Democrats Aim to Turn Texas Shade of Blue

Republicans like to say they have won 100 of the last 100 statewide races. They are undefeated in those races, dating from 1996.

Sick of it, Democrats are trying to get off the ground. One piece of that effort is Battleground Texas, started by operatives from the Obama campaign to turn Texas into a blue state, or at least a competitive one.

Their opening patter is familiar: start a sustained, well-financed operation in Texas to register more voters, identify Democrats among registered voters and try to get those people to the polls. It’ll take time, they say, and it will be hard.

The organizers have started holding meetings, with two of the first in San Antonio and Austin this week. The Austin event drew more than 200 people, who volunteered their services and ideas, but they were also full of questions.

They asked who would get to take part, whether this group or that one would be embraced by the Battleground organizers, and about the long losing streak.

“Can you post a win in one race in 2014?” said Jeremy Bird, a Chicago organizer for Mr. Obama who is heading the initiative, repeating an audience question for all to hear. “We cannot let it be the benchmark, but we can’t ignore it. Would you tell a friend today to run statewide? Maybe not. We have to create the environment for people to run.”

He reminded the audience that Democrats lost the presidential race in Texas by 16 points — “just now.”

It would be easy to dismiss the whole thing. Big announcements like this come and go. It’s hard to raise enough money. It is tough to keep volunteers engaged over the long haul. Organization is difficult. Texans like the idea of democracy more than they like to participate in it, if the numbers are any indication. Only 43.6 percent of the state’s voting age population turned out for the general election in November. The Republican primary drew just 8.1 percent, and the Democratic primary drew just 3.6 percent. It was possible to win last year’s Republican primary — effectively, the election that counted in statewide races — with only 738,172 votes.

Mr. Bird told the prospects that they didn’t have to win everywhere in the state — just that they had to do better than they do now. Move the numbers in a Republican precinct to 32 percent Democratic from, say, 25 percent. It worked, he told them, in Colorado, Florida and Nevada — red states that came into the blue column in recent elections. He cautioned repeatedly against expecting quick results.

“This is a long battle,” he said. “We don’t win this marathon if we don’t do this first mile.” It’s an enormous state. Somehow, nobody in politics really understands that until they go out and run. Members of the Legislature, members of Congress, mayors and others from the provinces regularly enter statewide races confident in their popularity and political ability. Even those who prevail come back with the same lament: “This is a really, really big state.”

They are not talking about geography, but about scale. Nearly two dozen media markets, 254 counties and the time it takes to organize in so many places.

The Republicans have a leg up. The Democrats used to have it. The voters became acclimated to the Republicans over a long period, starting during the Carter administration, through the 1980 election that turned on “Reagan Democrats,” and through two decades of Texans named Bush at or near the tops of their ballots.

To compete, the Democrats will have to persuade a mob of people to change their habits, to start voting or to vote for their party instead of Republicans. They have to create the possibility in the minds of their own voters that it’s possible for them to win.

If they raise the money and sustain their efforts over several years — if it works the way they hope it will work — then they can tell their friends that the top of the Texas ballot is a reasonably safe place for a Democrat.

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A Sense of Waiting for Godot for Texas Democrats

We continue our Presidential Geography series, a one-by-one examination of the peculiarities that drive the politics in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Here is a look at Texas. FiveThirtyEight spoke with James R. Henson, the director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin; Robert D. Miller, the chairman of the Public Law Group at Locke Lord L.L.P.; and Steve H. Murdock, a professor in the department of sociology at Rice University in Houston.

“It’s only a matter of time.”

For more than a decade, that thought has provided solace to the out-of-power Democrats who dream of turning Texas blue, much like it was before Ronald Reagan won the state in 1980. The appeal for Democrats is obvious. If President Obama, for example, were somehow able to carry Texas and its 38 electoral votes, the electoral math would become very difficult for Mitt Romney.

A Democratic-leaning Texas may seem like a dream, but for years such a shift has appeared almost inevitable. The Hispanic population in Texas (38 percent) is the second largest in the nation, and it is growing quickly. The African-American population (12 percent) has kept pace with the state’s overall growth. And non-Hispanic whites have been shrinking as a share of the population.

