How the Texas GOP ‘packed and Cracked' Districts to Dilute Minorities' Voting Rights

With a Texas federal court reviewing the state's voting maps, all Texans should take a moment to consider the effects of racial gerrymandering in our state. Make no mistake, current voting maps erode minority voters' right to choose who they want to represent them — and threaten our democracy more broadly.Let's start with the basics of gerrymandering. Our democratic process was designed to enable people who live in a community to choose their government representatives. But the Republican Party in Texas — and around the country — has dramatically weakened the electoral power of voters in communities of color by drawing maps that make it most likely that its candidates gain and remain in power. With minority voters concentrated in a few districts or divided among several, Texas Republicans retain artificial majorities in the state House and Texas' delegation to the U.S. House.The numbers are stark. The Republican Party dominates our congressional delegation, holding 25 seats in the House compared with Democrats' 11. In a state where Hillary Clinton won 43 percent of the vote in 2016, Democrats' 30 percent share of the delegation is at direct odds with our statewide voting patterns. These majorities were obtained unfairly, undemocratically and unjustly. And it's past time we did something about it because any suppression or diminishing of an individual's vote weakens the democratic character of our government.When the right to vote is under threat, so are all our other rights. As Supreme Court Justice Stanley Matthews noted in his 1886 ruling in Yick Wo vs. Hopkins, the right to vote is a "fundamental political right" that is "preservative of all rights." In casting a ballot, voters are demonstrating their confidence in an individual and their desire to elect someone who they believe will protect their rights and prioritize their interests. Fair and equal participation in elections is therefore the primary mechanism by which we secure every right that Americans hold dear.We learned from the 2010 census that 90 percent of new Texans were Latinos, African-Americans and Asian-Americans — communities that have traditionally supported Democratic leaders. It's little wonder, then, that a three-judge panel ruled in March that Republican lawmakers were guilty of "packing" large numbers of minority voters in some voting districts and "cracking" other minority communities by spreading them over several districts, tactics that undermine the power of these communities' votes. That's electoral sabotage at its finest.In fact, the March ruling pointed to congressional districts in the Dallas-Fort Worth area as prime examples of Republican attempts to manipulate minority voter populations and pre-determine electoral outcomes in their favor. "Packing and cracking" severely dilutes minority communities' electoral influence and prevents them from electing the candidates of their choice - undermining the basic democratic tenet that all are equal at the ballot box. That finding should concern everyone in North Texas.As a voting rights attorney, I've seen firsthand the danger that voter suppression poses to our democracy. As the Dallas-Fort Worth voter protection director at Battleground Texas during the 2014 election cycle, I witnessed how gerrymandered districts diluted the voting power of communities of color, and how the state's strict voter ID law — which has since been ruled unconstitutional — suppressed the votes of many more.Now, Texas Republicans are using their majorities — secured by gerrymandering — to push incredibly harmful legislation at the state and federal levels. State lawmakers passed an amendment to the voter ID bill this session that will still disenfranchise hard-working Texans. Meanwhile, minority communities, crammed into some districts and spread thin across others, are unable to elect the representatives that will stand for them, and they suffer the political consequences on issues ranging from education to jobs, to health care.For all these reasons, the stakes in the case pending before a Texas federal court are high. The ruling will determine whether disenfranchised communities have the ability to determine their own future at the ballot box — and set the tone for similar cases nationwide. I, for one, am hoping that justice finds in favor of the full restoration of voting rights. The sanctity of democracy demands at least that.Colin Allred is a civil rights attorney and a Democratic candidate for Texas' 32nd Congressional District in North Texas. He wrote this for The Dallas Morning News. Twitter: @colinallredtx  Continue reading...