This Week in Austin: Redistricting mid-decade, why not a better blue and red comprise on the gerrymandering?

By Rita Cook
Correspondent
Texas Metro News

I know conducting a mid-decade census is unheard of, right?

So is all the money being wasted on one thing or another that our politicians should have had the foresight to consider in the first place.

The fact is the 2020 census reportedly saw an undercount in Texas to the tune of at least 547,968 people who were missed according to the Texas Census Institute.

That is federal money that both the red and blue lost out on because the census was not accurate.

So now it is a redo mid-decade redistricting.

But it appears to me now, it is not about the federal money Texans lost out on, but instead about red and blue seats in the next election.

Typical politics and I get it, I would not want to lose my seat either.

At this point why not just determine the outcome by paper, scissors, rock?

That is where we are in politics in summer 2025.

Paper means no redistricting; scissors mean yes on redistricting and rock means redoing the Texas census.

It was also reported the undercount meant Texas lost a potential U.S. House seat, which is not a good thing.

Okay, yes, a mid-decade census is going to be laughed out of the room. However, would that not be an honest count (if done correctly neither the red nor blue could argue)?

It is also quite rare to redraw boundary lines willy nilly when there are many people outraged due to the fact this has become a political quagmire versus a logical dilemma to help Texans not the politicians jockeying for their seats.

Term limits anyone, that would end a lot of this mess.

I recently spoke with the Ellis County GOP Chair Randy Bellamy about the redistricting issue.

I had been trying for over a week to figure out the actual reason it was happening so fast and furious other than “because Trump said so,” which I have heard from those against it.

Another comment “It is a power grab.”

Neither would be in question if there was a recount since the 2020 census failed so miserably in Texas?

There has been the comment there should be more red seats.

To that I will say Texas has notoriously been red when you get outside the large cities. However, gerrymandering of district lines blue and red deserves a compromise and has nothing to do with the inaccurate census count.

Bellamy explained in Ellis County the census said there were about 192,000 people, when in truth it was upwards of 250,000.

My question is if Ellis County is being touted as the 8^th fastest growing county in the United States by the US Census Bureau is that a fact since the census numbers have been shown to have been undercounted in Texas or just a wild guess? This brings so many issues into question.

Texas 2036 said in 2020, the census reported Texas’ population was at 29,145,505, which was a 16 percent jump up from 25,145,561 in 2010. However, a new census report [it was not indicated where these new numbers came from] apparently indicated Texas’ population “may have been undercounted anywhere from 166,129 to 953,059 people.”

I understand we need to do something about the additional political seats Texas deserves and the loss of federal funding and I am sure everyone agrees with that in theory.

However, what the blue people really seem to be outraged about is how the redistricting lines are being redrawn due to the census undercount.

Fast forward to the special session that began in Austin on July 21 that has this redistricting issue as part of the lawmaker’s bundle of joy to navigate.

And because this item was on the “July up to $2 million in taxpayer’s dollars” special session the 15 members of the House Democratic Caucus probably should not have gone traveling to Illinois and California to talk with other state leaders on how to stop the GOPs redistricting efforts.

Perhaps talking with their colleagues instead while both sides put on their big boy and girl pants and remember what is at stake here, the Texans you represent who are the losers.

Instead, July’s roughly $2 million special session was a taxpayer drain.

You can bet there will be another million dollar-plus special session called for August, will that be a washout too?

During the last legislative session in which there ended up being 106 days of special sessions in 2023 that cost taxpayers about $4.2 million in per diem allowances that did not include staff, supplies and the two weeks spent on the Attorney General Ken Paxton impeachment trial.

Maybe the faulty census numbers are worth a special session consideration but so is a compromised fair system of determining new district lines too.

As for now, it just seems to be a cacophony of confusion and egos.