Herman: Redistricting. There's got to be a better way - News - Austin American-Statesman - Austin, TX

This story originally appeared in The Austin American-Statesman Nov. 18, 2018
https://www.statesman.com/news/20181117/herman-redistricting-theres-got-to-be-better-way
Below this story is a copy of Rep. Howard's House Joint Resolution No. 32.

Herman: Redistricting. There's got to be a better way


State Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, has tried unsuccessfully to get the Legislature to reform its redistricting process. She's trying again with a new plan in the upcoming legislative session. [RALPH BARRERA / AMERICAN-STATESMAN]

By Ken Herman
Posted: Nov. 17, 2018 at 2:19 PM
Updated: Nov. 17, 2018 at 3:34 PM

Though a noble goal, trying to take the politics out of redistricting is an elusive target.

After watching the decennial mess and resultant litigation that redistricting is in Texas, I think we have general consensus that this is not serving us well, unless you’re a redistricting lawyer with visions of billable hours dancing in your head.

Time after time, census after census, redistricting after redistricting, we wind up with congressional and legislative boundaries drawn not only to benefit one particular party but often to benefit one particular member of one particular party.

There’s got to be a better way. There’s got to be a way to remove politics, as much as possible, from such a crucial and inevitably political task.

"Hey," some folks have said ad infinitum over the years, "let’s have a commission do it instead of having the Legislature do it." Well, that’s the beginning of a good idea. The challenge, of course, is picking the appointees and the appointers.

That’s an especially vexing challenge in one-party-rule states, which Texas has been for many years. For a long time (and now it seems a long time ago), Democrats ruled and controlled the three branches of state government. Now the GOP has that control.

So who’s going to select the members of a Texas Redistricting Commission? If it involves elected statewide elected officials, that has the distinct potential to guarantee maps that are as partisan as the ones the GOP-controlled Legislature would draw.

Now, again, comes state Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, with the first of what could be many attempts in the 2019 Legislature to rejigger how we rejigger districts, a task that will be done in the 2021 legislative session. Ever thoughtful, Howard has an idea on how to make this a bipartisan effort despite the unipartisan nature of Texas government as we now know it. She filed it into the bill hopper last week when bill filing began.

Stick with me on this. It gets a bit complicated and would require legislative approval and voter approval of a constitutional amendment. The Howard plan calls for a seven-member commission.

Here’s how commissioners would be appointed: The longest-serving members of the Texas House and Senate each would be one member. So that’s two. Two more would be picked by the longest-serving House and Senate members who are of a different political party than the aforementioned House and Senate members. So now we’re up to four, two picked by Republicans and two by Democrats.

The four members selected by the above process would then pick a fifth member via a vote. This could get tricky and pivotal, but it could work. So that’s five of the seven members.

That fifth member (who’d be the presiding member) would appoint two members, which gets us to the full seven. But wait, there’s more. Those two final members must be retired federal judges who were appointed to the bench by presidents of different political parties.

Feel free to read that all again if needed to comprehend it. I had to peruse Howard’s House Joint Resolution 25 several times to digest it. I think I’ve got it right.

And there would be restrictions on all members of the commission. They’d have to be Texas residents. And they could not be in an elected or appointed public office, a political party office or employed by a public official, legislative or congressional candidate or “entity whose principal purpose is to support or oppose” such candidates.

Also, it would take votes of five of the seven members to adopt a map. There’s much more detail in the proposal, including parameters concerning how the districts are drawn.

Good on Howard for obviously giving this some thought. Previous similar efforts — including by her — have gone nowhere in previous Texas Legislatures. Her proposal didn’t even get a committee hearing in the 2017 session. I’m not sure there’s much reason to assume any such effort, by Howard or anyone, will go any further in this next Texas Legislature.

To a large extent, it would be asking the GOP (the party in power) to commit an unnatural act, forfeiting its stranglehold on redistricting, arguably the most consequential thing the Legislature does. And it asks lawmakers of both parties to put their political future in potential jeopardy because we'd be undoing the system that put them in office.

But one can hope.

Or we could go with the Probably Patently Unconstitutional Herman Redistricting Plan. It goes like this: We draw the lines. We never change them. We require everybody to live in mobile homes. We move them to where we need them to maintain districts that could withstand courthouse scrutiny.

All in favor, vote aye. See you at the mobile home park.

