Last time - Oklahoma. This time New Orleans! (Texas Redistricting)

Great Debates
1

Ok, here’s a bit of background. Some Republican leaders, most notably Tom DeLay® the Majority Leader of the US House, are pushing for Federal congressional redistricting in Texas(and other states, but it is Texas we’re interested in here). They say the current federal house representation of Texas(17-D 15-R) does not accurately reflect the political ideologies/will of the population as a whole. They claim the current districts are politically gerrymandered to create a Democratic majority among the US House representation. There has been some contention to this claim. A Rice University professor has actually claimed the current districts are more favorable to the Republicans than the Democrats(cited in a previous thread). The current districts are only a couple of years old, having been redrawn by a 3-judge panel of a Federal court after the previous Texas legislative session(in 2001) had been unable to come to a consensus on the issue. Traditionally districts are re-drawn after each federal census. The 2001 Texas state legislature had the responsibility to re-draw them after the 2000 census, but they failed to do so and the courts re-drew the lines.

The first steps Mr DeLay took was to appeal to the Texas Attorney General claiming the districts were unfair and seeking an order from the AG to force the state legislature to redistrict the state. The Texas AG did not find the current districts to be in violation of the voters rights acts and refused to order the state legislature to address the issue. It was noted that the state legislature is not bound by the tradition of only redistricting once per ten years and is free to re-draw the lines handed down by the court, although they are not ordered to. Having failed to get the AG to order redistricting, Republican leaders introduced a redistricting bill into the end of last year’s regular session. This was also highly irregular. Typically when redistricting is up for consideration there are town meetings and a large amount of publicity(don’t ask me why, but Texans really care about this issue). The proposed districts are highly publicised and the people know when and what is being proposed. The introduction of a redistricting bill without widespread publicity and public exposure was highly unusual. A large number of Texas House Democrats left the state to deny quorom to the Republican majority to kill the bill in the regular session.

Fast foward a bit. The Texas Governor, Rick Perry®, has called a special legislative session to address… redistricting. This time they’re following more normal Texas redistricting procedures. The public is being notified of the redistricting attempts on the evening news and proposed maps are being sent around to the various communities to review them so they can give feedback to their state legislators. So far a couple of proposed maps have been thrown out because they were found in violation of votors rights acts. Republicans are reportedly working on drawing up another map for consideration in this special session.

Texas has a couple of interesting laws on the books regulating legislative procedures. The first is the quorom law. A certain percentage of the state’s representatives must be present for the legislature to vote on ANYTHING. This is the law the “Killer D’s” used to kill the redistricting attempt in the regular session. The second applies to the Texas Senate, and is the focus of the current issue. There are 31 Texas State senators. There is a rule that 2/3 of the senators must agree to hear an issue before it will be heard, even if only a simple majority would be necessary to pass it. This allows a small group of senators(eleven) to block a bill from even entering debate.

Whew! All the background seems out of the way, so now on to the current state.

Currently ten Democrats in the Texas state senate have said they will vote against hearing any redistricting bill. They have been joined by a single Republican who also opposes redistricting. This gives the opposition the needed 11 votes in the senate to keep the issue from ever making it into debate. I found an interesting article about the current session. Here are a couple of juicy excerpts.

This whole thing has been a HUGE mess, although extremely entertaining. It seems the GOP majority intends to do everything they can to solidify their power base except run candidates who can beat the Democrats(I don’t buy the claim that the current districts are gerrymandered so that Republicans have no chance. I’ve done a bit of independent study using the results of last years election results and the district maps and demographic data and I just don’t buy it for reasons I gave towards the end of the previously cited thread). In the last federal congressional elections there were six Democratic incumbents who weren’t even facing Republican opposition(and two who didn’t face opposition from any party, green, libertarian, independent, etc). They won, and retained their seats, quite handily.

The part which bothers me most is the threat to do away with the rules of procedure in the senate to further weaken your opposition instead of compromising. This seems antithetical to the idea of compromise and fairness and smacks of the tyranny of the majority. Over a third of the senators think this is a bad idea, so instead of winning them over, we’ll change the rules. As a firm believer in democracy, I don’t like to see it railroaded like this. Majority rule, with minority rights, not majority dictatorship with minority disenfranchisement.

Enjoy,
Steven

2

Well, I’ve been to Ardmore, and New Orleans…I’d take New Orleans, too. First smart thing they’ve done.

3

The reason we Texans pay so freakin’ much attention to districting is because of our weird population density.

