Supreme Court Throws Out Texas Redistricting Map

Texas is running out of time for a relevant presidential primary date as the Supreme Court told the state on Friday to start with a clean slate on its plans to change its electoral boundaries.

The Associated Press reports that the high court threw out a new map created by federal judges meant to address concerns of discrimination against minorities raised by a redrawn electoral map crafted by the state's GOP-controlled legislature. The court ruled that the judges' map overstepped its boundaries, tweaking districts that weren't being questioned, thereby ignoring too many of the state's decisions. On the other hand, the court didn't implement the legislative map either, essentially telling the state to try again, and quickly. 

So thanks to the Republican-led legislature and the San Antonio-based federal court, Texas now has two opposing electoral maps, neither of which it can use for the state's primaries in April.

State Republicans fear that their Texas primary date, already postponed once because of the legal battle, may now occur too late to have any impact on the Republican nominee.

States change their electoral districts based on census numbers, a process that, in Texas, is controlled by the state's legislature. Since it's Republican-led at the moment, that means that the map is expected to benefit the GOP as much as possible. But their map raised concerns about underrepresentation of the quickly growing minority population in the state.

As Reuters explains, based on the 2010 census, the state gained four new congressional seats (and therefore warrants the creation of four new districts) because of a population increase of about 4.2 million, 2.8 million of which are Hispanics. But the legislature's plan created only one new district with a significantly Hispanic population. The judge-drawn plan was supposed to be a temporary alternative to the legislature's, in case it didn't meet the federal approval required by law. 

In Texas, and other states and counties across the nation with a history of discriminating against minority voters, gerrymandering is a bit more complicated. Because of the Voting Rights Act, those states and counties are required to have approval of the Justice Department before implementing any changes to electoral boundaries or processes.