The Texas Constitution of 1876 required that the Legislature pass a redistricting plan during the first session after the publication of the decennial national census of the population.
The legislature decided to redraw the state's 18 districts almost at the end of the decade in an effort to punish Rep. A. Jeff McLemore of Houston for his opposition to President Woodrow Wilson (a fellow-Democrat) based on Wilson's decision to seek U.S entry into World War I. McLemore and fellow Houstonians Daniel E. Garrett (also an at-large congressman) and Joe H. Eagle were all drawn into the 8th congressional district.
The failure to redistrict favored the rural areas at the expense of Texas's growing urban centers.
The latter's faster population growth meant they deserved additional seats in the state Legislature and the U.S.
"[3] The great imbalance in representation between declining rural populations and growing urban interests that had developed over the decades finally resulted in the voters adopting a state constitutional amendment in 1948 that gave the Legislature a deadline to enact a redistricting plan as specified under the original Constitution.
That seat remained at-large throughout the decade; the legislature finally adopted the next redistricting plan in time for the 1958 general election.
[4] In the 1964 case of Reynolds v. Sims, the United States Supreme Court determined that the general basis of apportionment should be "one person, one vote.
This holding was applied explicitly to congressional districts by the Supreme Court in the 1964 case of Wesberry v. Sanders.
In Bush v. Martin, plaintiffs from two congressional districts asserted that, in the round, those in Texas were unconstitutional.
The three-judge Federal District Court found that the population disparity among Texas congressional districts—ranging from 216,371 to 951,527—was "indeed spectacular."
The Texas legislature passed a poll tax in 1901, which had to be paid by people wanting to register to vote.
In what essentially became a one-party Democratic state after minorities were disenfranchised, Texas said that only whites could vote in primaries - effectively the only competitive races.