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Posted on 07/08/2003 1:19:06 AM PDT by Diddle E. Squat
AUSTIN -- Democrats vainly battled against inevitable defeat as the Texas House approved a Republican redistricting plan early today that likely would eliminate six incumbent Democratic congressmen in next year's elections.
"We are all tired, and some of us have been beaten up and bruised in this process," Rep. Ruth Jones McClendon, D-San Antonio, told the House as debate began on the measure Monday afternoon.
Democrats argued that the public had no meaningful input into drawing the maps and that the proposed congressional districts would harm rural representation and dilute minority voting rights.
But with Republicans holding a substantial House majority, passage of the partisan measure appeared likely from the moment the mostly somber debate started. Republican lawmakers rarely bothered to counter Democratic arguments, and the House officially approved the bill at 12:03 a.m. today on an 83-62 vote.
Five Republicans voted against the measure and two Democrats, Reps. Ron Wilson of Houston and Vilma Luna of Corpus Christi, voted for it.
"It's a fair map. It's been an open process," said the bill's sponsor, Rep. Phil King, R-Weatherford. "Race had nothing to do with the drawing of the district lines. Our purpose was purely political."
The Democrats admitted they fought not so much in hopes of stopping the bill in the House but to help build a federal court case if redistricting passes the Legislature.
The legislation now heads to the state Senate, where its fate is less certain.
A two-thirds vote by those present in the 31-member Senate is required to bring a bill up for debate, and Democrats hold 12 Senate seats. At present, three swing Democrats and one Republican have said they are unsure how they will vote on any congressional redistricting bill.
House Democratic Caucus Chairman Jim Dunnam of Waco said he is worried that a moderate redistricting map bill will be presented to the Senate to win Democratic votes for debate.
But he said any Democratic vote for debate on redistricting "would just let the genie out of the bottle," allowing Republicans to create a more partisan map in floor debate or through a conference committee.
"Anyone who votes to suspend is culpable for the final bill," Dunnam said.
House Democrats killed a redistricting bill in May by staging a four-day walkout during the regular session. Gov. Rick Perry called the current special legislative session on redistricting after consulting with U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land.
Democrats currently hold a 17-15 majority in the state's congressional delegation, but the Republican measure likely would result in a 21-11 GOP majority after the 2004 elections.
Democratic incumbents who likely would lose their seats include U.S. Reps. Max Sandlin of Marshall, Jim Turner of Crockett, Ralph Hall of Rockwall, Nick Lampson of Beaumont, Chet Edwards of Waco and Charles Stenholm of Abilene.
As King began his argument for the new congressional boundaries Monday afternoon, about 30 Democrats in the gallery donned white socks as hand puppets to mock King. Every time he spoke, the little white mouths flapped.
The House voted down an amendment by state Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, that would have turned the Republican redistricting bill on its head.
Thompson's amendment would have moved six Republican incumbents' residences into districts held by Democrats, including a provision to put DeLay's home into a proposed 64 percent black and Hispanic 18th District along with district incumbent U.S. Rep. Shelia Jackson Lee, D-Houston.
"I don't think Tom DeLay's going to have a problem running against Shelia Jackson Lee," Thompson said, adding that her map "helps out the minorities and does not dilute the Anglo voting strength."
At one point, McClendon, a member of the House Redistricting Committee, offered the current congressional boundaries as a substitute to King's map.
"This plan protects the choices made by voters," McClendon said.
King asked the House to reject the amendment, saying the current districts are based on a 1991 Democratic redistricting plan that he called "the shrewdest gerrymander" in the nation that year.
The House voted against adopting the current districts on an 83-59 vote, with six members absent and two not voting. Wilson was the only Democrat present to vote against retaining the current districts.
Wilson has said he supports the Republican map because it increases the possibility that a black politician could win election in District 25, now held by U.S. Rep. Chris Bell, D-Houston. Wilson has said he does not plan to run for Congress.
Speaker Pro Tem Sylvester Turner, D-Houston, a candidate for mayor, voted against the Republican redistricting proposal because he thinks the process is unnecessary and expensive for taxpayers. Turner said he also thought the Republican proposal is bad for Houston.
At a news conference before the debate, McClendon said the Republicans, driven by DeLay, worked in secret to produce a map that harms rural interests and minorities. She said "bait and switch" tactics were used to produce three different maps last week, with the sponsors working in a room with newspaper taped over the glass door.
