Posted on 10/01/2005 9:38:07 PM PDT by Prost1
The question is not whether Tom DeLay is guilty or not guilty of the specific, bookkeeping offense for which he has been indicted. That is for the lawyers and the accountants to figure out. What is crucial is that DeLay managed to do something that is very, very wrong and highly injurious to our democracy — to fix the elections for the House of Representatives, in effect to take the ballot out of our hands.
Gerrymandering has been with us since the earliest days of the republic, when Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry drew a legislative district that looked like a salamander to get his allies elected, and the press dubbed it a Gerry-mander. But DeLay carried this pernicious practice to new lows.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
Dick Morris debunked on this issue here:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/05_09_25_corner-archive.asp#078188
Dick Morris is not always the brightest lightbulb.
He said that President Bush should distance himself from the religious right, pr-lifers, et al when running for reelection.
As it turned out, President Bush would not have won without the religious right, et al.
Morriss is an idiot that sometimes says something intelligent. This is not one of those times.
This Delay thing will backfire on the dems, just give it a little time.
That really says it all, doesn't it?
No. Texas was Gerrymandered in 2001 under the then DemocRAT majority. It was un-Gerrmandered in 2003 due to Governor Perry's insistence in holding special sessions. Republicans were getting close to 60% of the total vote for US House races but only getting 40% of the seats. I fail to see how correcting that imbalance is Gerrymandering.
;OD
Living in California, I know a little bit about Gerrymnandering. I had Pete Stark as my rep for a while, and now it is back to San Jose and Mike Honda.
So, they traded me one hack for another.
But, and this is good, Polumbo represents Morgan Hill!
His roots are Tracy or the Middle Central Valley, yet they have him coming all the way down to Morgan Hill because they (the dems) want to cluster Repubican voters!
Can you imagine! One time they had the rep from San Jose representing Gustine! Clear over three mountain ranges away! Now that was artwork for map drawing.
Yeah, isn't it great to see Martin Frost on TV now as a political commentator? Hah!
He could only steal elections, not win them and they want his opinion!
That is like asking Kerry to define Valor.
Dick Morris is an idiot who doesn't know what he is talking about.
The Democrats had gerrymandered Texas' US Rep Districts in 1991 to ensure that Democrats were elected even though the state as a whole had begun voting Republican. By the late 90's the state was voting about 57% Republican but had 60% Democrat Representatives thanks to the worst gerrymandering in the Union forced on Texas by the Democrats.
Morris' allusion that DeLay did not like the redistricting after the 2000 Census and therefore perverted the system by forcing his own redistricting is simply false.
The US Constitution requires that the state legislature redistrict every 10 years. That did not happen in Texas.
The Texas redistricting after the 2000 Census was not done by the state legislature as the law requires, it was done by a panel of 3 Federal Judges. The Fed Judges simply kept the same outlandish gerrymandering done by the Democrats in 1991, which was not going to reflect the current voting of Texas voters.
Frankly, this was a travesty of justice that could not be allowed to stand.
DeLay did work to get a Republican majority elected in the state House (the Senate was already Republican controlled). But the reality is that the trend was toward more state House Republicans, regardless of DeLay's efforts.
It was not DeLay's redistricting plan, it was the Texas legislature's.
The Democrats in Texas did not lose because DeLay did something unethical or devious, they lost because they had nothing to offer Texans except higher taxes and bloated government, which Texas voters rightly rejected.
But .. dickie poo .. when Martin Frost did it for the democrats - THAT WASN'T GERRMANDERING ..??
And .. not only that .. it was Martin Frost who sent his staff member into DeLay's office - TO STEAL A COPY OF DELAY's RE-DISTRICTING MAP. THE GUY WAS CAUGHT ON VIDEO - AND I DON'T RECALL HEARING ANY GREAT CRY OF WRONG DOING.
That is why I am supporting our "Guvenator" Arnold and effort to change the redistricting in "Calefornea" with the proposed ballot propositions.
The democrats' plan was taken to court. Someone testified that they took a pen and circled African-American neighborhoods along I-75, and made them a district. The case went to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled that the democrat redistricting was "an unconstitutional racial gerrymander."
This is one reason I'd support any Republican gerrymadnering, if it actually happened in Texas.
Well .. it may seem like a better plan .. but judges have a political party they belong to .. and anybody who says that won't influence them is dreaming!
But .. they might be able to pull it off. But .. if I lose Duncan Hunter as my rep I'm going to be livid. I do not want that disgusting Susan Davis again.
First thing for the author to do is stop reading dimocRats talking points and research the truth. The old districts did NOT allow for the true representation of voters' wishes. The redistricting corrected the dimocRats unethical moves from the past.
So Morris is just wrong to suggest that the legislature had enacted new district lines after the 2000 Census and that DeLay and company redrew them. It never happened.
Thanks for the link. These few lines state the truth very clearly and to the point.
I'm glad to see someone set Dick Morris straight. How in the hell you would be protecting the people's right to representative government by continuing to stick them with a Democrat-majority congressional delegation is beyond me, considering the state was voting 57% Republican and Republicans held the legislature, both Senate seats and every statewide office. The gerrymandering that was denying the right of the people to the representation of their choice was the Democrat gerrymandering, which had been in effect for over a century. Amazing how it only became shameful when Tom Delay used it to the advantage of Republicans. There wouldn't be a -- gasp! -- double standard, would there?
How can you gerrymander an already gerrymandered district?
Dick Morris gets it wrong, once again.
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