In fact, sometime after 2000, non-Hispanic whites became a minority in the state. They now make up just 45 percent of the population, making Texas the only majority minority state that reliably votes Republican.

Yet, for all the talk of a politically competitive state, the Republican grip on Texas has never loosened.

“We’ve had this discussion for 10 years now, and nothing has changed,” Mr. Miller said.

“There’s been a ‘Waiting for Godot’ nature in terms of Democrats and Latinos here,” Mr. Henson said.

All 29 statewide elective offices are held by Republicans, and Texas Democrats have been left with a series of if-onlys. If only the local party were better organized. If only national Democrats invested more money in the state. If only we could get a charismatic Hispanic candidate on the ballot. And, the most fundamental “if only” of them all: if only Hispanic turnout were stronger.

Poor turnout has dulled the impact of the state’s Hispanic population at the ballot box. Hispanics may make up 38 percent of the population, but they have never exceeded 20 percent of the electorate in presidential elections, according to exit polls.

“Latino turnout is even lower here than it is in a lot of other places,” Mr. Henson said.

Hispanic turnout is creeping up incrementally, but the non-Hispanic white vote in Texas has become overwhelmingly Republican.

The political landscape in Texas is relatively straightforward. The Democratic strongholds are limited to the major cities — Austin, El Paso, Dallas and to a lesser extent Houston and San Antonio — and the heavily Hispanic Rio Grande Valley.

Republicans are dominant everywhere else, from suburbs to small towns to ranches and farms.

Each of the main cities has a different feel and contributes something unique to the state’s economy. Houston is a center for health care and energy jobs. Austin, the capital, has a flourishing music scene and is a major center for technology start-ups. Dallas has a large African-American community (25 percent) and a little bit of everything economically.

Outside of the cities, Texas has several distinct regions. East Texas is much like northern Louisiana. It is mostly rural, religious and conservative. The Panhandle is also deeply conservative, but feels more like the Great Plains, Mr. Henson said, and includes a streak of libertarianism.

West Central Texas around Midland and Odessa is the chief oil-producing region. Over all, Texas is among the nation’s top energy-producing states, particularly in oil, natural gas and wind. The state’s booming energy industries have helped its economy weather the Great Recession relatively well.

The Bellwether: Tarrant County

The Dallas-Fort Worth area is home to over six million people, and the two cities are often grouped together. But Tarrant County, which is home to Fort Worth, and Dallas County have separate identities. Dallas is more diverse than Fort Worth, a former cattle town that now revolves around industries like defense.

Non-Hispanic whites are still a slim majority in Tarrant County, which helps make it a much better statewide bellwether than Dallas County. Tarrant County exactly matched the statewide vote in 2008, and was just 1 percentage point more Republican in both 2004 and 2000.

The Bottom Line

There is little doubt that Mr. Romney will carry Texas. He is a 99 percent favorite in the state, according to the current FiveThirtyEight forecast.

But the long-term trend seems equally clear. Despite poor turnout, the Hispanic share of the electorate has steadily climbed, from 7 percent in 1984 to 20 percent in 2008, according to exit polls.

At the same time, the non-Hispanic white vote has consistently fallen. In 1984 it was 78 percent; by 2008 it was 63 percent.

The larger question is not if Texas will become more competitive, but when, both Mr. Henson and Mr. Miller said. And that largely depends on whether Democrats can improve turnout among Hispanics. They have a few things working against them.

First, the Texas Democratic Party has been out of power for a long time, with few elections to truly contest. “The party in the state has really atrophied,” Mr. Henson said.

Second, Hispanic culture in Texas has so far not placed a high value on participating in the electoral process, Mr. Miller said.

Even if Texas Hispanics do start punching their weight, the Republicans could make efforts to win their support. Partisan allegiances among Hispanics could become more balanced.

Those obstacles notwithstanding, there is no doubt that as the minority population in Texas has grown, so too has the potential for the state to become less firmly Republican. And there are already signs of a possible future: Mayor Julián Castro of San Antonio, a rising star in Democratic politics, gave the keynote address at the national convention in Charlotte, N.C.

But that Democratic comeback — whether led by Mr. Castro or someone else — may still be years away. In the meantime, Democrats will have to continue to wait.