Republicans argued that the map is fair to Republicans and does no harm to minorities. DeLay has said Republicans should have a congressional delegation majority because they control every statewide office and a majority in the Legislature.
Republicans also said it is the Legislature's duty to redistrict because it failed to do so in 2001, resulting in the current districts being drawn by a three-judge federal court.
King said there were plenty of public hearings on redistricting. He said he only covered the door because he wanted to draw the map in private with advisers using a wall projector.
"You don't want people standing at the door, looking in and reporters trying to see what they're drawing. You just want some privacy," King said.
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Sounds like those kids need their milk and grahams and a lie-down.
Governor adds to Legislature's 'to do' list
Gov. Rick Perry appears at a meeting of the State Preservation Board on Tuesday in Austin. Later in the day Perry expanded the scope of the special legislative session to 28 additional areas. Full story.
Naw, the Chronicle isn't bitter and petty, naw, not at all. And they wonder why the term 'Sore Loserman' caught on so quickly...
House passes remapVeteran Democrats may lose seats if bill goes through Senate
07/08/2003
AUSTIN – The Texas House approved a Republican-backed congressional redistricting map early Tuesday that would probably end the political careers of several veteran Democrats.
House members broke almost entirely along party lines on the redistricting plan, which could favor Republicans in all but 11 of the state's 32 seats in the U.S. House. The vote was 83-62 and capped more than nine hours of debate. The measure now goes to the Senate.
"This is a fair and equitable map of Texas that clearly recognizes our voting patterns," said Rep. Phil King, R-Weatherford, the plan's primary author.
The state has swung decisively to the GOP, he said, and district lines should reflect that.
Frustrated House Democrats said they couldn't stop the bill as they did in May when 51 of them fled to Ardmore, Okla., for four days.
"This is fruitless," said Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, as he watched Democratic supporters use sock puppets in the House gallery to ridicule Republican speakers and their relationship to U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay, who backs redistricting. "I wish I was in Ardmore."
The battle will shift to the Senate, where a dozen Democrats could potentially block its consideration – if they stick together and the GOP majority doesn't jettison a long-standing procedural rule. Republicans hold 19 Senate seats, two short of the two-thirds majority required before a bill can be brought up.
If the Senate considers redistricting, it would probably amend the House plan.
For instance, Sen. Bill Ratliff, R-Mount Pleasant, said last week that he couldn't "support any plan that could result in someone from the Dallas-Fort Worth area representing northeast Texas." Under the House plan, as many as four districts with pieces of rural northeast Texas could be dominated by the Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs.
The plan that Republicans were poised to push through the House could force retirement for up to six white Democratic incumbents, including Ralph Hall of Rockwall and Chet Edwards of Waco.
Under the existing districting setup, Democrats last fall won 17 of Texas' 32 congressional seats. But Mr. King said Republicans could win up to 21 seats under the House plan.
During the debate, Democrats invoked Nazi Germany, South Africa's former apartheid system, Liberia's civil war and Mexican general Santa Anna as they strained to underscore how deeply they oppose the plan.
"Mr. Speaker and members, democracy was destroyed in Liberia," said Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, who said he supports President Bush's decision to send U.S. military advisers to the war-torn West African nation.
"The people's voice was not being heard, and we as defenders of democracy have a duty to fix it," he said. "The people of Texas have spoken, and it's very clear to me: The people do not want new congressional lines."
Mr. King reiterated Republican displeasure that existing districts, drawn by three federal judges, kept the broad outlines of a 1991 plan that Republicans viewed as a Democratic gerrymander.
The judges' map "didn't reflect changes in the voting patterns or in the Texas population," Mr. King said. "The federal courts have run our prisons and run our schools, and it is not appropriate."
He said electing additional GOP congressmen would help President Bush fulfill his agenda during a potential second term.
House Democratic Caucus Chairman Jim Dunnam of Waco said the Republicans' effort goes far beyond what Democrats did in 1991.
"Go try and find a map in 1991 where we paired a Republican sitting member or where we threw out a Republican sitting member," Mr. Dunnam said. "It didn't happen."
The Republicans can't recruit viable candidates and beat incumbent congressmen such as Mr. Edwards and Mr. Hall, although the two represent districts tilting to the GOP, Mr. Dunnam said. He accused Republicans – led by Mr. DeLay, the U.S. House majority leader from Sugar Land – of attempting to achieve their political goals in a backdoor manner.
