Remember the redistricting saga that happened back in 2003!
I would add the reminder that Craddick was responsible for the Congressional redistricting fiasco that stripped the Texas delegation of senior Democratic members who now likely would be committee chairs and gerrymandered Travis County into districts designed to defeat Congressman Lloyd Doggett.
In a blatant partisan attempt to create more Republican congressional seats in Texas, Congressman Tom Delay and House Speaker Tom Craddick were trying to jam through an outrageous redistricting plan.
The Delay-Craddick Plan would have:
Thrown out congressional districts that were drawn in 2001 and then approved by the U.S. Supreme Court. The districts were used during Texas congressional elections in 2002. Districts are never redrawn in the middle of a decade absent a court order requiring them to do so.
Ignored an opinion issued by the Republican Texas Attorney General this spring stating specifically that the Legislature was not required to act on redistricting.
Forced the Legislature to set a dangerous state and national precedent by bringing up redistricting twice in the same decade and sending the message that Legislatures across this country can use the redistricting process on a whim to exact revenge on an opposing political party.
The DeLay-Craddick redistricting proposal also would have dumped rural voters into districts dominated by suburban voters, denying a voice to Democratic and Republican voters in small town Texas. Long-standing minority neighborhoods also would have been divided, probably in violation of the law and certainly against common sense.
Every major newspaper in the state editorialized against the plan, as well as the tactics used by Delay and Craddick. Still, the two Republicans persisted in their power grab, leaving House Democrats with no choice but to do what they did.
After the Democrats broke the quorum and left Austin, the Republican response was sometimes laughable and at other times disturbing.
What does the future hold?
Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, has been trying to assign congressional redistricting to a bipartisan commission of non-elected officials since 1993. About a dozen other states have at least some of their redistricting performed by some body other than their legislature.
Wentworth says Texas doing so could save Texans millions of dollars in legal fees and costs of unnecessary legislative sessions, and avoid enormously bloody infighting that is a constant by-product of partisan redistricting.
“Some states have done it one way, and some have done it another,” Wentworth said. “We’ve always done it ourselves, and we’ve always been sued. Nearly any system would be better than the one we’ve got now.”
To gain votes from his Senate colleagues, Wentworth has removed from his bill giving the commission the responsibity of re-drawing Texas House and Senate districts.
He recently gathered 20 of the 31 senators in favor of S.B. 1068 – 11 Republicans and 10 Democrats – while 10 Republicans opposed it. (Sen. Mario Gallegos, D-Houston who has missed much of the legislative session recovering from a liver transplant, was absent,)
The eight-member commission would have two members each selected by the Republican and Democratic caucuses in the House and Senate. They could not be elected or party officials, and would be prevented from running for office for 10 years following their service.
In case of a deadlock, the chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court would appoint a ninth member to break the tie. The Legislature would vote up or down on the map produced by the ommission.
Wentworth proposes the commission perform redistricting beginning in 2011 after the 2010 federal census. His bill has been sent to the House. It also passed the Senate in 2005, but reached the House so late in the legislative session that it was never even heard in committee.
As you can see! No Aaron Pena.