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Immigration Policy at Issue in Primary for Sheriff in Travis County, Texas

Sheriff Greg Hamilton, first elected in 2004, is coming under increasing fire from his Democratic primary challenger, John Sisson, a retired Austin Police Department lieutenant, for his use of Secure Communities. The program, administered by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and in place statewide, compares the fingerprints of arrested individuals to a federal database to determine whether those individuals are eligible for deportation. If a person is found to be in violation, ICE requests that a detainer be placed on the individual for 48 hours, excluding weekends and holidays.

The federal government says the program is needed to ferret out violent immigrants or repeat immigration violators for deportation. But critics say that the system focuses on lower-level offenders rather than the more violent criminals. Mr. Sisson said Sheriff Hamilton grants detainers on every immigrant who is booked.

“I was appalled to see what it was doing to the Hispanic community and the immigrant community here,” Mr. Sisson said. “I felt like it was very inhumane to be lazy and not do the research and say, ‘We’ll just hold everybody for deportation and not even mess with the particulars.’ ”

Sheriff Hamilton said that he is merely following the law.

“The only one that can deport and put an immigration detainer on an individual is an ICE agent, not us,” he said. “At the Travis County Jail, we follow the law, and the law says that when an ICE detainer is put on, the law enforcement agency shall maintain that individual for 48 hours.”

From June 2009 to September 2011, Travis County submitted 80,731 fingerprint sets and removed 2,269 immigrants, including those who left voluntarily.

More than 900 were Level 3 offenders, convicted of misdemeanors that include traffic violations and drunken driving. There were 420 Level 1 offenders and 437 Level 2. Level 1 are aggravated felonies, including murder, rape, sexual abuse of a minor and drug trafficking. Level 2 offenders are convicted of any lesser felony or three misdemeanors.

Travis County’s number of removals surpasses that of Bexar County, where about 105,600 submissions were processed, resulting in the removal of 1,479 immigrants. Bexar County, which includes San Antonio, has a population of about 1,715,000, compared with Travis County’s population of 1,024,000.

But Sheriff Hamilton said deputies release immigrants if ICE agents do not take them and they are otherwise releasable on bond.

“Secure Communities identifies the individuals that are in our community that have run afoul of law enforcement,” he said. “And I think it’s very important that somebody knows who is in the community.”

But Sheriff Hamilton also cited his sensitivity toward the immigrant community, legal or otherwise, most of whom he said are in search of a better life. His wife is a naturalized citizen from Honduras, he said, and his department delivers aid to Austin’s Casa Marianella immigrant shelter.

“I have never asked a question, are they here legally or illegally,” he said. “I just want to help out.”

The winner of the May 29 Democratic primary will face Raymond Frank, a former sheriff and admitted underdog Republican candidate who identifies himself as an independent in the mold of Representative Ron Paul, Republican of Lake Jackson.

Mr. Frank has vowed to do away with the program if he is elected because it separates families. “A lot of Republicans are pretty outspoken about immigration,” he said. “And I don’t share their views at all.”

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Republican Ambitions for Statewide Office Break Loose in Texas

Maybe you work in a big organization, with relatively young and healthy people at the top.

That’s just wonderful, unless your plans include upward mobility. You might as well be a Texas politician.

Democrats can’t move up the food chain in Texas until they’ve changed a political environment that will currently elect a Republican for every statewide office, whether or not that Republican is the best person for the job. It’s not the content of the candidate’s character that matters most — it’s the color of the partisan flag.

Republicans looking to move up face two obstacles: competition and a couple of stoppers at the top of the organizational chart. The competition is still there, what with a state full of Republicans and a political climate — see above — where moderates and independents who want to get into a high elected office often have to run as Republicans to succeed. That doesn’t appear to be changing right now.

But the stoppers — their names are Kay Bailey Hutchison and Rick Perry — might both be moving on, and the very idea of that animates Republican ambitions in Texas.

Ms. Hutchison, elevated to the United States Senate in a special election in 1993, isn’t seeking re-election. Mr. Perry could run for another term as governor in 2014. But the lines are already forming as if he won’t be on the ballot that year.

At least at the top, the 2014 ballot is as busy as the one for the current election year.

