Kirk: Remap violates voter rights

The Dallas Morning News ^ | December 12, 2003 | By PETE SLOVER / The Dallas Morning News

[MeekOneGOP]

Kirk: Remap violates voter rights

10:16 PM CST on Friday, December 12, 2003

By PETE SLOVER / The Dallas Morning News

AUSTIN – Former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk told a federal court Friday that if the proposed GOP-backed congressional remap doesn't violate the federal Voting Rights Act, the minority protection law is meaningless.

"If the Voting Rights Act means anything, it means this map cannot stand," said Mr. Kirk, arguing that the right to vote is an empty illusion if blacks and Hispanics can't affect election outcomes.

Mr. Kirk appeared as a witness for Democratic and minority groups seeking to overturn a congressional remap plan passed by the GOP-dominated state Legislature this year.

THE CASE AGAINST TEXAS' REDISTRICTING PLAN

The lawsuit: Challenges from Democrats and several other groups to the new GOP-backed congressional map. The main challenge to the map is the allegation that it dilutes minority voting power in violation of the federal Voting Rights Act. Lawyers for the state counter that the Republican-dominated Legislature acted legally to bring congressional districts in line with voter preferences.
The trial: A three-judge federal panel began hearing the case Thursday. Testimony is expected to take about a week. Whatever the ruling, an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court is expected.
At stake: Up to seven of Texas' congressional seats now held by Democrats would probably swing to Republicans. Also at issue is the larger strategy of Republicans to cinch control of the U.S. House by redrawing congressional districting plans in several states.
TESTIMONY FRIDAY (Witnesses for the plaintiffs)
Allan Lichtman, history professor at American University in Washington, D.C.: Was cross-examined by state lawyers on his Thursday testimony, which used statistical analysis to say that new seats created by the Republican plan that could be won by minorities will not offset the loss of districts that could be won by white Democrats with minority support.
U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco: Said that seniority dictates power in Congress and that eliminating the seats of senior Democratic members and replacing them with rookie Republicans would strip the state delegation of much of its influence.
U.S. Rep. Max Sandlin, D-Marshall: With Mr. Edwards, said communities of interest and coalitions to protect common interests in their districts would be destroyed under the proposed redistricting.
Former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk: Said the new plan would dilute minority voting strength by moving such areas into districts with much larger white, Republican populations.

At issue is whether the Legislature illegally sapped minority voting influence when it passed the plan, which is expected to give the GOP up to seven new seats now held by Democrats with minority support.

The Democrats argue that it would be illegal to spread the state's minority voters out into Republican-dominated, "bulletproof" GOP districts, where officeholders could arguably ignore the needs of minimal black constituencies.

Andy Taylor, the lead lawyer defending the map, suggested that any reduction in minorities' voting power was an unintentional consequence of a legally permissible effort to boost Republican seats.

On the heels of numbing statistical testimony from experts, Mr. Kirk spoke in broad, passionate, personal terms, drawing on his background as a child of civil rights activists who grew to become a lawyer, Texas secretary of state, Dallas mayor and – most recently – an unsuccessful candidate for U.S. Senate.

Taking the stand, Mr. Kirk observed that the Austin federal courthouse, a former post office, was where his father was the city's first black postal worker. He invoked memories of marching with his parents to overturn poll taxes, which were finally banned by federal law after failed state efforts to repeal them in the early 1960s.

"If we're going to use that map, we might as well go back to asking people, 'How many bubbles are in a bar of soap – how many people died on the Titanic,' " he said, in a reference to racially discriminatory literacy tests once required of minority voters.

Lawyers for the Democrats have portrayed the state Legislature that passed the remap in October as lapdogs for the national Republican Party and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land.

Redistricting Texas

	Video: Shelley Kofler reports
	Current Texas Congressional districts
	Proposed Texas Congressional districts

In what another Republican lawyer confirmed was an effort to counteract criticism of Mr. DeLay, Mr. Taylor cross-examined several Democratic congressmen about their own contacts with the state Legislature. All of them confirmed that they have contacted or testified to state lawmakers and contributed thousands of dollars to help fight the remap.

Mr. Kirk, who cracked up the courtroom with self-effacing humor, urged state attorneys not to forget the real-world implications of all the map-drawing and number crunching.

"It's not a joke to them [minorities and poor people]," offering a litany of social and economic issues, such as fair housing, that he said hung in the redistricting balance.

The legal significance of Mr. Kirk's testimony wasn't clear. The state only made a brief cross-examination – a few questions about specific congressional districts, cut short by one of the trial's three judges as repetitive.

Mr. Kirk earlier testified at length about the dismantling of Democratic U.S. Rep. Martin Frost's minority support areas, including the pairing of Oak Cliff neighborhoods with overwhelmingly white, Republican Highland Park, and southeast Fort Worth with suburban Denton County.

"I don't know that there could be a more cynical pairing of communities," he said.

Democratic congressmen testified to other redistricting culture clashes, describing them as nonracial, but black-and-white nonetheless.

U.S. Rep. Max Sandlin, D-Marshall, recalled taking a recent drive through eastern suburbs of Dallas, and realizing that the new plan would have his current rural district stretch into Rockwall.

"The only thing that's there is concrete and a bunch of chain restaurants. I don't even know how you campaign there," he said. "I guess you go into Applebee's and hand out cards."

E-mail pslover@dallasnews.com

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Online at: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dallas/tsw/stories/121303dntexremap.1df6f.html

[MeekOneGOP]

Glad Cornyn won and that this Class Warfare critter isn't my Senator now !

