Focus Report, Volume 74, Number 27, October 1996 Page: 1
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ORGANIZATIONf o c u s
Texas House of Representatives
October 15, 1996
Redistricting:
Courts say try again before next censusThe task of redistricting the state for the
remaining congressional and legislative elections of
the 1990s will face the Legislature when it convenes
in January.
The state must revisit the redistricting that was
begun shortly after the 1990 census and later found
unconstitutional by the federal courts because of
racial gerrymandering. Then, in its 2001 session, the
* Legislature must begin considering new districting
plans, using the 2000 census, to carry the state into
the first decade of the next millennium.
The 1997 redistricting plans will be drawn under
U.S. Supreme Court guidelines governing racial
gerrymandering and the Voting Rights Act. Legal
analysts interpret the court majority as having said,
in effect: Racial considerations must be subordinate
to race-neutral districting principles such as
compactness, community interest and political
boundaries, unless overt, ongoing discrimination
against minority voters is found.
1996 elections
Texas House and Senate. Temporary
settlement plans will govern the November 1996 state
House and Senate elections. The plans were adopted
by a three-judge federal panel in Austin that found
some districts had been unconstitutionally
gerrymandered on the basis of the race of potential
voters. But the Legislature is facing a court-ordered
deadline to either ratify the court-approved legislative
* plans or redraw the districts for use until the 2002
election cycle.U.S. House. Thirteen of the state's 30 seats in
the U.S. House of Representatives will be filled in
the 1996 elections using districts drawn by a federal
court panel. A special November 5 congressional
election, apparently the first in which party primary
elections were voided and the election held without
regard to primaries, was called after a federal court
panel ruled that three districts used for the March
primaries were unconstitutional. Twenty-eight counties
and about one-third of the state's voters will be
affected by the special election.
The special November 1996 congressional
elections in the 13 districts became certain on
September 4, 1996, when the U.S. Supreme Court
denied appeals of an August 6 order from a Houston
court panel. The Houston panel found, and the U.S.
Supreme Court agreed, that three of the 30
congressional districts drawn by the Legislature in
1991 were unconstitutional because they were
racially gerrymandered. The appeal had been brought
by Speaker James E. "Pete" Laney, six Democratic
House members and the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
Which political party controls the U.S. House of
Representatives for the 105th Congress will be
determined by the Texas runoffs on December 10 if
neither party has a majority after November 5.
The Houston panel - 5th U.S. Circuit Judge
Edith H. Jones and U.S. District Judges Melinda
Harmon and David Hittner - used as the basis for
its new map a plan submitted by defendants SpeakerNo. 74-27
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Texas. Legislature. House of Representatives. Research Organization. Focus Report, Volume 74, Number 27, October 1996, periodical, October 15, 1996; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth640238/m1/1/?q=%22~1~1%22~1: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.