You see, Texas is quite large, but our population is NOT evenly distributed. Far from it. The Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex contains durn near as many people as there are in the entire state, south of San Antonio, if you discount the large coastal cities. Houston, due to its population and corporate presence, is important WAY out of proportion to its size, location, and so on. And don’t even get me started on West Texas.

ANY kind of FAIR districting is going to look gerrymandered, simply because we’re so friggin’ spread out. Of course, any UNFAIR districting will look gerrymandered, too.

The issue is this: the Texas Republicans insist that the current districting is unfair to them… despite the fact that everyone agreed on it only three years ago, and that it’s the same system that elected George Bush the governorship of Texas, installed a Republican majority in the Texas Congress, and helped springboard Bush to the Presidency.

How, pray tell, is this unfair? We have yet to get a coherent answer on that.

Meanwhile, the Texas Republicans are working furiously to get this new redistricting plan into place, hammered down, and made into law, FAST… almost as if they’re afraid that they might not be in the majority much longer.

Wonder why?

4

Duke of Rat: To be honest, the New Orleans thing was a joke. They are simply considering another flight, no idea where they’d go if they did. Still I think New Orleans would be a much better choice than a friggin Holiday Inn in Oklahoma!

Wang-Ka, I agree that any type of district map in Texas is going to look very weird. I mentioned in a previous thread that I think the district lines around Ft. Worth look whacked. The urban area of the city is one district, literally surrounded by second district which mostly encompasses the suburbs. Is this unfair?

Well, lumping the city dwellers in with each other makes sense because they’d all have the common interest of what is best for urbanites(pollution, power, drinking water, etc) and the suburbanites might have similar interests as well(new zoning laws, development issues, better roads to get to and from the city core for commuters, etc). While both urbanites and suburbanites share some interests, I think it may be fair to say that urbanites deserve their own representative and the suburbanites deserve theirs as well. The differences within may well be smaller than the differences between and the idea is to send a coherent voice to congress instead of forcing the representative to split his time between advocating issues the urbanites care about and advocating issues the suburbanites care about.

OTOH, it could be that more minorities live in the urban areas and the maps are taictly gerrymandered to concentrate this population into a single majority instead of allowing them to be swing voter minorities in more than one district. This is not the case with Ft. Worth to the best of my knowledge, but looking at the map you have to wonder why there are literally concentric districts, one circling greater Ft. Worth and another wholly with those boundries, but taking a more heavily populated area as its nucleus. Why not split them north-south, or east-west, or any number of other directions? Why that particular partitioning?

There could be legitimate reasons for these lines(as with the disparate interests between urbanites and suburbanites as I mentioned above) or illegitimate reasons(as with concentrating minorities into a single district to give them only one district whose representative has minority constituents as opposed to several). It seems that Mr DeLay was unable to convince the state Attorney General(a Republican, if it matters to anyone) that the districts were unfair as they currently stand. I find this very telling.

With that said, I have some nitpicks about your representation of the current districting plan. Firstly, not everyone agreed on it in 2001. The 2001 session ended with no legislative agreement on re-districting. A federal court re-drew the lines for the state and they went into effect in Oct or Nov 2001 IIRC. I’m not sure I’d call this a plan they all agreed on. A little history on the latest redistricting of Texas

These districts are only used to elect the state’s representatives to the federal house of representatives. This system did NOT have an effect on the election of George Bush to the governorship. That was statewide and was not affected by the way the lines here are drawn.

These districts are distinct from the state legislator’s districts as well. No state representatives share the exact same pool of constituents as the federal house representatives. The lines for State Legislators do not match up with the lines for the federal legislators.

The part I find the absolute most entertaining is the constant assertions that Texans are conservative, and that means we MUST want Republicans for our congressmen. I may agree that most Texans are fairly conservative, but I don’t buy the idea that a conservative can’t possibly vote for a Democrat. DeLay seems to have his knickers in a twist precisely BECAUSE of the conservative nature of most Texans. Most Texans, being fairly conservative, stick with the status quo(as evidenced by the 2002 elections, every single incumbent won). The status quo includes the 17-15 Democrat-Republican margin in the House of Representatives. In this case the Republicans are the ones wanting to buck the status quo and the conservative nature of Texans(which should be the Republican’s best friend) is giving them fits. There’s some sort of poetry about that I’m sure.

