New GOP map restores (Rep. Martin Frost's) district

AUSTIN -- The sponsor of a Republican congressional redistricting plan said Thursday he had eliminated potential federal Voting Rights Act violations by restoring a district held by Dallas Democrat Martin Frost.

State Rep. Phil King, R-Weatherford, said that by keeping Frost's district intact as it was approved by a federal court in 2001, he was able to offset potential voting rights concerns he had about how he had redrawn the 18th and 25th districts in Houston.

Frost's would remain a "minority-influence" district, meaning it contains enough black and Hispanic voters that they can influence election outcomes.

Both versions of King's map slightly reduced the black population in the 18th, represented by Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, and increased the minority population in the 25th, represented by Chris Bell, D-Houston.

The federal Voting Rights Act protects minorities from having the power of their vote diminished, either by packing voters into a single district or splitting them into districts where their numbers are too low for them to have political influence.

King earlier this week had introduced a map to allow Republicans to make major gains in next year's elections. But he surprised the House Redistricting Committee Wednesday by withdrawing the map, citing the potential Voting Rights Act violations in Houston and Dallas.

The map he introduced Thursday was almost identical to his earlier map, except that it restored Frost's district, the 24th, and made it impossible for U.S. Rep. Ralph Hall, D-Rockwall, to win re-election in the 4th District.

"There's nothing else I intend to change," King said. "I've listened to all the testimony and made all the changes I intend to make. I think this is the map we ought to get out."

Gov. Rick Perry called a special legislative on congressional redistricting at the urging of U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land. Republicans contend that because they hold all statewide offices and control both chambers of the Legislature, they should hold a majority of the state's 32 congressional seats.

A redistricting bill was killed in last spring's regular session when more than 50 Democrats fled the Capitol, breaking the House quorum to make debate on the bill impossible.

Republican redistricting committee members said the schedule calls for the panel to vote on King's proposal Saturday with a full House debate beginning Monday. The Senate is continuing to hold public hearings around the state.

Democrats immediately denounced the new King map as a fraud that will be replaced with another map later in the legislative process.

"There is no way Tom DeLay is going to let a map get out of here that re-elects Martin Frost. He hates him too much," said state Rep. Richard Raymond, D-Laredo, a member of the House Redistricting Committee.

Committee member Rep. Mike Krusee, R-Round Rock, denied that another map is lying in wait.

"There's no secret plan. There's no secret map," Krusee said. "We're trying to pass a good map that is fair to Republicans for the first time in history that will pass court muster."

Any map approved by the Legislature is likely to face a court challenge. The current congressional districts were drawn by a three-judge federal court after the Legislature failed to act in 2001.

King said his map would elect 19 Texas Republicans to Congress, but analysis of the map based on information from the Texas Legislative Council indicates that the plan would elect 21 Republicans at the expense of six Democratic incumbents.

The incumbents who would be forced from office by the creation of new Republican districts are Reps. Jim Turner of Crockett, Max Sandlin of Marshall, Hall of Rockwall, Nick Lampson of Beaumont, Charles Stenholm of Abilene and Chet Edwards of Waco.

The residences of Reps. Bell and Gene Green, D-Houston, are moved out of their Harris County districts. But each could move back into his district and likely win re-election, though each might be more vulnerable to a black or Hispanic challenger in a Democratic primary.

Edwards told the House committee Thursday that the constantly changing map proposals are a "political rope-a-dope" meant to mislead people. He said black voters in Waco are angry that they were split into two districts so there is no way they can help elect a Democrat to Congress from McLennan County.

A similar split occurred in Lampson's 9th District. Black voters in Beaumont were split between the 9th and the 8th District, held by Rep. Kevin Brady, R-The Woodlands. And minority voters in Galveston County were taken from the 9th District and put into DeLay's 22nd District.

With 291,000 Harris County residents added to the 9th District, it becomes overwhelmingly Republican based on historical voting trends.

Lampson's residence would be in Brady's reconfigured district. But even if Lampson moved back into the 9th, it is unlikely he could win re-election.

"District 9 is probably one of the worst examples of how you destroyed the minority voting rights," said Rep. Ruth Jones McClendon, D-San Antonio. "You put African-Americans, minorities, Asians in ghettos in such a way that the Republican primary will affect the outcome of the election."

King said his map would not reduce minority voting strength in any way that violates federal law.

"To my knowledge, this map does not violate the federal Voting Rights Act anywhere in Texas," King said.

Well I think the best news maybe from the following article.....

Willie's picnic off to a smooth start
By Melissa Ludwig and Michael Corcoran
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Friday, July 4, 2003
Willie Nelson's 30th Anniversary 4th of July Picnic Weekend got off to a relatively snafu-free start this morning. This was the public debut of the Two River Canyon Ampitheatre, and early signs indicate that the 800-acre spread near Spicewood had its act together.
........Workers at the gate were searching people thoroughly for contraband or forbidden items, even going through their pockets. But as of noon nothing had been confiscated. Sgt. Jimmy Zuehlke of the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission did note, however, that one person was thrown out for intoxication at 10 a.m., after he showed up at the ticket window smelling badly, slurring his speech and having difficulty standing up. At 12:30, a man in a tie-dyed t-shirt was carried by stretcher into an ambulance. A law-enforcement official described him as 'hot and drunk, that's all.' It was not clear if this was the same man who had been drunk at 10 a.m.[end snip]

Here's a pdf file of both maps .. They maybe getting closer to putting something together that can pass the Senate... It'll be interesting to see what the Senate comes up with.