"If we're going to use that map, we might as well go back to asking people, 'How many bubbles are in a bar of soap – how many people died on the Titanic,' " he said, in a reference to racially discriminatory literacy tests once required of minority voters.

Ron Kirk

[MeekOneGOP]

Send in the Clowns ...

[FormerACLUmember]

The Republicans are only immitating the undisputed Master and Commanders of computerized redistricting: the rat party.

[Kuksool]

I suppose Kirk thinks his civil rights were violated when Texas rejected his Senate candidacy.

[Kuksool]

I couldn't believe last year that there were some posters here who thought Ron Kirk is a Zell Miller type Democrat.

[capt. norm]

"Andy Taylor, the lead lawyer defending the map"

If we have Andy Taylor, that must mean that Opie, Barney, Goober and Aunt Bee are on our side. Possibly even Thelma-Lou would join us if there's a bottle of Nehi involved.

[Texan5]

Ah, shaddup, Kirk-you're just mad because the gates have been unlocked, and your indentured servants are escaping from the democrat plantation into the world of opportunity you've been keeping them out of.

[MeekOneGOP]

All statewide offices are controlled by the GOP. That should tell folks a lot
about what Texans want to represent them: logical adults, NOT clowns like
the DemocRATS. The 'RATS will play the race card early and often ...

[MeekOneGOP]

I couldn't believe last year that there were some posters here who
thought Ron Kirk is a Zell Miller type Democrat.

Ron Kirk is anything BUT like Zell Miller. A few examples:

Ron Kirk, Texas Race-Baiter

At Hip-Hop Summit, Kirk pleads for generation to
vote - John Wiley Price attends Kirk campaign event

[MeekOneGOP]

LOL !

[INSENSITIVE GUY]

If the GOP redistricting violates voters rights,then what was it called when the "demofools" did it?

[07055]

When I lived in far northeast Dallas, the RATS gerrymandered my Congressional District so that my new "representative" was Eddie Berniece Johnson. The district ran along Central Expressway down to South Dallas. If Ms. Johnson cared about the interests of the whites in my area, you couldn't prove it by me--we were just thrown in this district so that more RATS could get elected.

[Dog Gone]

The crux of the Rats' argument is that voters, and especially minorities, are legally entitled to be represented by Democrats, and anything which changes that violates the Voting Rights Act.

It's not a very good argument.

Imagine if Republicans were trying to make the argument that minorities are required to be represented by Republicans and any redistricting which changed that was illegal. It's the same thing.

[MeekOneGOP]

If the GOP redistricting violates voters rights,then what was it called when the "demofools" did it?

It doesn't violate the Voters Rights Act, actually (imho) ... and David Dewhurst called it Gerrymandering ...

Here is a selected list of articles regarding that, etc.:

07-31-2003
Dewhurst: I'm honoring tradition and precedent
(Article exposes ‘RAT Lies!!)
Congressional districts in Texas today are essentially those drawn by a partisan Legislature in 1991. At that time, a national publication called the Texas map the most outrageously gerrymandered redistricting effort in the nation, resulting in Democratic strength in our congressional delegation well beyond its representation among voters.

Our congressional lines are even more outdated today. When the Legislature failed to draw new lines to accommodate Texas' two new congressional seats in 2001, the job fell to a federal court. The judges made the fewest changes possible to the existing 1991 map, in essence protecting incumbents.

07-19-2003
[Texas] Senators talk of boycotting any redistricting session
Mr. Dewhurst said he would be on solid ground in working around the Senate tradition requiring a two-thirds vote to take up a bill. The late Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock, a Democrat, did the same thing in a 1992 special session on legislative redistricting, Mr. Dewhurst said.

07-15-2003
Ratliff joins Democrats to oppose redistricting
The state Republican Party was quick to point out that the [2/3rd’s] rule has been abandoned on occasion – such as when the Senate took up a state senatorial redistricting plan in 1992.

FR Search: Keyword "Redistricting"

[Conservateacher]

"The crux of the Rats' argument is that voters, and especially minorities, are legally entitled to be represented by Democrats, and anything which changes that violates the Voting Rights Act."

Exactly the way I see it. Their presumption is that if minorities were living in a district represented by a Republican then they wouldn't be represented.

I live in a state-Washington- where I am represented by many democrats. Do I have representation in my state? Of course I ...OOps, I think I just blew my argument.

Actually, I do. Not the party I would like but yes I do.

[MeekOneGOP]

Imagine if Republicans were trying to make the argument that minorities are required to be represented by Republicans and any redistricting which changed that was illegal. It's the same thing.

By golly, I think you've nailed it (once again) !! ...

The 'RATS also believe that since the the first legislature after the census was unable to get the redistricting job done, that the existing map MUST remain, since it effectively keeps their Gerrymandering in operation ...

[Kuksool]

{The crux of the Rats' argument is that voters, and especially minorities, are legally entitled to be represented by Democrats, and anything which changes that violates the Voting Rights Act.}

By this logic, white relgious conservatives should be legally entitled to be represented by Republicans.

[Dog Gone]

Correct. If there are any in San Francisco, their rights are being violated by having Nancy Pelosi represent them.

The Rats refuse to be consistent in their logic.

[anymouse]

Who's Ron Kirk? I seem to remember something about some loser from Dallas running for Governer, but the name escapes me. :)

[MeekOneGOP]

LOL ! He was a card player in Dallas. Always played race cards ...