Enjoy,
Steven

5

Doh! That middle part of my quote doesn’t apply to the federal congressional redistricting issue. The state legislature in 2001 failed to agree on state OR federal district lines and they ALL had to be turned over to the courts. I got confused and quoted a section that didn’t really apply. Pretend that middle part isn’t there please. The first section and the last section still explain the issue fairly thoroughly.

Enjoy,
Steven

6

Thank god for Bill Ratliff, an honorable Republican if ever there was one. I was very disappointed when he decided not to run for Lt. Gov. last time (he was the acting LtG after Bush shuffled off to D.C. and Perry became Governor), because he is a fair-minded guy who’s well-respected by everyone in the Senate. Instead, we get rich dummy David Dewhurst. Blech.

Anyway, I’m already looking down the road here. Assuming that the Right Evil Bastard Party pushes through Tom DeLay’s completely unprecedented redistricting scheme, where can the Party of Goodness and Light push through comparable redistricting to punish the Pubbies? Who’s some suitably assholish Republican leader who comes from a majority-Democratic state, and whom we can redistrict right out of existence? How many more of the Right Evil Bastards can we replace with a little judicious redistricting, and in what states can we screw them silly? How much fun will it be when every one-party legislature in the country goes into full mutually-assured destruction mode for the sake of revenge and Congressional majorities?

Cynical minds want to know.

7

As much as I’d like to believe in the system, I’m afraid that incidents where the party currently in power(regardless of who they are, can’t stand either of them really) is willing to change the rules to further entrench their interests is really crappy. Makes me wonder if one of the parties ever gets a large enough majority to pass constitutional ammendments with just their votes if they’ll outlaw the other party.

You’ve got the 1/3 you need to block this bill? Well, we’ll change the rules and now you need 51% to block the bill! //3 pwn j00!

Bastards!

Enjoy,
Steven

8

Yeah ** Mtgman** I was just playing along…if they said where they were heading, the airports would be closed and roadblocks in place.

I agree with Wang-Ka…how did the Republicans gain control if the Democrats had the districs all gerrymandered?? Damn good question. I think they were gerrymandered, but when Texas started shifting from Democrat controlled to Republican, the district boundaries weren’t what made the difference.

I still think Texas is conservative enough that Republicans could get just about any warm bodies elected (look at some in there now for proof), I don’t see why this is such a high priority. They are either scared as Wang-Ka says, or there is some other plot afoot. If the latter, why haven’t the Dems spoiled the plot by going to the press?? Who knows.

I do know it’s getting old. Just wait until the legal redistricting cycle comes around and quit your damn tittie baby whining for crying out loud. You’ve been winning with the current districts, why not try running on a platform of principles instead of hollering that the rules aren’t fair?

9

So, a couple of weeks ago the house passed a map(plan 01268C) and a slew of alternate maps have been proposed by the various senators(01325C- Sen Staple’s latest, 01314C - Sen Wentworth’s, 01255C - Sen Merritt’s just to name a few). Still looks like gridlock with more than 1/3 of the senators(ten(or eleven depending on who you believe) of the twelve democrats and Ratliff) opposing any redistricting. Still some talk on the abolishment of the 2/3 needed to hear a bill rule.

So, why did I bump this thread? To introduce this proposed Texas constitutional ammendment into the discussion. A nine-member panel, independent of the legislature(in fact, holding an elected office disqualifies one from serving on this panel) who are elected(two picked from the majority and two picked from the minority in both houses plus a chairman picked by those eight who doesn’t vote) for ten years each. They start their duties each '01 year in Febuary after the federal census comes out and are in charge of districting. The bill doesn’t seem, at least on first reading, to favor one party over the other. In fact it seems almost tailored to produce gridlock.

This virtually guarantees four republicans and four democrats. Third parties are screwed again, even though if an independent/green/libertarian/etc did manage to make it onto the Texas legislature. I’m sure they’d appreciate this constitutional ammendment shafting them out of having input into districting decisions.

I’m not sure this is going to fly. As mentioned above, Texans CARE about redistricting. Setting up a independent panel which would, almost by definition, lower the visibility of the process and(assuming the panel can ever come to any consensus) has the chance of making re-districting a far more common event than it is now.

If anyone wants to see the current districts and/or any of the proposed maps, check out the RedViewer. Click on the “U.S. Congressional Districts, 108th Congress: PLANC01151” link and it will launch the (IE only) application. Clicking the “Load another plan” button on the top left will bring up a menu to allow you to choose other plans(proposed and currently in effect) and I listed a few plan numbers earlier in this post.