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst is in the Republican primary race for Ms. Hutchison’s seat. Maybe he wins, maybe he loses, but that cautionary note didn’t stop anyone from expressing interest in the office he currently holds. Comptroller Susan Combs is interested. So are Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson and Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples. State Representative Dan Branch, Republican of Dallas, is looking at it, too.

There’s another race for lieutenant governor in motion, too, based on the assumption that Mr. Dewhurst will win the Senate race. That would leave the 31-member Texas Senate with the happy chore of hoisting one of its own members into that office for the remaining two years of Mr. Dewhurst’s term. That intrigue is well under way, with some members angling for just an interim position and others thinking the winner of the inside race could have a shot at winning the job outright in the 2014 elections.

That triggers another round of conversations. Who would be the new comptroller, or land commissioner or agriculture commissioner should any or all of the current occupants dive into the race for lieutenant governor?

The political tribe is full of ambitious, risk-taking characters. The rest of us might not be thinking about this stuff, but they surely are.

A recent news blurb about Senator Glenn Hegar, Republican of Katy, stirred up another race. He’s been sounding out support for a run for comptroller should Ms. Combs run for something else or step aside. Some of his fellow Republicans thought he was considering Mr. Staples’s agriculture post.

The news prompted Representative Harvey Hilderbran, Republican of Kerrville, to let reporters and others know that he would be interested in Ms. Combs’s job. Mr. Hilderbran is chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, the arbiter of tax and revenue legislation. The overlap between the supplicants there and the supplicants to the comptroller is significant.

Mr. Hegar’s splash sent a ripple across the agriculture commissioner race. Former Representative Dan Gattis, Republican of Georgetown, isn’t exactly looking at it and isn’t exactly not looking. He said he would be interested, maybe, if Mr. Hegar was not. But he said he isn’t thinking about it and that there is a lot of time between now and then. And he said to stay in touch.

Wouldn’t want to get left out of the conversation, now that the org chart is in play.

Nothing is a lock, particularly with elections and other decisions in the way. Ms. Hutchison is leaving, but Mr. Dewhurst might not win and might not leave the Senate. Attorney General Greg Abbott might want to run for governor in 2014, but Mr. Perry hasn’t opened that door for him. And if Mr. Abbott doesn’t run for that, then the attorney general hopefuls — whoever they are — would be stuck.

Just like they are now.

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Democrats Shun Kesha Rogers in Texas Congressional Race

One of them, K. P. George, has a background that makes him an improbable candidate — he was born in a village in India that still has no electricity or running water. For his opponent, Kesha Rogers, it is her political positions that stand out — she is best known for demanding President Obama’s impeachment.

In light of Ms. Rogers’s candidacy, the Fort Bend County Democratic Party’s executive committee has issued a rare primary endorsement, backing Mr. George in the 22nd District.

“If I can figure out what that silver bullet is to make sure that she is not on my slate after May, then I’ll definitely do that,” said Steve Brown, chairman of the Fort Bend Democratic Party. “I don’t think the endorsement alone is going to do it. It’s going to take work.”

Party officials worry that if Ms. Rogers prevails, Democrats will not be able to encourage voters to cast straight-ticket ballots for their party in the general election — already an uphill battle in the Houston suburbs. But Ms. Rogers, a follower of the controversial activist Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr., says she is in the race “to restore the principles of Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy to the Democratic Party.”

In addition to seeking Mr. Obama’s impeachment “for gross violations of the Constitution in the service of Wall Street imperialism,” Ms. Rogers is calling for significant investment in manned space exploration to avoid “mass extinction of the human species” and for the reinstatement of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, which prohibited commercial banks from conducting investment business.

There is a precedent for the concern about Ms. Rogers’s candidacy. In 2010, she won the Democratic nomination in the 22nd District with 52 percent of the vote in a three-way primary. In retrospect, party leaders said, voters did not know enough about her positions before they cast their ballots.

She was soundly defeated in the general election by the incumbent, Pete Olson of Sugar Land, and she received no organizational support from the Democratic Party. The state party’s executive committee even approved a resolution releasing party officers from having to back a LaRouche-affiliated candidate. That resolution remains in effect.

“It’s my burden now to make sure voters in Fort Bend County know clear and well that Kesha is no Democrat,” Mr. Brown said.

But Ms. Rogers said, “If the only policy of my opponent is the ‘Stop Kesha’ campaign, I don’t see that as something that’s really going to inspire the population.”

