect of redistricting, Mackowiak said, both Democrats and Republicans have been players.

“No one has clean hands,” Mackowiak said. “Both sides, when they’ve had power, have tried to draw maps in ways to advantage them.”