When power picks the people: How redistricting in Texas works

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Ordinary voters can be forgiven if their eyes don't well up over the possibility of a few Congress members losing their seats. Beginning Monday, the Legislature convenes a special session, and one of the agenda items is to tackle the unusual mid-decade redrawing of Texas' district boundaries — a move aimed at boosting Republican clout in Washington.
It's true that much of the media coverage leading into the special session has centered on the horse-race aspect of perhaps one of the most political activities lawmakers engage in. The coverage tends to focus on which members might be drawn out of office, protected, or newly positioned to win reconfigured districts.
As interesting as all that might be for political junkies and politicians whose necks are on the line, the real-world implications go deeper. Let's start with the basic school civics question: What difference does it make which politician goes to Washington to represent which part of Texas?
The answer might sound more than a bit naive, though it shouldn't be. The federal government is intrusive, demanding, too opaque to most Americans and very, very expensive to operate. For every Texan — actually for every American — who's not actually working in the federal government, their most accountable point of contact in the nation's capital is their Congress member.
Your aging parent needs help with Social Security or Medicare, call your congressman's office. Your graduating senior wants to go to West Point, the Naval Academy or any of the other service academies, a nomination from your congressman will go a long way. You're getting jacked around trying to apply for some sort of federal assistance, or you want to complain that any federal assistance is a black hole for wasted money, show up at the next town hall your member of Congress hosts.
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Now, here's where the politics get even more political, and more than a little bit complicated. The makeup of congressional districts is not random. And even though Texas has 38 U.S. House members, each individual Texan has exactly one. U.S. senators are a different matter, so let's put a pin in that topic for now.
Congressional districts, in a perfect world, are drawn once a decade to align with the latest figures from the U.S. Census. They are supposed to be made up of what are called "communities of interest." That should mean that families in the High Plains aren't matched up in a congressional district with residents of downtown condos in places like Austin, Houston or San Antonio.
The districts are also supposed to be as geographically compact as possible, giving constituents at least some sense of community. And they're not supposed to be drawn so that communities of color are effectively shut out when it comes to representation.
But the world is not perfect. And Texas' diversity — whether it be geographic, economic, commercial, climate, demographic or political — means that many of the lofty goals laid out in the previous paragraph have to be set aside or outright ignored.
Now let's mix in population imperatives. A district covering vast expanses of cotton farms and cattle ranches has to have about the same number of actual people as one where most people live just a couple of feet, or just a couple of floors, from their neighbors.
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Adding another layer of complexity, let's consider that in the 1970s, each of the 435 members of the U.S. House represented about 470,000 people. In the half-century since, the U.S. population has grown by approximately 130 million. However, the number of Congress members — 435 — has remained the same as it was when disco topped the charts. That means each member has roughly 785,000 constituents.
So, all that means that getting the attention of your member of Congress is about twice as hard as it was for your grandparents when they were your age.
Finally, here's the uncomfortable truth: you don't truly choose your representative — your Congress member, in effect, chooses you. And that's how redistricting actually works.
The map drawers have highly sophisticated computer programs that tell them which neighborhoods tend to vote for one party or the other. The programs let them know the area's racial composition, about how much money families make, how those families spend that money, whether they have kids or whether they prefer pets, whether they're still working, whether they're looking for work, or whether they're retired.
And some neighborhoods get randomly assigned to one district or another because they'll balance out the population but will have no real influence on election day.
All that information gets dissected, bisected and digested, and members of Congress and wannabe members of Congress will decide which neighborhoods, not which individuals, are most likely to vote for them. So if you get swept into a district that's likely to elect someone of your political persuasion, good for you. If you're in the opposite camp, better luck when they do it all again in 2031. Or maybe sooner, depending on the mood of whoever's in charge at the time.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas redistricting is all about the politicians, it's never about you