Mr. George, who is running on a more establishment-friendly platform of investing in education and protecting Medicare and Social Security, said he is not taking Ms. Rogers lightly. He even agrees that financing needs to be restored for manned space exploration, saying it is the one issue on which he strongly differs from Mr. Obama.

It is a safe stance to take in the district that, until recent the recent redistricting, included NASA’s Johnson Space Center. Still, he said, “I’d rather worry about how I can get a job for you before I go and try to colonize Mars.”

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Supreme Court throws out Texas election maps (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Supreme Court handed Texas Republicans a partial victory in a partisan fight over election redistricting that has erupted after a huge increase in the state's Hispanic population.

Throwing out a set of election maps that favored Democrats and minorities, the justices on Friday sent the case back to a lower court, forcing further review of a matter with a limited timetable for resolution as 2012 elections are fast approaching.

In its first ruling on political boundary-drawing based on the 2010 U.S. Census, the high court unanimously rejected interim election maps that had been drawn up by federal judges in San Antonio.

The court said the judges' maps did not sufficiently take into account an earlier set of maps that were drawn up by the Texas state legislature that favored Republicans.

Under the high court's ruling, the Texas judges must redraw the maps for primary contests set for April 3 that will decide party candidates for congressional and state legislature elections in November.

The case is typical of redistricting fights that unfold in states across the country every 10 years after a national census. In this one, protecting the voting rights of millions of minorities and substantial political power are at stake.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, a Republican, said, "The Supreme Court's swift decision will allow Texas to move forward with elections as soon as possible under maps that are lawful."

The case is being closely watched because it could help decide whether Republicans or Democrats gain as many as four seats in the U.S. House of Representatives in November. The Texas delegation now has 23 Republicans and nine Democrats.

MEXICAN-AMERICANS GROUP WEIGHS IN

A civil rights group representing Hispanics, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said the ruling reaffirmed Texas' obligation to comply with the voting rights law. The group said it looked forward to further proceedings in San Antonio to secure fair interim maps.

Abbott had appealed to the Supreme Court, saying the lower court had overstepped its authority, and arguing that the judges should have deferred to maps drawn by elected lawmakers.

Those maps favor Republican candidates, but have been challenged for violating the voting rights of Hispanics and other minorities.

The Supreme Court ruled that the federal district court judges appeared to have unnecessarily ignored the state's plans in drawing certain districts and that those maps can at least be used as a starting point.

"Some aspects of the district court's plans seem to pay adequate attention to the state's policies, others do not and the propriety of still others is unclear," the court held in its narrow opinion limited to the unique facts of the Texas dispute.

Redrawing the Texas districts has been a major political and legal battle. The state's population went up by more than 20 percent, or 4.2 million people, over the past decade, with Hispanics accounting for 2.8 million of the increase.

FOUR NEW DISTRICTS FORMED

After the 2010 Census, Texas got four new congressional seats, giving it 36. The legislature's plan, signed by Texas Governor Rick Perry, who dropped out of the Republican presidential race on Thursday, created only one new heavily Hispanic district.

The Supreme Court, in the 11-page, unsigned opinion, said the judges, in coming up with new maps, must be careful not to incorporate any legal defects from the legislature's plan.

The interim maps drawn by the judges in Texas were designed to remain in place until a separate court in Washington, D.C., could decide whether the Texas state plan should be approved or rejected under the federal voting rights law.

A trial in that case is under way. That case and a different pending legal challenge in San Antonio are expected to determine the final maps to be used in Texas in future years.

The Obama administration, the state Democratic Party and minority groups have challenged parts or all of the state's redistricting plan for violating the voting rights law, and said the judicially drawn one should be used on an interim basis.

Justice Clarence Thomas issued a brief opinion agreeing with the judgment, but adding that he would have gone further. He said the legislature's plans have not been found to violate any law and should be used for the upcoming elections.

The Supreme Court cases are Perry v. Perez, No 11-713; Perry v. Davis, No. 11-714, and Perry v. Perez, No. 11-715.

