Overflowing meeting on Texas redistricting has few speakers in favor of new maps

WFAA ^ | 7/28/25 | Cole Sullivan

[DallasBiff]

Oh my, democrats all of the sudden are against gerrymandering, which the democrats have done for decades.

[sauropod]

Precisely.

[17th Miss Regt]

Democrats gerrymandering = liberating and empowering minority voters
Republicans gerrymandering = oppressing minority votes. Oh, and making some of them wear chains again.

Democrats have never forgiven Republicans for taking away their slaves!

[Dalberg-Acton]

Texas DFW voting district for Democrat U.S. Congressman Marc Veasey.

[iamgalt]

The rats got the word out and packed this event. Expect more in the future

[napscoordinator]

There is a reason that redistricting is done every ten years. Otherwise, we’ll have redistricting every year if this goes through. Once every ten years is more than enough.

[libertylover]

I saw a news clip on TV which showed the proposed area in Houston and, to be honest, did look a bit hokey, but not as hokey as the one you’ve shown here.

District boundaries should mostly fall along county lines, keyword “mostly”.

[PermaRag]

You do know which party drew those hideous district lines, right?

[Spoiler alert: it was the Republican legislature.]

The idea was to make the adjacent districts better for Republicans by jamming all of the nearby undesirables into Veasey’s district, but in the anti-Trump debacle of 2018 the incumbent Republican in one of the 2 adjacent districts (Sessions) lost anyway and another (Marchant) almost did.

For the 2020’s the Republicans adopted an “incumbent protection plan” for Texas with the possible exception of extreme south Texas which is supposedly trending the right way over the past half-deacde or so (but not enough to eradicate Vicente Gonzalez yet).

MAYBE if there’s another redistricting in Texas soon, we can pick off Gonzalez and the ethically-challenged Henry Cuellar. Getting more greedy than that is highly likely to have “unintended consequences”.

[Tell It Right]

That patchwork looking district is a good reason for the Republicans to want to redraw the districts.

[Dalberg-Acton]

The Texas House is run by Rinos and Democrats have too much power.

[silent majority rising]

I hope ICE was present so they could thin out the illegal non citizens.

[Dan in Wichita]

There is a reason that redistricting is done every ten years. Otherwise, we’ll have redistricting every year if this goes through. Once every ten years is more than enough.

Nope. It's time to play hardball with the Dems. The GOP should do what the Dems have already done and redistrict everywhere possible ASAP to squeeze out as many GOP seats as possible. We are done playing patty cake with the communist party.

[napscoordinator]

You do know California and New York are ready to go if Texas does. That’s 8 seats going Democrat to our five in Texas.

[Brian Griffin]

[This is all rather complex and may not be 100% correct.]

One could allocate to the largest city in each major population center and immediately adjacent counties as many districts as may be fully contained therein, to be allocated on the basis of:
1. proportional representation
2. using the existing district boundaries at least to the (largest) city limits (if timely requested by the representative)
3. each district to have roughly equal latitude and longitude width

A major population center might be an area:
1. thought by the state allocative body to have at least 100 100-seat or more airline flights per Monday,
2. having at least eight FCC licensed TV stations, or
3. be a Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area (SMSA).

All that is to keep the colored members of Congress in their seats (and to avoid race riots).

The outlying districts in the state could be allocated on the basis of:
1. proportional representation
2. each district to have roughly equal latitude and longitude width

The outlying districts might be allocated by the TV station method. If say the state has three other districts left to allocate, allocate out from the outlying metro TV station areas (in Pennsylvania these might be Scranton, Harrisburg and Erie). Potential district population calculations would be made from each possible set of outlying metro TV station areas of the state working outward from the major city served. The set that results in minimal total (latitude + longitude) outlying district width would get chosen.

[If there are more outlying districts that would need to be calculated than outlying metro TV station areas, then perhaps the state might expand the area of at least one major population center district calculation by at least one more county (or city) to create at least one more major population center district.]

Why is TV so important? Because media buying and vote buying to get reelected are the primary concerns of members of Congress. However, TV time buying is no longer as important as it was in years past. No system that makes it impossible for reelection campaigns to target voters will get accepted.

Alternately, the outlying districts might be allocated by the corner method. Potential district population calculations would be made from each corner of the state. The corner that results in minimal total (latitude + longitude) outlying district width would get chosen.

Districts could then be minimized on the basis of minimizing the total latitudinal & longitudinal spread of districts not totally within 50 miles of a city center.

Finally, jurisdictions to get shifted between two districts at a time (without changing the districts’ latitude and longitude ratio by more than 10% each (or out to a county boundary if allowed by state law)) to minimize the number of jurisdictions contained in more than one district.

[PermaRag]

“.... to our five in Texas.”

Trump may have asked for “five in Texas” but good luck with that.

Don’t forget Ohio, which is required by law to redistrict again prior to the 2026 elections. There are droolers who insist that Republicans are going to go from a 10-5 advantage in the Ohio House delegation to 13-2, with Democrats holding 1 seat in Cleveland and 1 in Columbus while Republicans run the table in the rest of the state. Yeah, OK.

The last time (2021) Ohio Republicans came up with a plan like that the state Supreme Court (*Republican*-controlled) shot it down and made them draw a new map. They did — and it was a good one — with the only real change being to please the Court by sacrificing Steve Chabot (R) in CD-1 and having him be replaced by a (D). THAT part worked perfectly — Chabot lost — but the GOP blew it in the other winnable districts (CD-9, CD-13) in both 2022 and 2024 and failed to retake CD-1 in 2024 as well. Even while Trump and Moreno were carrying the state.

[Brian Griffin]

“You do know California and New York are ready to go if Texas does. That’s 8 seats going Democrat to our five in Texas.”

That statement doesn’t take into account dozens of states.

Also, in California, whites should have Voting Rights Act protection.

[Dan in Wichita]

Are you aware that California currently has a 43 to 9 D to R advantage in the House? Maybe 40% of Californians are Republicans, but they have only 17% of the House seats in the state. How did this happen? Answer: The Dems have already gerrymandered the CA districts and squeezed as many D seats out as possible. Ditto for other deep blue states.

The time for living in fear of the Democrats has passed. Don't be afraid of the Newsom bluster. If they try to further gerrymander, they will endanger current "safe" D House seats, and he knows it.

Thanks to Trump, the battle has been joined. The GOP should gerrymander every seat possible throughout the US. Hit them as hard as possible everywhere and don't surrender an inch.

[Brian Griffin]

“2. using the existing district boundaries at least to the (largest) city limits (if timely requested by the representative)”

That may not be practical.

[adorno]

Democrats love gerrymandering, as long as it works their way.

Democrats hate gerrymandering, if it works the other way.

Democrats hate gerrymandering which gerrymanders a district to represent the people that live there.

Democrats hate gerrymandering which could reverse a previously gerrymandered district which was drawn to specifically go the democrats’ way.

Democrats hate for republicans to use gerrymandering, because gerrymandering is for the democrat’s exclusive use, and gerrymandering by republicans is always ‘racist’.

[Robert DeLong]

Because the Republican RINOs in control thanks to support from the Democrats, have give over control to the Democrats.

Between those two sets of politicians they didn't invite many supporters of producing another census to get an accurate number of Americans living in Texas.