Democrats placed on a dais at the front of the House a foot-high pile of witness-affirmation forms from citizens who wanted to speak against Republicans' effort to redraw congressional boundaries. It dwarfed a small stack of forms signed by people in support, said Rep. Mike Villarreal, D-San Antonio.
But Rep. Mike Krusee, R-Round Rock, said the Democratic Party paid to transport and give lunches to many of the people who attended field hearings on the subject.
The House plan, which Mr. King drafted over the holiday weekend with help from Rep. Kent Grusendorf, R-Arlington, targets four white Democrats in addition to Mr. Hall and Mr. Edwards. They are Nick Lampson of Beaumont, Max Sandlin of Marshall, Charlie Stenholm of Abilene and Jim Turner of Crockett.
Backed by Republican colleagues, Mr. King fended off Democrats' proposals to keep the current districts, create a new Hispanic-dominated district and redraw lines to put Mr. DeLay in a predominately black Houston district now represented by Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee.
"Not one additional minority-opportunity district has been created, even though 60 percent of the state's growth over the past decade has been Hispanic," complained Rep. Ruth Jones McClendon, D-San Antonio.
Rep. Richard Raymond, D-Laredo, said GOP lawmakers have disregarded public opposition to what they are doing, even refusing to allow testimony on their latest map in committee Saturday.
Mr. Raymond said the map was drafted last Friday in a legislative office building near the Capitol. Mr. Raymond displayed a photo he took of the room, which had newspapers taped over the windows and a sign, "Private Meeting – Do Not Enter."
That sign "symbolized the entire redistricting process," he said.
Mr. Krusee, a redistricting committee member, said the panel spent hours hearing testimony on previous maps. Private meetings on legislation aren't unusual, he said.
"Every bill we've ever done was written behind closed doors," Mr. Krusee said.
The Senate Jurisprudence Committee will hold a redistricting hearing at 3 p.m. Tuesday in Dallas at the University of North Texas System Center, 8915 S. Hampton Road.
E-mail rtgarrett@dallasnews.com
Online at: http://www.dallasnews.com/latestnews/stories/070803dntexremap.20c3a.html
House passes remap
Veteran Democrats may lose seats if bill goes through Senate Excerpt from post #10:
Frustrated House Democrats said they couldn't stop the bill as they did in May when 51 of them fled to Ardmore, Okla., for four days.
"This is fruitless," said Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, as he watched Democratic supporters use sock puppets in the House gallery to ridicule Republican speakers and their relationship to U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay, who backs redistricting. "I wish I was in Ardmore."
The battle will shift to the Senate, where a dozen Democrats could potentially block its consideration – if they stick together and the GOP majority doesn't jettison a long-standing procedural rule. Republicans hold 19 Senate seats, two short of the two-thirds majority required before a bill can be brought up.
If the Senate considers redistricting, it would probably amend the House plan.
For instance, Sen. Bill Ratliff, R-Mount Pleasant, said last week that he couldn't "support any plan that could result in someone from the Dallas-Fort Worth area representing northeast Texas." Under the House plan, as many as four districts with pieces of rural northeast Texas could be dominated by the Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs.
The plan that Republicans were poised to push through the House could force retirement for up to six white Democratic incumbents, including Ralph Hall of Rockwall and Chet Edwards of Waco.
Under the existing districting setup, Democrats last fall won 17 of Texas' 32 congressional seats. But Mr. King said Republicans could win up to 21 seats under the House plan.
During the debate, Democrats invoked Nazi Germany, South Africa's former apartheid system, Liberia's civil war and Mexican general Santa Anna as they strained to underscore how deeply they oppose the plan.
"Mr. Speaker and members, democracy was destroyed in Liberia," said Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, who said he supports President Bush's decision to send U.S. military advisers to the war-torn West African nation.
"The people's voice was not being heard, and we as defenders of democracy have a duty to fix it," he said. "The people of Texas have spoken, and it's very clear to me: The people do not want new congressional lines."
Please let me know if you want ON or OFF my Texas ping list!. . .don't be shy.
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SS. And ALL the dumbocrats were yelling about DeLay being involved. Why not? They are trying to change HIS district!
You'd better put some ice on that.
The Democrats admitted they fought not so much in hopes of stopping the bill in the House but to help build a federal court case if redistricting passes the Legislature.
These two quotes put the Rat attitude in perspective. They first claim the support of the people, but are planning to go to court to overturn the will of the people, as expressed through their elected representatives.
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