| Texas passed the Trump-requested gerrymandering bill that allows the state to change its congressional districts to give Republicans a better chance at keeping the House in 2026. The new map allows white Texans—who make up only 40 percent of the state’s population—to control 73 percent of the state’s congressional districts.
The NAACP has sued Texas over its new map. NAACP president Derrick Johnson said, “It’s quite obvious that Texas’s effort to redistrict mid-decade, before next year’s midterm elections, is racially motivated. The state’s intent here is to reduce the members of Congress who represent Black communities, and that, in and of itself, is unconstitutional.”
According to the Republicans running the Supreme Court, states are allowed to gerrymander if their goal is merely to give Republicans a political advantage in the next election. They’re not allowed to gerrymander if they’re trying to give white folks a racial advantage.
The problem with the Supreme Court’s standard is, and always has been, that states are usually trying to do both. Because the Republican party has gone all in on white supremacy, its political and racial motivations for gerrymandering are intertwined. Black people are likely to vote for the Democratic Party, not because being Black makes you more liberal and open-minded but because the Republican Party remains steadfastly committed to racial oppression, and most Black people can figure that out. Gerrymandering away the political influence of Black folks is the same as helping Republicans win elections, because Republicans have decided to win elections by appealing to the worst instincts of white folks.
The Supreme Court will almost certainly rule that the Texas maps are constitutional because Texas was trying to help Republicans, not harm Black people. It will then count on other white folks to be too stupid or cowardly to notice that these are the same thing. |