 

Here is the html version of the bill from https://https://capitol.texas.gov/ .
Search Bill Number hjr32 (House Joint Resolution) in Legislature 85(R)- 2017. Below it is a pdf version.

  85R2551 JRJ-D
 
  By: Howard H.J.R. No. 32
 
 
 
A JOINT RESOLUTION
  proposing a constitutional amendment establishing the Texas
  Redistricting Commission to redistrict the Texas Legislature and
  Texas congressional districts and revising procedures for
  redistricting.
         BE IT RESOLVED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
         SECTION 1.  Article III, Texas Constitution, is amended by
  adding Section 28a to read as follows:
         Sec. 28a.  (a) The Texas Redistricting Commission exercises
  the legislative authority of this state to adopt redistricting
  plans for the election of the Texas House of Representatives, the
  Texas Senate, and the members of the United States House of
  Representatives elected from this state. Districts for those
  legislative bodies may not be established or changed except as
  provided by this section.
         (b)  The commission consists of seven members selected as
  follows:
               (1)  one member appointed by the member of the Texas
  Senate with the most seniority, as defined by senate rules;
               (2)  one member appointed by the member of the Texas
  Senate with the most seniority, as defined by senate rules, who is
  of a different political party than the member described by
  Subdivision (1) of this subsection;
               (3)  one member appointed by the member of the Texas
  House of Representatives with the most seniority, as defined by
  house rules;
               (4)  one member appointed by the member of the Texas
  House of Representatives with the most seniority, as defined by
  house rules, who is of a different political party than the member
  described by Subdivision (3) of this subsection;
               (5)  one member appointed by an affirmative vote of not
  fewer than three of the members of the commission selected under
  Subdivisions (1) through (4) of this subsection; and
               (6)  two members appointed by the member appointed
  under Subdivision (5) of this subsection, who must be retired
  federal judges appointed to the federal bench by presidents of
  different political parties.
         (c)  The member appointed under Subsection (b)(5) of this
  section serves as presiding officer of the commission.
         (d)  Each member of the commission must be a resident of this
  state.  A person is not eligible to serve on the commission if the
  person:
               (1)  holds an elective or appointive public office,
  other than the office of retired federal judge if the member is
  appointed under Subsection (b)(6) of this section or an office on
  the governing body of a school district;
               (2)  holds an office in a political party;
               (3)  is employed by:
                     (A)  an elected or appointed public official;
                     (B)  a candidate for the legislature or the United
  States Congress; or
                     (C)  an entity whose principal purpose is to
  support or oppose a candidate described by Paragraph (B) of this
  subdivision;
               (4)  has served in a position described by Subdivision
  (1), (2), or (3) of this subsection within the three years preceding
  the date the person is appointed to the commission;
               (5)  is required by law to register with the Texas
  Ethics Commission on account of the person's communications with
  state officers to influence legislation or administrative action,
  or was required to register in that capacity in the three years
  preceding the date the person was appointed to the commission; or
               (6)  is related to an elected or appointed public
  official within the second degree by consanguinity, as determined
  under general law governing consanguinity.
         (e)  The full term of a member of the commission is a 10-year
  term that begins on February 1 of the year ending in 1 in which the
  initial appointment to the position is required to be made and
  expires on January 31 of the next year ending in 1.  A vacancy on the
  commission is filled in the same manner as provided by this section
  for the original appointment.
         (f)  A member of the commission may not be a candidate in an
  election for the Texas Senate or Texas House of Representatives
  before the third anniversary of the date the commission adopts a
  redistricting plan or modification of a plan for that body during
  the person's service on the commission.
         (g)  A redistricting plan or modification of a redistricting
  plan is adopted by a vote of not less than five members of the
  commission.
         (h)  The members of the commission appointed under
  Subsections (b)(1) through (4) of this section shall be appointed
  not earlier than January 25 or later than January 31 of each year
  ending in 1. The member appointed under Subsection (b)(5) of this
  section shall be appointed not later than the 15th day after the
  commission convenes under Subsection (i) of this section. The
  members appointed under Subsection (b)(6) of this section shall be
  appointed not later than the 15th day after the date of an
  appointment under Subsection (b)(5) of this section.
         (i)  The commission shall convene on the first business day
  after January 31 of each year ending in 1 and shall adopt a
  redistricting plan for the Texas Senate, the Texas House of
  Representatives, and the members of the United States House of
