Erica Grieder: Partisan redistricting? Harris County maps show both parties play that game

Redrawing political lines is never easy, even if maps are adopted without too many court fights and other delays. Take Harris County. We have new maps for commissioners court precincts, adopted in October on a 3-2 vote and already official. The Texas Supreme Court earlier this month rejected a Republican-led challenge to the plans. But when I called Precinct 4 Commissioner Jack Cagle’s office Thursday, I found the staff in the midst of dealing with the implementation. The precinct has been heavily redrawn, to cover most of west Harris County, including Katy, Cinco Ranch, and Bellaire, as well as half of Tomball, where he lives. “It almost looks like a crawdad, with the tail on there,” Cagle mused, when he came to the phone. More to the point, Precinct 4 now looks an awful lot like the old Precinct 3, represented by the court’s other Republican, Tom Ramsey. Ramsey now represents a Precinct 3 that includes Spring, Jersey Village, the other half of Tomball—in other words, a Precinct 3 that looks a fair amount like the old Precinct 4.

Confusing, right? “A lot of this was gratuitous viciousness,” Cagle continued, explaining he and Ramsey, and the men and women who work for both precincts, have had to work closely together to avoid service disruptions, as people are now calling their offices about potholes technically in the other precinct. The two Republicans have been jokingly referring to “Precinct 7” an amalgamated district composed of Precincts 3 and 4, covering the people who currently live in either-many of whom lived in the other, before the maps were changed. As part of the once a decade process, the new maps were put forward by Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis, a Democrat whose precinct remains largely, serenely unchanged. At first glance it may look like a simple partisan gerrymander. The new Precinct 3, which will be on the ballot in 2024, is more safely Republican than its previous iteration, but Precinct 4 has become a “majority-minority” district, and more Democratic. It was practically inevitable that Cagle or Ramsey, or both, would be targeted in this round of redistricting. They are Republicans, serving on a commissioners court with a Democratic majority-in a state where Republicans are usually able to steamroll Democrats with impunity, and prone to do so with glee. And Precinct 3 was bound to lose some voters, given its population growth over the past decade. An overarching goal of redistricting is to ensure roughly equivalent populations in each precinct, in keeping with the “one person, one vote” principle.