"electorally ghettoized" by the GOP in Texas

[NewYorkerfromMass]

I've been looking for a simple way to describe the Texas re-districting and the motivation behind it. The NYTimes summed it up rather nicely in their editorial today. "...Black and Hispanic voters are complaining of being electorally ghettoized into fewer districts. They have a strong case to make..."
I see also where Jesse Jackson will join in the court fight against the plan with regard to the Voting Rights Act.

Let's hope that unlike Florida voter "felon" purge 2000, the anti-democratic Republican party will have finally been caught with its hand in the election stealing/rigging cookie jar.

Graphic of the cubist jigsaw puzzle

I also understand there are more pissed off Texans than not over this.
Perhaps ( I hope) they have finally gone too far?

[Zero Gravitas]

1. Where's the Outrage?

Didn't Texas already go through one re-disctring following the last Census. IS this anything but a blatent power grab, anaked attempt to dis-enfranchise half the population?

The modern Republican party does not believe in democracy: impeach, sue, recall, re-redistrct, anything but let everyone vote and count ALL the votes.

[StClone]

2. Didn't California

Just elect Gray Davis? There is fodder here, but the power grubbers have such control that they could care less how they appear. I can assume when the last T. rex roamed the earth it either had to eat another T. rex or starve.

[rootvg]

3. Have You...

...ever lived in Texas? I have - eight years worth, and it's a different world. Their Democrats are more conservatives than your Republicans. It's the Deep South, for crissake. It's the kind of place that doesn't have state income tax or corporate income tax and where the legislature meets for six months every two years with part time representatives - most of whom are doctors and lawyers or other pillar-of-the-community types. It's a very stiff and staid culture.

They'll get away with it. Trust me, but that's not all. Texas prides itself on the ability to attract corporate headquarters because of their tax policy, and we're coming into another cycle where they'll do just that. How do you think American Airlines got to Dallas in 1979? They stole Kinkos from Silicon Valley last year. They stole JCPenney from New York in 1992. This is what they do. They do it well, no one's going to stop them and the effect of it is changing our politics.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

4. So what does any of that have to do with representation

of constituents?

[rootvg]

5. What It Means...

...is that, outside of a few minority groups, most of the state is in agreement with what's happened or just doesn't care. They hate government.

You have to understand what's happened in the Dallas and Houston burbs over the past ten years. It was already basically impossible for a Democrat to get elected in that state and now it'll get even worse. There are SO many incredibly wealthy people there because of the tax situation and they're really good at taking care of themselves and their buddies. Lots of media people and movie stars list their residency as Texas because of this: Sandra Bullock, Tommy Lee Jones, the list goes on. Tom Cruise was supposedly looking at houses in Plano about five years ago. I once shared a airport shuttle with Terry Bradshaw, who was on his way from Dallas to Washington Dulles to cover a game for Fox. He's a hell of a nice guy but VERY beat up from his football days. You can see it in his face. Says his knees hurt every day.

In some states, liberals could possibly fight back, but not there. It's most conservative place I've ever been, almost fascist. They're proud of it, very proud.

When people say Don't Mess With Texas, there's a reason. Trust me.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

7. The map is indefensible

I don't care if you are a Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative, it is completely alien to the notion of local representation. It is true that most every state has a district which is a bizarre shape, but this map take the cake in that regard. It was so clearly concieved with the intent of achieving a desired result that I have no doubt it will be DOA in the courtroom.

It is an affront to democracy. (Not that we're getting used to and benumbed by such affronts.)

[rootvg]

8. Sure...

...it's an affront to democracy. I'm not arguing that. I'm saying that not enough people there care to do something about it.

I can definitely tell that you've never lived there. It's NOT an open minded, intellectual kind of place. Twenty percent of the state drops out of high school, yet it's one of the wealthiest states in the nation. They HATE government, they HATE pointy headed intellectuals and they HATE unions. Ask one of them!

There are people who are so powerful and so wealthy...and they DEFINITELY don't care what anyone outside Texas thinks of them. Tom Delay is a perfect example.

The schools stink, and no one cares. The infrastructure stinks, and no one cares. Some of the dumbest people I've ever met live there. It's truly Texas against the world. They WILL NOT change, and if Washington forces a state income tax (discussed during Ann Richards' tenure as governor), there will be a armed uprising there. These people are powerful, wealthy and NUTS. They are influencing our politics and part of what's driving the country to the right, and the Democrats had better be doing something about it instead of hoping it will go away.

[maha]

6. I am glad to hear ...

There are pissed off Texans. I've been following this issue as closely as I can, but I live in New York.

For anyone getting into a flame with a right-winger over the rightness or wrongness of the map redraw, I put together some background that provides ammunition:

http://www.mahablog.com/2003.10.12_arch.html#1066085924505

For example, among other things, wingnuts will argue that the old map was bad because it had been drawn up by a panel of judges instead of by the legislature. However, it is very common for state legislatures to be unable to agree on a map so that judges have to draw it; happens all the time. It even has happened in Texas before and the Repugs didn't object then.

In 1996 a three-judge panel re-drew Texas congressional districts, saying that the districts concentrated too many votes in the hands of minorities.

They gave then-Gov. George W. Bush a chance to call a special session to draw the districts. He refused to do so. So the judges drew new lines for those three districts.

They did so over the objections of then-Speaker Laney and then-Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock, the Democrat who presided over the Texas Senate. The ripple from the three districts affected 10 others. The judges decreed that in those 13 districts, filing would re-open for special elections to be held simultaneously with the November 5 general election. (Dave McNeely, "Justice in Redistricting in Eye of the Beholder," The Fort Bend, Southwest Star, July 9, 2003)

Repugs have actually argued at me that the reason Tom DeLay intervened in the district map is that it wasn't fair to minorities. And they actually believe this.

It's not normal for a map to be redrawn so quickly after the last one was approved (two years). In the 19th century, state legislatures got into a pattern of never-ending warfare over district boundaries, but sometime during the Progressive Era (think Teddy Roosevelt) they realized that government couldn't function this way, and for a century or so it's been the practice to redraw boundaries only after the census or in the event of a Voting Rights Act court challenge of the bounaries.

For a legislature to redraw state boundaries just because they could is NOT politics as usual, and anyone who says so needs to have this explained to them. Firmly.