The democratic senators in Texas had tried until the end to prevent the new district of the constituencies. Among other things, they left their home state. Senator Carol Alvarado’s attempt to delay the vote on the legislative proposal was then prevented by a rare application for procedures by the Republican senators. The democratic senator Sarah Eckhardt was outraged: “This is not a democracy, that’s a shame,” she said in the online service X.
The Republican governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, said he was looking forward to putting the decision into force with his signature. “Despite the small actions of the Democrats, we have redeemed our promise,” he wrote at X. This card reflects “the actual electoral preferences” of the Texans.
Such a new cut of constituencies with party political objectives is referred to in the United States as a “gerrymanening”. Either as many potential voters of the opposing party are put together in a constituency as possible, which reduces their influence in other circles. Or the potential voters of the other party are distributed to as many different constituencies as possible so that they do not become a dominant force in any of these circles.
Trump had requested a new cut of the Texas constituencies. The Republicans want to defend their current majority in the House of Representatives in Washington. The ruling party usually suffers significant losses at the intermediate elections known as Midterm’s. The Democrats therefore hope to be able to recapture the House of Representatives in autumn 2026.
In response to the procedure of the Republicans in Texas, the democratic governor of California, Gavin Newsom, prompted a “gerrymandering” of the constituencies in the western US state, which would probably provide the Democrat five other members of the US representative. Both parliamentary chambers of the state controlled by the Democrats voted for the Plan Newsoms on Thursday. Now the Californians in November will have to approved this in a referendum. This is not necessary in Texas.
The “gerrymandering” is a political trick with a long tradition in the USA. The term goes back to a governor of Massachusetts from the 18th century, Elbridge Gerry, who had tailored a constituency in his state to his advantage in such a way that he took the form of a salamander.
As a rule, the constituencies are redefined every ten years based on census data on the population structure. The new cutting is intended to take demographic changes into account and the constitutional specification meet that all electoral districts within a state must have approximately the same population.
