Redistricting changed Texas' political landscape in 2003; will it happen again?
ORG XMIT: *S183E9348* Texas State Senators arrived in Laredo, Texas late Wednesday afternoon on September 10, 2003 after spending 45 days in Albuquerque, New Mexico. They held a rally at a Laredo airport hanger.
On the right is Texas State Senator Royce West of Dallas being introduced.The Senators are scheduled to attend a federal hearing in Laredo on Thursday. The Texas Senate Democrats known as the "Texas Eleven" have been staying in Albuquerque, New Mexico, so the Texas Senate can not vote on the redistricting issue. One member, John Whitmire of Houston returned to Texas early last week. 10192004xNewsIn 2003, just three years after the decennial census, Texas Republicans developed a proposal to redraw that state’s congressional boundaries so provocative it caused 52 House Democrats to charter a bus to Oklahoma to prevent the Legislature from having the quorum needed to approve the plan. The proposal — pushed by then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay — would have obliterated the Democrats’ 17-15 majority in the state’s delegation to Congress. The new map was designed to reflect the GOP’s emergence as the state’s dominant political party. Democrats tried hard to stop them, including staging a second quorum break during a special session on the plan. This time, 11 Texas senators left the state for Albuquerque, N.M. The dramatic quorum breaks only stalled redistricting, as Republican Gov. Rick Perry kept calling special sessions until one Democratic senator returned to Austin and the bill was passed.The following year Democrats across the state found themselves in drastically altered districts and were driven out of office. Their political operations were destroyed in areas where Democrats were competitive — at least at that moment. The advantage Democrats enjoyed in the state’s delegation to Congress was gone. Twenty-two years later and at the urging of President Donald Trump, Texas Republicans are once again pushing a mid-decade redistricting process, this time to help the GOP maintain control of the U.S. House in next year’s midterm elections in order for Trump to continue implementing his agenda. Historically the party in power takes losses in midterms, so Trump is using Texas, and perhaps other red states, to hedge against losing control of the House.Whether a potential redistricting effort this year will have a similar impact is up for debate. The effort may be dampened because there is concern even within the Republican majority that an attempt to win more seats could unintentionally cost some veteran Republican representatives their jobs. Special session redistricting is another test of how hardball politics can be an effective tool to seize or maintain political power. Typically, redistricting benefits the party in power by shifting boundaries in such a way that it increases the number of districts where that party has a majority of registered voters. Republicans in the upcoming special session could redraw boundaries to increase the number of those districts, but the advantage in those districts would be thin and come at the cost of shrinking the margin in current districts held by GOP incumbents.Critics have another concern. The move often disenfranchises voters of color who disproportionately vote Democratic. Many of those voters would be moved out of districts currently represented by Democrats into districts where there would be a Republican majority.“If you’re looking for the time when the page turned from shared power to uncontested Republican control of every major aspect of Texas government, you don’t have to look any further than the Tom DeLay mid-decade redistricting,” said Matt Angle, a political strategist who at the time was chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Martin Frost, then a Dallas Democrat who was targeted by Republicans in the 2003 redistricting fight. On the right is Texas State Senator Royce West of Dallas being introduced.The Senators are scheduled to attend a federal hearing in Laredo on Thursday. The Texas Senate Democrats known as the "Texas Eleven" have been staying in Albuquerque, New Mexico, so the Texas Senate can not vote on the redistricting issue. One member, John Whitmire of Houston returned to Texas early last week. 10192004xNewsAngle said Democrats would have likely lost some congressional seats over time, given the voting patterns in some districts that had become more conservative. The DeLay-driven plan accelerated that process and went a step further by making swing districts and even safe Democratic districts more Republican. It also set a precedent, Angle said, of violating the voting rights of people of color under the guise of political gerrymandering and upending any pretense of fairness in drawing legislative and congressional boundaries. “Democrats have never really competed for a fair percentage of congressional seats since then, but it went beyond that,” Angle said. “It also created the template for what Republicans would use for the state House and the state Senate. It’s so-called partisan gerrymandering as a cloak to engage in racial gerrymandering. The method that they used is still being used to consistently undermine the voting strength of Black and Hispanic voters across the state.” Chris Homan, a Republican consultant who managed the 2004 campaign of Rep. Pete Sessions, then a Dallas Republican and a key figure in the redistricting fight, said redrawing congressional boundaries was necessary.“What that redistricting reflected was the actual voting preferences of Texans based on statewide elections,” Homan said. “We’re winning every statewide race and yet the existing congressional map was so thoroughly gerrymandered and in an absolutely ruthless fashion.”“When we took the statehouse, we then had the opportunity to repay the favor Democrats had been doing for us all those years, and that made a major swing occur in the makeup of the Texas congressional delegation.”“It makes total sense for Republicans to want to pick up more seats in Texas, but we’ve got to look at the potential downsides,” said Republican political consultant Brendan Steinhauser. Steinhauser said most incumbents are comfortable when 60% of the voters in a district identify with their party. Anything less makes them sweat a little. “A lot of these members want deep red, very safe districts and are terrified of scenarios where they might have competitive races,” Steinhauser said. “They’re also thinking about having to raise more money, and having to work harder and having to consider voters in the middle — the independent voters, the moderates — more than they have in the past.”“I understand the theory,” Neerman said. “You look at the gains that the Republican Party has made along the border areas, down in South Texas, and look at the growth of the number of Republican voters that turned out in the last election, it doesn’t seem like there’s a real strong need to have a redistricting.” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott added redistricting to the special session call after the U.S. Department of Justice sent a letter warning Texas officials that four of the state’s majority-minority congressional districts are unconstitutionally gerrymandered. In 2021 lawmakers said the Texas maps were drawn in a color-blind approach. In response to the DOJ, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Texas rejects race-based decisions in its redistricting process, but welcomed “continued dialogue” on how congressional districts can “best serve Texas voters.” Three of the four districts cited by the DOJ are held by Black or Latino voters. The other seat is vacant and previously held by Sylvester Turner, a pioneering Black politician who died in March.One of the seats in question is North Texas’ District 33, which is represented by Fort Worth Democrat Marc Veasey. Dave Carney, Abbott’s chief political strategist, said “the fairer the districts, the better off we all are.” He said he did not know if Republicans could squeeze five more districts in their favor, as Trump predicted.A turning point was 1994, when George W. Bush unseated Democrat Ann Richards to become governor.The 2002 elections provided the watershed event. Republicans won the Texas House for the first time since Reconstruction and expanded their majority in the Senate. Bush — a Texan — sat in the White House. “That was a major turning point,” said Southern Methodist University political scientist Cal Jillson. “That period from Bush’s reelection to carrying the Texas House and establishing full Republican control has set the agenda from then to now. The Democrats have never recovered.” With Republicans Rick Perry as governor, David Dewhurst as lieutenant governor and Tom Craddick as House speaker, the GOP had the clout to push through its agenda, including redistricting. The last time Texas lawmakers developed new boundaries was 1991. Legislative redistricting didn’t occur after the 2000 Census because Democrats controlled the Texas House and blocked GOP-friendly proposals.ORG XMIT: *S0406014927* Texas House Speaker Tom Craddick, R-Midland, talks to journalists Wednesday, May 21, 2003, in Austin, Texas. Craddick was questioned about the destruction of documents dealing with the search for Democratic state legislators who fled to Oklahoma to block a congressional redistricting bill. Craddick said he had no knowledge of the document destruction by the Texas Department of Public Safety. AT102With Republicans and Democrats at loggerheads, a 2001 three-judge panel left the 1991 congressional boundaries unchanged. That resulted in Democrats keeping their majority in the state’s congressional delegation after the 2002 elections, even as Republicans rolled to decisive victories elsewhere. Texas Solicitor General R. Ted Cruz, left, and Don. R. Willett, right, leave the federal courthouse after a pre-trial hearing on Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2003, in Austin, Texas. Lawyers and federal judges met earlier to plan for the upcoming redistricting trial. Willett is deputy Attorney General for Legal Counsel. ORG XMIT: AT103In contrast to congressional boundaries, Texas state House and Senate districts were redrawn by the heavily Republican Legislative Redistricting Board when the Legislature couldn’t agree on a plan.