Overview
After Republicans won control of the Texas state legislature in 2002 for the first time in 130 years, they intended to work toward establishing a majority of House of Representatives seats from Texas held by their party. After the 2002 election, Democrats had a 17–15 edge in House seats representing Texas, although the state's voters voted for Republicans in congressional races by a 17–15 margin. After a protracted partisan struggle, the legislature enacted a new congressional districting map, Plan 1374C, introduced in the Texas House by Representative Phil King of Weatherford. In the 2004 congressional elections, Republicans won 21 seats to the Democrats' 11.
The 2003 redistricting effort was extremely controversial, particularly because of the role played by the Repulican Congressman Tom DeLay. Texas had never undertaken a mid-decade redistricting that was not ordered by a court. Legal challenges to the redistricting plan were mounted on several fronts.
On June 28, 2006, the Supreme Court of the United States issued an opinion that threw out one of the districts in the plan as a violation of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and ordered the lower court to produce a remedial plan, which it did in Plan 1440C. The Supreme Court ruling was not seen as seriously threatening Republican gains from the 2004 elections.
Read more about this topic: 2003 Texas Redistricting