Republicans and Democrats overseeing the redistribution process in states across the country must now evaluate these changes, as they make one-time adjustments in the districts that help greatly determine composition – and control. – of the House of Representatives.
“This is the million-dollar question,” said Michael Li, a senior attorney at the Brennan Center for Justice, whose work focuses on redistribution and suffrage, saying whether the changes will be permanent during Trump’s term. “Card makers tend to be nothing, if not cautious, and the cautious thing is to assume that the changes that work against you or your party are permanent, while the changes that work in your favor are temporary.”
Congress districts are compiled every ten years, using the latest census data – along with data points ranging from education levels, wealth and historical voting patterns – to draw congressional seats. Republicans, because of their control over a majority of state legislatures, were much more successful in drawing cards that favored their party.
Democrats responded with a two-pronged approach with many different levels of success. First, operators and lawyers have filed a number of successful lawsuits alleging that the other party is illegally engaged in driving, especially according to race. Second, the Democrats looked to turn the redistribution process into a political affair and committed millions more to trying to win back state legislators before the redistribution process. These attempts were much less successful.
In the majority of states, maps are transcribed and accepted by state legislatures, with many granting the governor of the state to approve or deny the new districts. Only a handful of states, including Arizona, Colorado and Michigan, rely on relatively independent commissions to determine new maps.
For those tasked with redistribution, especially in states with some political control, the pressure to get these calculations right is tremendous, as the process could determine the control of the House of Representatives for years to come. Adding pressure to these calculations is dramatic demographic shifts across the country, with states in the upper Midwest and northeast likely to lose seats in Congress, while states such as Georgia, Texas, Florida and North Carolina will add seats due to growth largely fueled by minority voters.
“This is the question of redistributing this cycle,” said Adam Kincaid, head of the National Republican Redistricting Trust, how lasting the changes seen during the Trump administration could be. And it has forced people to ask themselves whether this is “the beginning of a new long-term normal or of this temporary flood we are currently feeling.”
“I do not think anyone has the answer to that,” he said.
The states that lose, and those that win
Experts believe that a lead from the Midwestern and Northeastern states, such as Michigan, Minnesota, New York and Ohio, is likely to lose some seats once delayed census data is released later this year. This puts pressure on politicians in every state to ensure that the lost seat does not come from their side of the aisle. While some of these states are led by independent commissions, a state like Ohio is under Republican control, which means conservatives in the state can work to ensure the lost district hurts the Democrats.
States in the so-called Sun Belt, including Arizona, Texas, Florida and North Carolina, are expected to get the seats lost by their peers in the North. While an independent commission determines Arizona’s districts, the process in Texas, Florida and North Carolina is led by their respective state legislatures – all controlled by Republicans.
The impact of these changes will be seen across the country, in both large metropolitan areas and rural communities.
In New Mexico, where Democrats control both the state legislature and the governor’s mansion, the party is expected to move to the state’s 2nd Congressional District, a district that is currently Republican and is represented by Republican Yvette Herrell. .
In Texas, Republicans are in full control of the process, but they face the reality that the explosive growth in the state stems from the more competitive and diversifying suburbs around cities like Austin, Dallas and Houston, and not in the trusty Republican West Texas. no, population growth did not keep pace.
And in places like Ohio, a state that demographers are expected to lose a congressional seat to, Republicans are expected to use their almost total control over the redistribution process to ensure the congressional district does not come out of their rubric.
According to Kelly Ward, president of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, the issue facing Republicans in growing states is that much of the growth, especially in the suburbs, comes from minority populations. If Republicans begin to slash this population and combine them with more reliable Republican voters in suburban and rural areas, the party will open itself up to claims of racial strife.
“The suspicion that Republicans should get all these new seats simply because they control the process is a suspicion of gerrymandering,” Ward said. “And it’s illegal.”
For Republicans, Li told the Brennan Center, the problem area is the South. The party has the most control over the process in states like Georgia, Texas and Florida, he said, but it’s harder to drive in those states without exposing the state to race-based demands.
‘(In the South) the problem with white Democrats is: they tend to live near white Republicans, sometimes in the same house, so unless you’re moving around in someone’s bed … it’s really hard to relieve white Democrats if not that many of them, ‘Li said. “It’s much more effective because of residential segregation to target communities of color. And so you really can not be politically rhymed in the South without targeting colors at communities, which you make in race-based demands.”
Battlefield drill
The country’s suburbs are the main battlefield in these states, as the biggest changes in these areas come from the diversifying suburbs around some of the largest cities in the country. In these Republican-controlled states, fighting in the past has divided metropolitan areas and connected them to more Republican foreign and rural areas, which has diluted the Democratic advantage in these areas.
Each party would work to spread their supporters in different districts with or without the Trump era political changes. But the shifts added some more uncertainty to the process.
‘For people who did these things a decade ago, if they had known that Donald Trump would come in 2016 and move American voters, there are at least a few dozen seats across the country that would be drawn differently than they was, ”says Kincaid. “And it’s the challenge for the next few years to try to predict how much this adjustment is permanent and temporary.”
Democrats have focused more on redistribution and gerrymandering over the past decade, and this year they are most focused on states where Republicans are not only in power but also given the power to sign another seat.
More aggressive action by Democrats, coupled with changes in states to make the redistribution process less biased, has made it harder for Republicans to protect their redistributive work in the past in some states. That’s why people like Ward and other Democrats who focus on redistricting believe the party will try to do everything in their power in places like Florida, Georgia and Texas.
The latest redistribution process is also taking place at a time when Democrats are paying significantly more attention to driving, making it an important political issue, especially for minority communities who are often most hurt by partisan redistribution.
Jasmine Burney-Clark, who runs the Equal Ground Education Fund in Florida, recently began preparing activists to work on the redistribution process, teaching a variety of community and faith leaders what role they can play in advocating for fair redistribution in a state where the process is controlled by Republicans. The attempt comes years after a protracted lawsuit in 2010 led to numerous lawsuits and a protracted lawsuit.
“We are definitely preparing for what may come, because we have already seen it,” Burney-Clark said. “Our hope is that they have learned a lesson and are trying to do it this time with black and colored people, but we know that they will try to express everything they can as beneficially as possible.”