Fort Bend County commissioners last week – over the advice of an attorney the court had previously used to advise on redistricting matters – voted along party lines to approve the rules for the citizens advisory committee it had previously empaneled to do a rare, mid-decade redistricting of the county’s precinct lines.
But that 3-2 vote came only after – following a rare, behind-closed-doors mid-meeting conference of commissioners and the county attorney – the commissioners agreed to drop several clauses of the draft rules that referred to the controversial 2021 redistricting plan as unequivocally being in violation of the federal Voting Rights Act.
It was just the latest salvo in the redistricting imbroglio that has consumed much of the court’s meetings since March. As with the Texas Legislature’s current effort to redraw congressional district lines, the Republican-led Fort Bend effort is occurring in the middle of the decade. Typically, redistricting at the state and local level is done soon after the once-per-decade U.S. Census results are released…