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.
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