TX: Senate rejects House redistricting map, will draw its own map

[Nambe]

Political Stat Report

To no one's great surprise, the Texas Senate declared the House redistricting map dead on arrival, though I confess I'm a bit surprised at how many Republican Senators have taken potshots at not only the map, but also at how the House arrived at it:

"It's a silly map. I can't support that," said Sen. Kip Averitt, R-Waco, whose home county of McLennan is divided into two congressional districts in the House plan. "I can't support splitting my county." ---

[Nottingham]

1. Don't ya love it!

:bounce:

Whoo Hoo Senate!

[lastliberalintexas]

2. It's at least a start

It should not be done at all, but at least the Senate would probably present a more moderate re-re-districting plan.

We can only hope that the repubs will eat their own for once. Dewhurst has political aspirations of his own and is angry that he was shut out of the process. Hey, whatever works to keep it from happening! :-)

[mike6640]

3. tell me again

why do they need to do this? Besides the obvious Pug advantage?
They just redistricted a year or two ago. I read somewhere this is only supposed to be done every 10 years in conjunction with the US Census.?

[sandlapper]

8. Texas redistricting -

Is a duty imposed on the Texas Legislature by the Texas Constitution. The 2001 session failed to complete a redistricting bill. The Constitution provides a Legislative Redistricing Commission to accomplish the task if the Legislature fails to perform its duty. They completed it in the Spring of 2002. The Commission's plan was contested before an emergency 3 judge panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to temporarily settle Districts for the 2002 elections. The panel of judges had the Commission's plan, the Texas House plan and the Texas Senate plan from which to work and settled on a compromise. Under the US Circuit Court of Appeals judgement there were 17 Democrat dominated districts and 15 Republican dominated districts. This plan doesn't satisfy the Texas Constitution since it was not approved by the Texas Legislature as required, nor was it presented to the Secretay of State by the Commission for Certification as required. Technically the Redistricting was not complete when the new Texas Legislature convened in 2003.

The new Texas Legislature, convened in 2003, had a Republican majority in both the House and Senate. The previous, 2001 Legislature, had a Democrat majority in the Senate and a Republican majority in the House. The Senate was precluded from bringing the House redistricting Bill to the floor by the Democrat Senators absence out-of-state which prevented the necessary 60% attendance for a quorum. The Governor, therefore, called a Special Session of the Legislature to consider redistricting. There appear to be three options available to meet Constitutional requirements; (1) Both Houses of the Legislature can concur in the Courts redistricting plan, (2) The Senate can concur in the House redistricting plan or, (3) The Senate can come up with its own redistricting plan and a Conference Committee will resolve the differences.

The Republicans clearly aren't going to go for option (1). The Senate Dems have made it plain they aren't going to roll over for option (2). Option (3) therefore looks like the way things will go and it is potentially disastrous since the Conference Committee Bill will pass with a simple majority rather than the super majority needed for a Senate originated Bill.

[Mithras61]

9. You missed a couple of items of import

1) The TX legeslature WAS working on a redistricting map when the normal session expired. Republican Gov. Rick Perry was asked by the Legislature to call a special session to address the issue. He declined, stating on the record that the Republicans would get a better deal from the redistricting board & courts than they would from the Legislature.

2) The redistricting board is a normal part of the process. The redistricting board in 2001 was dominated by Republicans and DINOs. The map they came up with was so ridiculous that the Dems appealed to the 5th Circuit Court to address the obvious problems with the redistricting boards map. The Court concurred that there were some serious problems, and addressed those problems. Technically, redistricting WAS completed by the normal processes governing such things.

3) The Senate wasn't precluded from seeing/hearing anything by the Out-of-State Dems. The House was. The House has a large enough R majority to force through their stupid map that packs & cracks minorities as well as splits up communities of common interest. The Dems walked to prevent this from happening before they could get the word out to the public.

4) House Speaker Craddick prevented the issue from being removed from the schedule so that the legeslature was prevented from going on to the other issues that STILL need to be addressed. The Killer-Ds stated ON THE RECORD that if Redistricting was put off to a special session, they would be glad to come back and deal with the state's business. Craddick refused, so nothing was done on a large number of issues that will likely be put on the agenda in the House, now that they've sent their stupid map to the Senate, who rightly rejected it out of hand (yes, even Republican Senators recognized that it was stupid... they are quoted as saying so in the article). The thing is that they currently have a VERY partisan map IN FAVOR of Republicans. They have heartburn because several Republican districts elected DEM CONGRESSMEN! Delay is having FITS!