  Representatives elected from this state not later than July 1 of
  that year, unless the federal decennial census is delivered to the
  appropriate officials of this state after May 1 of that year, in
  which event the commission shall adopt those redistricting plans
  not later than the 90th day after the date the census is delivered.
         (j)  The commission shall reconvene to modify a
  redistricting plan if the plan becomes unenforceable by order of a
  court or by action of any other appropriate authority. In modifying
  a redistricting plan, the commission must comply with all
  applicable standards imposed by this section, other provisions of
  this constitution, and laws enacted under this section but is not
  limited to modifications necessary to correct legal deficiencies.
         (k)  In a redistricting plan or modification of a plan
  adopted under this section:
               (1)  each district must be composed of contiguous
  territory, and for purposes of this subdivision territory that is
  adjoining only at a point is not considered contiguous;
               (2)  each congressional district must contain a
  population as nearly equal as possible to the population of any
  other district in the plan;
               (3)  in a legislative redistricting plan the overall
  range of population deviation from the district with the largest
  population to the district with the smallest population may not
  exceed 2.5 percent;
               (4)  to the extent reasonable, district boundaries must
  coincide with the boundaries of political subdivisions of the state
  and divide the smallest number of counties, municipalities, and
  school districts possible; and
               (5)  districts must be drawn in accordance with the
  federal constitution and all applicable federal laws.
         (l)  If a political subdivision must be divided, the
  commission shall give preference to dividing a more populous
  political subdivision before a less populous one.  This subsection
  does not apply to a boundary drawn along a county line that divides
  a municipality.
         (m)  The commission may not draw a redistricting plan
  purposely to favor or discriminate against a political party or any
  other group.
         (n)  The legislature shall enact laws consistent with this
  section to implement this section. The laws may include additional
  qualifications for commission members and additional standards
  applicable to redistricting plans.
         (o)  The legislature shall appropriate money or otherwise
  provide the commission sufficient facilities and personnel to
  enable the commission to carry out its duties.
         (p)  This section takes effect January 1, 2021. On that
  date, the Legislative Redistricting Board is abolished and Section
  28 of this article is repealed. The Texas Redistricting Commission
  shall convene for the first time on the first business day after
  January 31, 2021. This subsection expires January 1, 2022.
         SECTION 2.  Section 7a, Article V, Texas Constitution, is
  amended by amending Subsections (e) and (i) and adding Subsection
  (j) to read as follows:
         (e)  Unless the legislature enacts a statewide
  reapportionment of the judicial districts following each federal
  decennial census, the board shall convene not later than the first
  Monday of June of the third year following the year in which the
  federal decennial census is taken to make a statewide
  reapportionment of the districts. The board shall complete its
  work on the reapportionment and file its order with the secretary of
  state not later than August 31 of the same year. If the Judicial
  Districts Board fails to make a statewide apportionment by that
  date, the Texas [Legislative] Redistricting Commission [Board]
  established by Article III, Section 28a [28], of this constitution
  shall convene on September 1 of the same year to make a statewide
  reapportionment of the judicial districts not later than the 90th
  [150th] day after the final day for the Judicial Districts Board to
  make the reapportionment.
         (i)  The legislature, the Judicial Districts Board, or the
  Texas [Legislative] Redistricting Commission [Board] may not
  redistrict the judicial districts to provide for any judicial
  district smaller in size than an entire county except as provided by
  this section. Judicial districts smaller in size than the entire
  county may be created subsequent to a general election where a
  majority of the persons voting on the proposition adopt the
  proposition "to allow the division of ____________ County into
  judicial districts composed of parts of ____________ County." No
  redistricting plan may be proposed or adopted by the legislature,
  the Judicial Districts Board, or the Texas [Legislative]
  Redistricting Commission [Board] in anticipation of a future action
  by the voters of any county.
         (j)  Until January 1, 2021, a reference in this section to
  the Texas Redistricting Commission means the Legislative
  Redistricting Board established under Article III, Section 28, of
  this constitution. This subsection expires January 1, 2021.
         SECTION 3.  This proposed constitutional amendment shall be
  submitted to the voters at an election to be held November 7, 2017.  
  The ballot shall be printed to permit voting for or against the
  following proposition:  "The constitutional amendment establishing
  the Texas Redistricting Commission to redistrict the Texas
  Legislature and Texas congressional districts and revising
  procedures for redistricting."
 
 
 
 

Pdf version below: