A three judge federal panel in San Antonio will, today, hear arguments in a much-anticipated lawsuit over the way congressional boundaries are drawn in Texas, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
A handful of civil rights groups are suing, alleging that the districts are fashioned in a way that dilutes minority votes. Take, for instance, TX-21, which includes San Antonio's Northside, the hill country and then up to Austin. It's a heavily Republican district that also includes a sliver of democratic Travis County. Compare that to TX-28, which stretches from San Antonio to Seguin and down to Laredo, including urban and rural Texans who have wildly different priorities.
It also lumps historically Democratic voters together into one district.
Congressman Henry Cuellar, who has held that district for more than one decade, says the current maps keep the two parties comfortable, but does a disservice to the voters.
"There are people that are not willing to cross the aisle because they want to play to their party base," he tells Newsradio 1200 WOAI.
Courts have long held that racial gerrymandering is unconstitutional, but in the Texas case, the maps were drawn to politically segregate voters. So far, this is legal, but that could be changing. The U.S. Supreme Court decided in June to take up a case from Wisconsin on partisan gerrymandering.
Professor Gerald Treece at the South Texas College of Law says that could throw a wrench in the Texas plan
"We may be gravitating toward what I thought what would happen a few years ago" he says. "The states will say, 'Look. We don’t know how to do this. Why don't you federal judges figure out the lines and we'll approve them.'"
Cuellar predicts that the federal trial starting today will end as a victory for the civil rights groups, but will eventually head to the Supreme Court. And he thinks that's a good thing for democracy.
"People play to their party base, and that's wrong. People are then voting for their party and not their country."