Thanks ! Here is the DMN story today:

New map divisive along party lines
Democrats, GOP differ over how it will affect minorities, rural areas
07/04/2003
By GROMER JEFFERS JR. and ROBERT T. GARRETT / The Dallas Morning News
AUSTIN – House Republicans praised and Democrats condemned Thursday an altered congressional map that largely restores the district now represented by Democrat Martin Frost of Arlington.
The plan's author and GOP lawmakers said it achieves their aim of electing more Republicans to Congress while preserving the voting rights of black and Hispanic Texans.
Democratic legislators said the new map would harm rural areas and destroy districts in which minorities have significant influence, possibly running afoul of a redistricting decision by the U.S. Supreme Court last week.

Also Online

Maps:
• Current Texas Congressional districts
• Proposed Texas Congressional districts

Special Session: Redistricting hearing schedule, summary, maps
(from the Texas Legialtive Council)

More Politics

"We're trying to pass a good map that's fair to Republicans for the first time in history and that will survive court challenges," said Rep. Mike Krusee, R-Round Rock, a member of the House Redistricting Committee. It heard testimony on the new map into the evening Thursday.
"They targeted minorities and they killed East Texas, too," said Rep. Richard Raymond, D-Laredo, another member of the panel.
In the Dallas-Fort Worth area, the new map makes relatively minor changes to nine districts, and pulls into southwest Tarrant County a piece of a 10th one – the 17th Congressional District, now represented by Democrat Charlie Stenholm of Abilene.
While Mr. Frost does not appear to be on the chopping block for now, the revised plan could do harm to long-serving U.S. Rep. Ralph Hall, D-Rockwall, whose 4th District would pick up parts of GOP-leaning Dallas suburbs such as Richardson and north Garland.
"This is essentially the same plan that we laid out a couple of days ago," said the new map's principal designer, Rep. Phil King, R-Weatherford. "It's probably going to give us 19 Republican seats."
In last year's elections, using a map drawn by three federal judges, Texans elected 17 Democrats and 15 Republicans to the U.S. House of Representatives.
U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land, and Gov. Rick Perry, who summoned state lawmakers back into session to redraw congressional district lines, have said the existing map fails to reflect the GOP's growth. Mr. King has said a new one would help advance President Bush's agenda.
Democrats have warned that Texas, especially minorities and rural residents, would lose the clout of several veteran, white Democratic congressmen endangered by the new map.
"It unilaterally disarms Texas on key committees," U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, one of the targeted incumbents, told the House panel.
An earlier map, which House Republicans unveiled Tuesday but withdrew Wednesday, shifted Mr. Frost's 24th District to the northeast. It would have taken Fort Worth and Arlington out of the 24th and added Irving, Coppell and Carrollton.
Analysts say that while blacks and Hispanics would have comprised a bare majority of the district's voters, the new district would tilt to the GOP because younger Hispanics in Dallas County historically have not voted as consistently as the blacks in southeast Fort Worth they replaced.
But the altered map released Thursday would leave Mr. Frost with virtually the same district he has now: Nearly 55 percent of its voters are minorities; and about 58 percent voted Democratic in last fall's statewide elections.
A spokesman for Mr. Frost declined to comment.
Mr. Raymond, the House panel's most outspoken critic of the new plans, said he believed Mr. King's latest effort was "fake" and that Mr. Frost's district would be gutted in the map that eventually passes during the special session.
"There's no way Tom DeLay will ever let a map get out of here that lets Martin Frost get re-elected," Mr. Raymond said. "He hates him too much."
Jim Ellis, executive director of Americans for a Republican Majority, the political action committee Mr. DeLay uses to elect GOP candidates and secure his own base in Congress, said Mr. Raymond doesn't know Mr. DeLay or "how Tom DeLay feels about anything."
Toppling Mr. Frost is not Mr. DeLay's top priority, Mr. Ellis said.
"Our No. 1 goal is to increase Republican representation and make the map better reflect the voting patterns of the state of Texas," he said.
East Texas Democrats expressed outrage that the map would make three of the region's four districts susceptible to being dominated by the GOP-leaning suburbs of Dallas or Houston.
Rep. Jim McReynolds, D-Lufkin, said the redistricting plan would lead to Republican domination of the 1st, 4th and 9th districts, now represented, respectively, by Max Sandlin, D-Marshall; Mr. Hall; and Nick Lampson, D-Beaumont.
"We're determined not to let 'rural' disappear in these congressional districts," said Mr. McReynolds, vice chairman of the Legislature's Rural Caucus.
The group could file a lawsuit, he added.
E-mail gjeffers@dallasnews.com and rtgarrett@dallasnews.com

Online at: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dallas/tsw/stories/070403dntexremap.d8008.html

Erich Schlegel / DMN
State Rep. Helen Giddings, D-DeSoto,
took a look at a new congressional redistricting
map before a House Redistricting Committee
meeting at the state Capitol on Thursday.

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