(Reporting By James Vicini; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Vicki Allen)

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Texas asks top court to stop congressional map (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Texas asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday to stop implementation of an interim Texas map for congressional districts that was crafted by a panel of federal judges and could favor minorities and Democrats in 2012 elections.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott made the emergency request in opposing the court-drawn congressional redistricting plan. Abbott, a Republican, asked the Supreme Court on Monday to suspend maps created by the judges for 2012 state Legislature elections.

Abbott argued the federal district court panel in San Antonio erred by refusing to defer to the Legislature's plan, and that the wholesale revisions of the maps were unjustified.

The maps, which could lead to greater representation for minorities and Democrats, were drafted earlier this month after minority groups challenged the original plans adopted by the Republican-dominated state Legislature.

Rewriting the Texas districts has become a major political and legal issue because of sharp growth over the past decade in the state's population.

Texas received four new congressional seats after the 2010 U.S. census, largely because of the rapidly growing Hispanic population. The state Legislature's plan created only one new heavily Hispanic district.

The U.S. Justice Department, which determines whether new maps in some states comply with federal civil rights laws, opposed the state's congressional redistricting plan.

Abbott said the court-drawn plan dramatically changed more than half of the 150 districts in the Texas House of Representatives, altered five of 31 state Senate districts and changed all 36 congressional districts from the state's plan.

Candidates for the 2012 elections must file by December 15, 2011. The primary elections are scheduled for March 6.

"Legal, delayed elections are preferable to legally flawed, timely elections," Abbott said in asking the Supreme Court to put on hold the primary elections if necessary.

The interim maps drawn by the judges were designed to remain in place until the legal battle over the redistricting plans has been resolved.

A separate three-judge panel in Washington is expected to hold a trial in considering whether to approve or reject the redistricting plans.

The Supreme Court cases are Perry v. Perez, No 11-A520, Perry v. Davis, No. 11-A521, and Perry v. Perez, No. 11-A536.

(Reporting by James Vicini; Editing by Peter Cooney)

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Texas AG blasts court's redistricting maps (AP)

AUSTIN, Texas – Texas' attorney general sharply criticized a federal court Friday over its proposed maps for state House and Senate districts in the 2012 election, saying the judges overstepped their bounds.

The San Antonio-based federal court released the proposed redistricting maps late Thursday and gave those involved in the case until noon Friday to comment. Minority groups have filed a legal challenge to the Republican-drawn maps, saying they are discriminatory. The court's maps are intended to be an interim solution until the case is resolved after the 2012 elections.

Maps for the House and Senate released Thursday restore many of the minority districts — where Democrats hold the seats — to their previous shapes. Republican lawmakers have denied their maps were intended to minimize minority representation, and say they merely reflect the GOP majority in Texas.

In his filing, Attorney General Gregg Abbot said the court went too far in redrawing the Legislature's maps.

"A court's job is to apply the law, not to make policy," Abbott wrote in his objection to the proposed House map. "A federal court lacks the constitutional authority to interfere with the expressed will of the state Legislature unless it is compelled to remedy a specific identifiable violation of law."

Abbott argued that there is no violation of law. Included in his court filing were letters and emails from 18 Republican lawmakers and two Democrats objecting to portions of the court-drawn House map.

The objections by the Republican attorney general and lawmakers followed praise by many Democrats on Thursday night. But two Democrats, Representatives Senfronia Thompson and Harold Dutton, objected to the court's version of their House Districts 141 and 142 in Harris County

"The traditional communities of interest, which have existed since 1972, are destroyed under the court's plan," Dutton said. Thompson said her district was fundamentally changed by removing a key neighborhood from it.

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, also denounced the court's state Senate maps. As the leader of the Senate, he supervised the creation of the district map for that chamber.

"The Senate's map was not hastily crafted, but was the product of careful balancing and intense negotiation by the senators," Dewhurst said in a letter Friday. "The court's proposed interim map completely disregards the careful work of the members of the Senate."

Since 1965, Texas has been subject to the Voting Rights Act, which requires states with a history of racial discrimination to first gain approval from the Department of Justice or a federal court before instituting new political districts. A federal court in Washington rejected Abbott's request to give approval to the legislative and congressional maps drawn by the Legislature, and the Department of Justice has called the method for drafting the maps seriously flawed.

The courts have played a role in drafting every legislative or congressional redistricting map in Texas since 1970.

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