Updated: Senate Panel Approves Map
Update, 7:30 p.m.:
A state Senate panel, voting along strict party lines, approved a Texas redistricting plan designed to increase Republican strength in the U.S. Congress.
The Senate redistricting committee voted 8-4 to send the map to the full Senate, which could consider the proposal as early as Monday. The vote came after hours of pubic testimony that featured heated and racially tinged exchanges.
The map was drawn to keep Republicans in all the seats they hold now, including two freshmen who won big upsets in 2010 in mostly Hispanic districts in South Texas. The Republicans also ...
Comments (33)
Ron Reynolds via Texas Tribune on Facebook
It sure needs to change drastically are else it want pass muster with the Department of Justice!
Andy Jones via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Agreed, the courts will change this because the lege will not be able to get to yes.
Diane Holloway via Texas Tribune on Facebook
And the five-district map for Travis County has got to go! It's so obvious that the only reason to slice us up is to get rid of Lloyd Doggett and silence Democrats.
Mary Lynn VanZandt Neill via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Scuse,is this man sayin' we swampers caint do nuthin?
Mike Openshaw via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Ron, the more efforts are made to increase minority representation, the more endangered Anglo Democrat incumbents- like Doggett- become. Since the GOP is in the majority and since the DOJ involvement is NOT to protect a given POLITICAL PARTY, count on some convoluted explanations why ANY map is unacceptable.
Bodhisattva
I appreciate Chairman Solomons' sincerity, but the people who gave him that map and told him to pass it will not allow it to change significantly. The ifnal map may look different, but it will not look much different.
Texascattleco
The longer this drags on including court challenges could keep some candidates out of the race and even current representatives are being put in the position that their current districts are changing considerably. State Senator Wendy Davis and U.S. Representative Loyd Doggett are just two examples of many. The Texas House District I'm in has changed drastically and I don't have a good guess of which U.S. Congressional District I will be in except it might not be Louie Gohmert's which will save me the embarrassment of being in his U.S. House District
Chris Thornton via Texas Tribune on Facebook
This doesn't surprise me at all. Ron Paul is an enemy of the establishment Republicans. RON PAUL for President in 2012 !!!
Carolyn Moon via Texas Tribune on Facebook
And they're trying to stuff us all into an Anglo district.They're not just anti Paul, they're anti-American
Marshall Beerwinkle via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Back in 1981,the GOP worked with Democrats to redistrict Ron Paul out of office.Check it out Texas Tribune!
Mary Lynn VanZandt Neill via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Ted Poe isn't gonna be thrilled,either.Beaumont has needed its own representation,though.Not a lot of change there,still RED,yes?
Jason Stoddard via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Rhetorical with the purpose of being Racist.
John Carhart via Texas Tribune on Facebook
One of those great Texas traditions, Gerrymandering!
Tim Tukaram Spotswood via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Why would we ever think it is a good idea for them to draw their own districts? You should see the crazy shapes we get at our city and county level here!
Michael B Openshaw
Ron Paul? Tea Party godfather??? Yea, right! He wishes (and so do liberals)!
The majority of our groups think he has SOME good ideas, but think he's completely way out on others, especially on anything international. And his hypocrisy on earmarks makes him pretty contemptible to a lot of us.
Kathy Genet
I was at the hearing Thursday and Chairman Seliger kept saying, that everyone could find something to criticize in the map, which to me sounded like a cheap way of discounting any specific problem. Travis county, when left to their own choices, voted for Democrats to fill five of six state House of Representative seats. This map is drawn so that Republicans will represent the majority of our county. To introduce a map that so shockingly ignores the will of the people is obscene.
Paula Lares via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Ron Paul Tea Party?? That definition makes me question the Tribune's authority to publish. Do the EVEN know what Ron Paul people do in his home county?? Sheesh! How can any @ the Trib OR its readers comment on this? Let's debate the quality of the Moon's green cheese.
Native Texan
I am appalled that Texas voting districts can be constantly realigned this way for strictly political purposes by whoever is able to be the biggest thug and strongarm his wishes. I also do not believe that any districts should drawn according to race. To do so is institutionalized racism. Race should NEVER be a consideration in any political decisions any longer. It is beyond ridiculous that blacks can remain racist, latinos can remain racist, but whites just better watch themselves or they are accused of racism by just disagreeing with the policies of black or latino legislators. I am sick of it.
Michael B Openshaw
'Tea Party godfather' label going uncorrected?? A label derived from a DEMOCRAT lobbyist type?