5) If ANY redistricting plan comes out of the special session, and does any of the things that the House has attempted to do, the issue will certainly be sent BACK to the 5th Circuit Court, which will (in addition to having to rule on the legality of the Legislature revisiting a done-deal completed by the same court) have to consider a ruling from the Supreme Court of the US stating that leadership (ie - seniority of Congressmen & the likelihood that they will loose their seat), minority INFLUENCE (not just can they specifically CHANGE the outcome in their district, but can they INFLUENCE IT significantly), communities of common interest, race, and all the other standard things MUST BE CONSIDERED in any redistricting plan. If the Court finds the redistricting plan to be within the legislatures power in the first place (considering that THEY DID REDISTRICTING IN 2001), then they will have to address all the above issues. If they find ANY reason to question the map, the ENTIRE MAP IS OUT, and the Court gets to redraw the lines. Your guess is as good as mine how THAT will turn out.

6) The Repubs claim that since 56% of the statewide voite was Republican, that they ought to have 56% of the TX Delegation to Congress be Republican. This fails 2 tests.

The first one is that we don't do statewide election of Congressional delegations, we have single member districts, so the statewide numbers are meaningless.

The second is that (as I stated before) some of the Republican districts (they went R in both statewide and federal elections) elected DEMS! These people want to KEEP their Dem congresscritters, so what business is it of Tom Delay's? (and yes it IS Tom Delay's plan, BTW)


As for it being potentially disastrous, yes, it most definitely is, but in ways much worse than what we currently conceive.

The first is that it sets a precedent for off-year redistricting when the majority party feels like they don't have enough representation.

The second is that it sets the stage for a multi-million dollar lawsuit where Texans get to pay BOTH sides of the case's lawyers, with fees estimated to run upwards of $15-$20 MILLION dollars at a time when the state is ALREADY facing severe budgetary shortfalls.

The last one I can think of off the top of my head is if the packing/cracking is allowed to stand, and these stupid districts are allowed to stay, Texas' rural areas will be severely under-represented and conservative suburbians will be over-represented in the Federal Congress. This means that all of the hard work that has been done over the past few years by senior east-Texas Dems will likely be thrown right out the window to cater to the desires of a group that has no thought for the needs of their rural counterparts.

[salin]

4. Close reading - suggests the story is still big and certainly not dead.

From the article:

There are several other themes in all of these stories. Dewhurst has suggested that as there are 31 state Senators and 32 Congresscritters, the current map of state Senate districts could be used as a starting point for a new Congressional map. Sen. John Whitmire (D, Houston) concedes that a map based on that would probably pass, though he'll still oppose it and suggests that his fellow Democrats would as well:


"This is a defining vote. You can't be a Republican and a Democrat on this. You've got to choose," said Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston. "If you're a Democrat office holder and you vote for a Republican redistricting plan, I would think that Democrats in a primary would look very unfavorably toward you."

--------snip-------

There's been concern from Democrats as well as from Sen. Bill Ratliff that a map may come out of a joint House-Senate committee. A map drawn in a conference committee would only need a majority vote, which is why House Democrats had been claiming all along that the various House maps were decoys. Ratliff has the same fears (from the Statesman):

Ratliff also said he fears a bait and switch.

It takes only 16 Senate votes to approve a map drawn in a conference committee, which leaves Ratliff uncomfortable about putting that process in motion in the first place by voting to suspend the rules requiring 21 votes.

Ratliff said he wants "some way of knowing that it's not going to come back from conference looking like the House map."

[lastliberalintexas]

5. Not dead at all

It is still very likely to pass unfortunately. It is just ironic that, in addition to holding on to all the Dem votes, our only hope lies with Dewhurst and Ratliff.

Dewhurst is doing this for political/ego reasons I think.

Ratliff however, is a fairly moderate repub (esp by Texas standards), and is truly looking out for the best interests of his constituents. I can at least respect someone like Ratliff, even though I disagree with him on many issues. He is doing what he thinks is best for his area, rather than obeying the repub leadership- and they might try to retaliate next year.

We are still making the phone calls and sending faxes and emails to the Senate Dems and fighting the good fight. Keep your fingers crossed!

[NewYorkerfromMass]

6. They have obviously assessed their constituents' feedback

and decided they better come up with a better plan. I hope it resembles the current one.

[Bandit]

7. Ratliff also said he fears a bait and switch.

Now why would he fear the GOP of pulling something like that? Doesn't he understand that they have "Honor and Integrity"? America is getting what it doesn't deserve because of Apathy. Apathy is our worst enemy.

[Lexingtonian]

10. oh, it's easier than that

Sounds to me as if the idea is to sabotage the whole process. I could live with that.