Why the Redistricting Lawsuit Matters
Texas Democrats get beat up more than the kids in the Chess Club.
They’ve been getting pasted regularly in statewide elections since their last wins 17 years ago. But the real drubbing started in 2001, when Republicans got enough people into the Legislature — specifically, the Senate — to block redistricting. That pushed control of the House and Senate maps to a five-member panel, the Legislative Redistricting Board, composed of four Republicans and one Democrat. The board, naturally enough, drew Republican maps.
The 2002 elections then returned the Republican majority to the state Senate and toppled the Democratic majority in the ...
Comments (3)
btxusa
The telling statement, "But the real drubbing started in 2001, when Republicans got enough people into the Legislature — specifically, the Senate — to block redistricting. That pushed control of the House and Senate maps to a five-member panel, the Legislative Redistricting Board, composed of four Republicans and one Democrat." sounds very much like the tactics used in Florida in the 2000 presidential election when the "Brooks Brothers Riot" (all Republican employees) stopped the counting and pushed control of that election to the Supreme Court.
They've used the tactic before, and they'll use it again. What I want in redistricting (and haven't found anyone who can tell me) are PUBLISHED criteria for redistricting. For example, 1.) Contiguous Counties; 2.) Similar economic interests; 3) Geographic similarities; 4) NO POLITICAL DESIGNATIONS AT ALL!, etc. With today's technology, it's very easy to plug in the "Party" data and have the computer separate the areas that are dominated by a particular party.
Districts should be decided by specific criteria (not political) -- STATED AND PUBLICIZED -- and then let each district decide whom to support -- and if a particular party then, so be it.
Jon Roland
Jon Roland has filed a petition in intervention in Perez v. Perry, the current Texas redistricting case, similar to his intervention in the redistricting case LULAC v. Perry in 2006. The full text can be found at http://constitution.org/reform/us/tx/redistrict/cnpr.htm along with related material.
With this filing Roland appears as the only litigant who does not represent a special interest group using the case in a struggle for power. Rather than argue the merits of particular maps, he argues for a totally new process in which humans are taken out of the map-drawing process and the job is left to a computer set to draw maps at random.
David Bellow
Hispanic Group Sues Texas Over Redistricting and Absurdly Alleges that Race is the only Reason People Should Use in Elections
http://texasgopvote.com/hispanic-group-sues-texas-over-redistricting-and-absurdly-alleges-race-only-reason-002732