“The GOP policy argument for 2003 ‘mid-decade’ redistricting was based on the Legislature’s failure to redistrict in 2001. In that session, the divided Legislature was at an impasse over redistricting, which allowed congressional district lines to continue that were no longer representative of the Republican majority in Texas,” said former state Rep. Dan Branch, R-Dallas. “The fact that the Texas congressional representation in Washington was still dominated by Democrats, which didn’t reflect the current demographics and electoral voting patterns of the state, was the central argument.” At the urging of DeLay, whose nickname was “the Hammer,” Republicans tackled redistricting near the end of the 2003 legislative session. The proposed map made it clear Republicans were aiming to not just make the delegation reflective of Texas election results, but to shatter the Democrats’ advantage. Because the issue surfaced so late in the 140-day legislative session, 52 House Democrats broke quorum to delay the bill, avoiding the Texas Rangers who actively sought to bring them back to the chamber. For four days the so-called Killer Ds camped at a Holiday Inn in Ardmore, Okla., as the legislative session expired.Perry persisted and called a special session. This time Democratic senators were able to block redistricting because of a Senate rule that required a two-thirds majority to bring legislation to the floor. When Perry called a second special session, where the two-thirds rule was expected to be suspended, 11 Democratic senators left the state for Albuquerque. While the House quorum break was brief, the Democratic senators stayed away from Texas for weeks. It was a spectacle in Albuquerque and Texas. Senators dared not sneak home because law enforcement officials could be staking out their houses.Dewhurst would open Senate meetings with a weather report on the blistering Austin heat, while mentioning the cooler temperatures in New Mexico. The Marriott hotel where the senators stayed and held meetings attracted gawkers and politicians who dropped by the hotel to offer support.In 2003, Steinhauser, the Republican consultant, was an intern for state Rep. Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth. He remembers both quorum breaks. “It was just kind of surreal,” Steinhauser said. “I remember they rolled out someone in a chicken suit and called them the Chicken Ds. “It was entertainment to say the least.” ORG XMIT: *S0406687968* Texas Senator John Whitmire flies back to Houston Tuesday Sept. 2, 2003. Whitmire, the Texas Senates longest serving Senator, has been in New Mexico with ten other Democrates to prevent a quorum on a special session called by Republicans on redistricting. 09032003xNewsThe Senate quorum break lasted until Perry called a third special session and Sen. John Whitmire of Houston returned to Senate chambers. In October the protracted battle ended and Republicans approved the plan.Seven Democrats impacted by redistricting lost reelection, did not seek another term or switched parties in 2004. Waco’s Chet Edwards survived in a Republican district, but the numbers advantage for Republicans caught up with him in 2010, when he lost to Republican Bill Flores. Lloyd Doggett of Austin won in a redrawn district and is still in Congress. Houston Democrat Gene Green also won in 2004 and kept the seat until his 2018 retirement. Houston Democrat Chris Bell was one of the seven targeted Democrats who did not return. He lost reelection to Al Green, a Black Democrat who still holds the seat.After the 2004 elections, Republicans won 21 seats and the Democrats controlled 11. All but one of the districts — South Texas’ District 23 — survived legal challenges. Republican Tony Gonzales of San Antonio now represents that district. “Their goal was to maximize the Republican districts and eliminate as many incumbent Democrats from Congress as possible,” said Frost, D-Dallas. ”A number of us, myself included, were not reelected in 2004 as a result.”Today Dallas County is mostly blue, but the Democratic carnage from 2003 is still being felt in other parts of the state where Democrats were wiped out. That includes east, west and swaths of central Texas.Members of Congress have political organizations that actively engage with voters. Their district offices offer constituent services that enhance political outreach. The loss of those offices hindered the ability of Democrats to reach voters. “When they ran for reelection they usually spent a lot of money turning out the Democratic vote,” Frost said, “and so when those members had their districts eliminated … it decreased Democratic turnout in a lot of those parts of the state.” Frost was the ranking member on the powerful House Rules Committee and was in line to one day become chairman. “It was very harmful to the Democratic Party,” he said. “These were experienced members who had seniority and would have wound up being committee chairs in future years.”ORG XMIT: *S0406301534* Rep. Martin Frost, D-Texas, speaks at a news conference Tuesday, July 8, 2003, in Dallas. Frost and other elected officials were attending a public hearing of the Senate Jurisprudence Committee looking at redistricting. DNJ101 07222003xMetro 03112004xMetro“By eliminating Democratic voices in marginal districts, especially in the rural parts of the state, you now have entire media markets, millions of Texans, who don’t hear anything directly from Democrats because there are no elected Democrats in their areas,” Angle said. “The only voices they hear are Republican voices. If they hear from Democrats, it’s somebody nationally from Washington or it’s somebody coming out of Austin, nothing local.Sessions, R-Waco, was a Dallas congressman when in 2004 he beat Frost as part of the GOP onslaught after redistricting. He said it was critical that he beat Frost in a district that included much of Oak Cliff, as well as North Dallas. Frost picked the gerrymandered district in which to run, the best of the options available to him after the new maps were approved. “Politics is very interesting,” Sessions said. “When you win in the world, we understand that it’s winner-take-all.”