The Soviet Republic of Texas Tuesday, October 14, 2003; Page A22 YOU MIGHT THINK America's rigged system of congressional elections couldn't get much worse. Self-serving redistricting schemes nationwide already have left an overwhelming number of seats in the House of Representatives so uncompetitive that election results are practically as preordained as in the old Soviet Union. In the last election, for example, 98 percent of incumbents were reelected, and the average winning candidate got more than 70 percent of the vote. More candidates ran without any major-party opposition than won by a margin of less than 20 percent. Yet even given this record, the just-completed Texas congressional redistricting plan represents a new low. The plan grabbed headlines as a consequence of the flight by Democrats -- twice -- from the state to prevent its adoption. The Democrats, whose only hope, being in the minority in both houses, was to prevent a quorum, eventually gave in; the legislature has adopted the plan. It's abhorrent on two counts. Texas Republicans, egged on by U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, violated a longstanding tradition by redrawing the map in the middle of a census cycle. Their new rule seems to be, why wait 10 years if you can cram something down your opponents' throats today? And their plan is designed to wipe out moderate and white Democrats from the Texas congressional delegation. We don't know whether the plan violates the Voting Rights Act or will survive legal challenge. What is clear, however, is that it will aggravate the triumph of extremes in Washington while further sovietizing America's already-fixed electoral game. The map Republicans have produced is a remarkable feat of gerrymandering. The 19th District, once confined to the western side of the state, now snakes halfway across it to scavenge voters from the current district of Democratic Rep. Charles Stenholm. Beneath it now sprawls the once-compact 11th District of Democratic Rep. Chet Edwards, which has been completely redrawn to help a friend of George W. Bush get elected to Congress. The south of the state now looks like a pinstripe suit, with narrow districts snaking from north to south in order to pack Hispanic-majority voters in just a few districts, including a new one. Dallas liberal Martin Frost, meanwhile, suddenly has a new district, 63 percent of whose voters are Republican. The goal here is not subtle. As Republican state Rep. Phil King, who helped draw the map, put it to the Austin American Statesman, "I would suspect that [any Democrat] who is not in a minority district would have a very competitive race." The current Texas House delegation includes 17 Democrats and 15 Republicans. This balance, no doubt, is a residue of a time when Democrats were more powerful in the state than they are today and reflects deliberate incumbent protection by past legislatures. It also, however, reflects the fact that some Democratic members have effectively represented their increasingly conservative districts and remained popular. The pernicious effect of partisan redistricting in general is the weakening of the center with the creation of "safe" seats for both parties -- which encourages the election of people considerably to the left or right of the state's political center of gravity. Do Texans really want a polarized delegation of 22 conservative Republicans and 10 liberal Democrats, as the current plan envisions? Do they really want a state with a white party and a minority party? Republican politicians are engineering it that way, whatever voters may want. For redistricting -- quite the inverse of elections -- is a process in which politicians get to choose their voters. It is a process that a healthy democracy would seek to reform. © 2003 The Washington Post Company
To the victors go the spoils. The party in power has always tried to screw over the minority party. This was true back in the days of the Old South, when the Democrats had a death-grip on power and used that power to thwart any chance of a Republican Party becoming strong. Only after desegregation and the shifting of the national Democratic Party further to the left were Republicans able to get some power and shift it a little bit. The same creative redistricting has also happened in states like Michigan and California, states that were once Republican strongholds but are now more tilting to Democrats thanks to demographics. I can remember the vicious fight over redistricting Louisiana had in 1992, with the infamous Cleo Fields 4th district and the lawsuits resulting from it. I expect that a few lawsuits will result from the Texas controversy. But from what I hear, the Justice Dept. and minority groups actually might sign off on this plan and agree with the GOP, for the reasons the article stated; with more minority-to-majority districts, there is a greater likelihood of those districts electing non-white congressmen. So I suppose the people most threatened by this plan are the white Democratic incumbents who've been in office for so long. But for years, districts in most states have been drawn so as not to threaten incumbents. For example, Louisiana. Unless we lose enough population to lose another Congressional seat, the current districts in Louisiana will remain unchanged for the foreseeable future. What is the solution? Well, perhaps both parties in each state could sit down and actually draw districts that make sense, districts that group similar people of similar geographic situation and similar concerns in districts. Perhaps a rule could be made that states districts can only be drawn strictly according to geography and population distribution factored with geography. BUT, if you do that, a whole lot of racially-gerrymandered districts in many states (like old Dist. 4 in Louisiana) designed to maximize the chances of a black or Hispanic person being elected to Congress, will disappear. That opens a political can of worms where many people, especially Democrats, would rather not go. Both political parties and their incumbents like the way it is too much to change things. Yeah, the Democrats lost the battle in Texas this year. But in years to come, they may win in Florida, or Georgia, or Pennsylvania. With the always prevalent understanding with the Republicans: To the victor go the spoils. The next time we have a chance to screw you, count on getting screwed. I am a lot like the folks in Texas who are caught in this situation. I am a gun-totin', Bible-thumpin', O'Reilly watchin', squirrel-eatin', North Louisiana redneck, with a Congressman who is a Democrat. And I voted for him. And I'm happy with the job he is doing and I will keep putting him back in office, unless he does something stupid like vote yes on a gun-control bill or to disband the Office of Veterans' affairs or something. Got a link to the new map of Texas Congressional Districts Biggles? I'd like to see how screwball it really is.
I agree. If anything, it is the Republican Party in Texas being blackballed because this kind of thing has gone on for decades, yet it's just now been brought up. Why now? That said, district reorganization in the middle of a census cycle is highly irregular. But that' the only unusual factor in this whole thing. Gerrymandering has gone on for decades in other states. It happens everytime the party out of power for a while is suddenly back in power, or, in the case of Texas, comes to power for the first time.
