The Texas redistricting. No, the other one.

All this has happened before, and it all will happen again

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, architect of the 2003 Texas redistricting

There’s been a lot of noise generated recently about Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s proposal to initiate a mid-decade congressional redistricting in his state, shifting lines around in a way that would likely create five new Republican-friendly districts. This would give Republicans a better chance of retaining control of the House in the 2026 elections. Democrats are reacting strongly to it, with Democratic state legislators fleeing the state to deprive the chamber of a quorum. Critics have described the plan as everything from unfair to illegal. What surprises me is how few people are discussing that nearly the exact same thing happened not too long ago. So kids, gather round.

As with other states, Texas redrew its state and federal legislative districts in 2001, for the traditional redistricting at the beginning of every decade following the Census. Texas had split party control in its statehouse at the time, and when the legislature couldn’t agree on a new map, they empowered a panel of judges to come up with one. That map gave Democrats a very slight edge in the congressional delegation.

In 2002, however, Republicans won unified control of Texas, and they wanted a better map. U.S. Rep. Tom Delay (R-Texas), the newly elected House Majority Leader, along with Governor Rick Perry, pushed the state to do a new redistricting in 2003. As with today, this was considered by many to be highly irregular, unfair, and controversial, and Democrats sought to stop the plan. Democrats in the statehouse, fearing they were going to lose on that vote, fled the state for Oklahoma and New Mexico, temporarily depriving the legislature of a quorum. But after the governor called several special sessions, Republicans were able to pass their redistricting plan.

Critics filed an expansive lawsuit against the governor, claiming that the entire redistricting plan was a statewide partisan gerrymander and that redistricting twice in a decade was unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court, by a broad majority, rejected both these claims.

A few key takeaways from this story:

• Republicans added five new Republican members of Congress from Texas. There were 229 Republicans in the U.S. House in the 2003-04 session and 233 in the 2005-06 session. If not for the Texas redistricting, Republicans would have lost House seats in 2004.

• This was an aggressive flex of Republican power, taking advantage of a good election result. It was also a massive norm violation — redistricting almost never occur outside of Census cycles — but it was neither explicitly illegal nor unconstitutional.

• In theory, Democrats could have responded with mid-decade redistrictings in some states after performing well in 2006, but they did not. The Republican power play worked and they incurred no real cost for it.

So anyway, yes, all of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again. But one of the major differences between what’s happening today and what happened back then is the governor’s reactions to Democratic legislative delays. Governor Rick Perry sent state police into neighboring states to bring Democratic legislators home. Governor Greg Abbott is threatening to remove the Democrats from office and appoint Republicans in their place. These are both power plays, but the current one is a far greater threat to elected government.