“When people have majorities they tend to do things with them,” Sessions said. “They tend to do things and it’s not unusual that sometimes they do things that are hard. They don’t do things that are easy, because they’ve got people fired up.” ORG XMIT: *S0410605374* 10/20/2004 -- #78415--- Democratic Party Congressman Martin Frost and Republican foe Pete Sessions are shown their television debate that was aired on KERA - TV . 04092006xNEWSSessions represented the 32nd Congressional District through 2018, the year former NFL player and Democrat Colin Allred beat him to flip the district from red to blue. He rebounded, however, moving back to his hometown to represent the Waco area District 17. And though it has changed, District 32, now represented by Democrat Julie Johnson, could be targeted by Trump and Republicans in this summer’s redistricting effort.Sessions probably held on longer than demographics forecast. In 2004 Lupe Valdez was elected sheriff, giving Democrats their first countywide win in Dallas. In 2006 Democrats won every contested countywide race on the ballot, flipping the former GOP stronghold from red to blue. “The cracks started showing in 2004,” Neerman said, noting how near miraculous it was for Sessions to hold on for 14 years after the 2003 map was implemented, though at times he ran lightly or unopposed.A federal court is currently considering a lawsuit brought by voting rights groups against the 2021 legislative boundary changes. The El PasoRepublicans have a 25 to 12 edge in the congressional delegation. One Houston-area seat that leans toward the Democrats has been open sinceOutside of a few swing districts in South Texas, the state’s congressional districts are largely drawn to protect incumbents. They lean heavily Democratic or Republican.That’s why some analysts say redistricting can be tricky. Changing the boundaries could put more districts in play for Republicans by adding more Republican voters, while putting others in jeopardy by reducing the number of Republicans in their districts. “If Republicans do this, they are risking a lot because in order to do what they’re talking about doing, they have to spread out Republican voters across a lot more districts to give them a shot to win more seats,” said state Rep. Chris Turner, D-Grand Prairie, who was an operative who assisted Democrats during their 2003 quorum breaks. “In doing so, they’re going to weaken some of the districts they currently hold, so it’s a risky game to play.” Still, Trump recently told reporters that a Texas redistricting plan could net Republicans up to five congressional seats, though no maps have been made public. If that happened, Democrats would be in the same situation Republicans decried in 2001 — a Congressional tilt that’s not representative of the statewide voter makeup.Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, left, and President Donald Trump are briefed on flood damage in Kerrville, Texas, Friday, July 11, 2025. Five more seats would give Republicans 80% of the Texas congressional districts, even though last year former Vice President Kamala Harris got 42% of the Texas vote against Trump. It also would give them a cushion to protect against potential losses in other, more competitive states. “In our worst years, Democrats now get 42 to 43% of the vote on races,” Angle said, adding that if the number of Republicans in the delegation is increased from 25 to 30, it would once more further marginalize voters of color. “If you limit Democrats to only eight districts, you’re also limiting the influence that minorities have in Texas races to only eight out of 38 districts. It’s not only out of balance politically, it’s out of balance racially.”Sessions said he hasn’t seen or discussed any maps, but has heard the chatter. He said changing congressional boundaries would further put the national focus in 2026 on Texas. “It’s going to produce, they say, five Republican seats. That’s going to bring a lot of people to the dance,” Sessions said. “Redistricting like this creates high-stakes politics, candidates and issues. This will create a race or two that are seen across the nation.”The Howard University graduate and Chicago native has covered four presidential campaigns and written extensively about local, state and national politics. Before The News, he was a reporter at The Kansas City Star and The Chicago Defender. You can catch Gromer every Sunday at 8:30 a.m. on NBC 5's Lone Star Politics.
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