Also a few interesting tidbits from the news this week. First, this one

Remember how I said Texans like to have town meetings and hearings on these kinds of proposals? A bunch of pretty nasty allegations are leveled from this one

I poked around a bit and couldn’t find the full text of the Senate committee report where the 89% figure came from, couldn’t find any of the texts of the senate comittee reports actually. Little blurbs about how it was considered at such-and-such date and time, but no actual transcripts or reports. I did find an article from someone who apparently WAS able to find the report Here are the numbers they cite and a blurb from their article.


City            For       Against    Other     Total 
Houston        20 (7%)    260 (91%)  5 (2%)      285 
Dallas          45 (5%)    810 (94%)  11 (1%)    866 
Corpus Christi  54 (21%)  189 (74%)  12 (5%)    255 
Waco            32 (6%)    523 (90%)  24 (4%)    579 
Laredo          5 (4%)     106 (93%)   3 (3%)     114 
San Angelo      25 (15%)  124 (75%)  17 (10%)  166 
McAllen        36 (10%)  313 (88%)   6 (2%)     355 
TOTAL          217 (8%)   2,325 (89%)  78 (3%)  2,620

WHEE! Don’t you love Texas politics?

Enjoy,
Steven

10

“Rape is like the weather, there’s nothing you can do about it so you might as well enjoy it.” We had a guy run for governor back in the eighties who said something like that once.

11

Well, they’re gone again.

Albuquerque is no New Orleans, but it’s better than Ardmore.

Enjoy,
Steven

12

Lt. Governor David Dewhurst has been threatening to suspend the Senate’s traditional rule that it takes 2/3 of the members to bring a bill to a floor vote. That ain’t gonna work, however, because the state constitution provides neither the House nor the Senate can conduct any business without a two-thirds quorum present. As long as the 11 senators stay out of the state, the Senate is powerless to do anything about redistricting or anything else.

Check and stalemate, Mr. Perry.

13

God I love this.

Anytime anyone gives the big FU to the supreme asshat Tom DeLay, I think it is fantastic.

Listen here Tommy, you need to get it through your hairspray encrusted hair helmeted head that you just can’t redistrict whatever you please.

14

I posted this in another thread, but I feel it is on topic here as well. It speaks to Dewhursts opinion of the results of the public hearings and the continuing assertions from the Republican leadership that Texans actually want re-districting.

Enjoy,
Steven

15

Ok, big new news. I’m not positive others can access this source because I found it through my ISP’s home page for their users, but it should work. Check it out

Holy crap! We’re talking serious charges here! Charges serious enough to have them impeached or extradited. I haven’t found any detail about Dewhurst’s charges or what constitutional section they are supposed to be based on, but this is serious stuff.

Enjoy,
Steven

16

Not unless he can be more specific about what legal tactics he can employ, and how he’ll make them stick outside the state. This reads like just more bluster for the media and the GOP voter base, nothing substantive.

Albuquerque’s fairly nice. Got some things to see there, and Santa Fe’s only an hour away. I’ve even stayed in that hotel before, and it’s not bad at all. Hope they’re enjoying their visit.

17

Dewhurst’s got nothin’. Here is his pathetic little plan:

Ooooh, contempt of court. That’s sure to scare 'em into bending over for Tom DeLay. :rolleyes:

18

I think it is going to escalate. The second special session is supposed to last until the end of August IIRC. That gives them plenty of time to hammer a bill through the house(does the house have a quorum? Last I heard it didn’t, but they may now) and find some way to force the issue. Hell, they’ve shown they’re willing to change the rules to get their way(as shown by Dewhurst saying he’d do away with the rule of twenty-one to allow the bill to come to a vote). I’m thinking this is becoming a real point of pride and we’re going to see something drastic fairly soon. It would be a big boon to the Republicans to have an extra five to eight seats in the congress for next year, assuming Bush gets re-elected. With the re-districting happening, or threatening to happen, in several states(New Mexico, Colorado, Florida, Texas, and a couple others IIRC) this is the biggest power grab I can recall. Bush will need all the support he can get in the house and senate to survive during the rocky road I believe lies ahead of him as a result of his foreign policy. I simply don’t think the Republicans will give this up. I think they’ll try at least one more time before the 2004 elections.

Enjoy,
Steven

19

Like I said a few weeks ago: “Cynical minds want to know.” Cry havoc and let loose the dogs of politics.

20

HAVOC!

Enjoy,
Steven