Listen, before you call someone that, you might actually- you know- check with a sampling of the Tea Parties? As co-founder of the North Texas Tea Party, not 20% of groups or rank and file would consider Ron Paul a 'godfather' figure.
poryorick
To all the TPer's taking umbrage with the characterization of Ron Paul as the Godfather of the Tea Party movement, try using your computer (I know you have it because you're here) to find facts rather than basing your response on emotional outrage.
That moniker comes as a result of the 2007 (yes, one and a half years before Rick Santelli had his meltdown on the Exchange floor) Boston Tea Party fundraiser by Paul that is seen by many as the first active gathering of what became the modern Tea Party. Thus "godfather," see? I know, facts are hard.
Michael B Openshaw
Sorry, poryorick; but Crazy Uncle Ron did not exactly trademark the Tea Party label with that one fundraiser and if he'd been ANY kind of leader of what arose that is now called the Tea Party Movement, a whole bunch of us would NOT follow his lead.
My first contact with the Paulites were when they were counter-protesting the 'Support the Troops' rallies some of us were attending in the dark days of the Iraq war. Every HONEST poll (not online where the pollbots that Ron's people are famous for using can be applied) shows that the majority of Tea party participants do NOT support Ron Paul.
Facts are hard, but truth is even harder.
Jason Stoddard via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Honey Badger doesn't give a shit. Honey Badger doesn't care.
Michael Cosper via Texas Tribune on Facebook
So being anti war and and pro drugs will get you elected in America? Unless you are a liberal that is. RP would be much happier if the United States didn't exist and we still lived under the Articles of Confederation.
G S
Yes, Dr. Ron Paul is the Tea Party godfather. I am a hispanic female and I campaigned for him in 2008 and will again for 2012. Unfortunately, the majority of the "new" Tea Partiers have been co-opted by neocon republicans. The new Tea Partiers have little in common with Dr. Paul supporters. We believe in small government, getting rid of the privately owned Federal Reserve, which has deliberately destroyed our dollar and economy. We also want to bring our troops home and end these useless wars. These wars are made not to bring peace, but to bring about the agenda of the owners of the Federal Reserve.
Unfortunately, our troops are nothing more that the personal army of the Federal Reserve, educate yourselves by reading true history, not what you were taught in school. Reality is completely different than what you are told by the propagandists in the media. If the US would follow the Constitution, the USA would start to thrive and be what it used to be, not the slaves of the Federal Reserve. Check out Money as Debt and see the truth about our dollar, it will anger you and make you want to follow the Constitution. It does not allow a private company like the Federal Reserve to lend us our own money at interest. Let us go bankrupt like China, we will have a fresh new start. Our taxes only pay the interest on the debt to the owners of the Federal Reserve, we can never pay back the principal.
poryorick
@MBO I certainly hope you stretched before you contorted yourself that way. Like I said, many people view that as the beginning of the TP, but you can view it through whatever prism you need to in order to identify yourself.
Danny Wier via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Is Dr. is first name and Ron his middle name or something?
Claudia Corum via Texas Tribune on Facebook
why did they bother to hold hearings if they were just going to vote for it??? Yesterday Committee Chair Burt Solomans sat fiddling with his iPad, or texting, or chatting with the woman next to him when speakers (who had shown up with less than 24 hrs notice) expressed really good reasons why the map is so bad. When Austin's Bertha Means spoke eloquently about Congressman Doggett, Solomons snickered and went on playing with his tech toys. Some hearing!
Karen Hawkins via Texas Tribune on Facebook
They are crooks and liars
Cynthia Casper Robertson via Texas Tribune on Facebook
This is nothing more than a ploy by Perry and his teat suckers to rid Texas of his arch nemesis, Lloyd Dogett. It's a sad day indeed as Doggett is one of the few Texans in Congress who actually cares about Americans and doesn't pander to corporate America. :(
David Huang via Texas Tribune on Facebook
District 18 looks like one of the mutated geckos from Fallout 2.
Texascattleco
Really, can I have someone besides Gohmert. I will run myself if this is my only choice, really!
Barbara Hopson
When you mention a redistricting plan, would you please give the number of it (e.g., Plan C136) so
that we can look up the map on the www.tlc.state.tx.us.org website? Thanks!
Pat Cheong
Good info. LWV-TX also tracks proposed redistricting maps. www.lwvtexas.org/redistricting.php