Well, both parties made the bed of gerrymandering that the Dems are refusing to lay down in. They've been plenty ruthless when the shoe's been on the other foot, although I will grant that the districts in question in this case are on the ludicrous side even for gerrymandering.
Guess they should have campaigned better, they knew it was a VERY important election, since it would influence redistricting.

And cries of "oh no, the Republicans are going to run it all!" from Texas Dems. don't get a lot of sympathy from me, they've had control of Texas for 130 years,
and are acting like very sore losers.

The only way I can see out of the gerrymandering mess would be a constitutional amendment mandating some neutral formula for redistricting, but I'm afraid that that
would be too incomprehensible to typical voters (and too distasteful to politicians).

I don't like the fact that we have a positive feedback loop with redistricting, making seats basically handed out every 10 years, based on that years election, but that's the system we've got.

Now, once again, the Federal courts will probably have to sort the mess out, and both sides won't have compromised in the middle, with 2 or 3 more safe Republican seats. (anything under 5 probably could have been swallowed by the Dems in an appropriate horsetrade).

David, you have to admit that while they're certainly at fault for past behavior, and they're acting out of self interest, in this case the Dems were attempting to stop the kind of gerrymandering you're complaining about.

I see the ability to gerrymander as a potentially fatal flaw in our system of democracy. I can't think of any fair way to fix the problem permanently, though.

I'm somewhat taken aback by something a poster here said:
"they went away long enough for the bill to expire, no harm done, and the few democratic districts in the state are safe for another two years."

Since when does any party have a right to seats? That would be an aristocracy. It's games like this from BOTH sides that lead to the terrible lack of accountability we have from our govt. Gerrymandering safe seats for ANYONE is what has given us our bloated Federal govt. that sticks it's fingers in everywhere; all funding bills must start in the House. Heck, maybe with competitive House elections again we'd actually get some decent representation in this country

And "no harm done"? What's the point of having elected legislators if the losers just pull tricks like this? It will only further erode what little faith many have left in our political institutions. Why do you think so few people vote anymore, when the conclusion has been a done deal in all but a very few House elections?

I'm not sure who I'm more disgusted with on this one, since I view both parties as the bad guys who brought us here.

Talk about getting govt. agencies to work together! DHS integrating with state legislatures. What will they think of next?

Like Matthew said, its a filibuster plain and simple - just with a lot more running from the law, crossin' of state lines and if I'm not mistaken, some reps from the Valley jumped across a creek in an orange Dodge Charger at one point. It's just how we do things down here, and thats how we likes it!

Edited by author 05-16-2003 09:36 AM
So, Tom Craddick and the "Dirty Thirty" must've been real brave when they did the same thing in 1971.

Read your history a bit better. The Dirty Thirty was a bipartisan group, both Republicans and Democrats, who were united in opposition to the corruption of Democratic Speaker Gus Mutscher. That's just a bit different than an entirely Democratic bloc fleeing the state so they won't lose a vote.

Edited by author 05-16-2003 08:47 AM
There are a couple of quotes that worry me here...

"these legislators are not paid to run away to Oklahoma when things don't go their way."
In actuality, they get paid to do whatever they can convince their constituients is the right thing to do. It is possible to say that to run away from Austin is bad, but in the rough-and-tumble world of politics, this seems to be just another procedural trick, just like a filibuster. To do otherwise would be an affront to seperation of powers.

"This is why we need federal laws on redistricting measures."
I'm not sure that taking the redistricting process out of the hands of the local electorate and putting it in the hands of the federal courts is such a great idea.

Edited by author 05-16-2003 02:11 AM
I'm a Texan, so I'll jump in - there's nothing clownish or particularly conspiratorial about this. Texas politics may be a three-ring circus, I think so. This action is an attempt to assert through the media - that there are problems with redistricting. Which is supposedly science and statistics.

Texas is a big state, hear of the electoral college, know how exactly they decide on representation on Capitol Hill? Tie it altogether, and it could lead to Texas electing presidents, or the GOP controlling more of the Senate or House. Which are national issues. In recent memory, Florida managed to elect someone to president.

Population stats and geography get manipulated, they just look different from butterfly ballots and hanging chads. That's the real problem.

These politicos are being creative, but I just wish they'd done it sooner. This is best viewed as a very serious fight between the GOP in Texas, our Lone Star reps in Washington vs. everyone else who would like to have a voice.

Democrats had a majority in Texas for 130 years, and Republicans never pulled a cowardly stunt like this.

So, Tom Craddick and the "Dirty Thirty" must've been real brave when they did the same thing in 1971.

What the Democratic legislatures did strikes me as clownish and desperate. Tom DeLay's involvement strikes me as a heavy-handed, arrogant, and cynical power play. In other words, par for the course in in the three-ring circus of Texas politics.

This Houston Chronicle story adds more to the story:

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/1911853

It looks like the Texas GOP guy *misled* the Homeland Security guys into helping. Lets the Feds off the hook, but makes the Texas guys look all the worse.

the texas rangers weren't to arrest them, just bring them in for work. the texas legislature only meets for a few weeks every two years and the representatives only get about $7,000 per term for their service.

it wasn't a few democrats, it was 51. they went up to oklahoma to hole up because i think texas law allows the governor to call up the texas rangers to bring them in and the texas rangers have no jurisdiction in oklahoma. there was then talk of using the fbi but it's not a federal issue.

i think the democrats were absolutely right in what they did. the republicans were basically trying to turn texas into a one party state with their gerrymandering. there are no democrats in any state office other than the legislature. they really had no choice and did a good job of representing their constituents. they went away long enough for the bill to expire, no harm done, and the few democratic districts in the state are safe for another two years.

It was no doubt a ham-fisted, incautious and bungled attempt (like the Watergate burglary) by Republicans to use all the law enforcement they could find to overcome the Democrats' temporary advantage.

But the use of the Homeland Security Department for partisan political purposes should alarm all Americans. It deserves a full, complete and independent investigation.

The warnings of civil libertarians appear to have been justified. Even if it turns out that some half-crazed Republican staffer or independent investigator called the Air and Marine Interdiction and Coordination Center, it raises disturbing questions about the operations of Homeland Security and the lengths Republicans will go enforce their will.

via commondreams.org

I'm not exactly sure, but I think there's no law in this state that says they're supposed to be arrested for not showing up to work. Or to be forced to attend. That's where this talk about Republicans sending out troopers to drag these legislators back is pretty fucked up, and, frankly, kind of scary. Technically, the Republicans may not have the authority to do this. Otherwise, if this is illegal, then I guess they would all be arrested next week after they return.

If this was one legislator who didn't show up, for one reason or another (political protest or just plain laziness), then the oversight would be the legislator's constituents. The voters would/should, theoreticaly, "fire" this person by voting them out of office.

But here we're talking about several legislators going AWOL. Still, they may not be doing anything that's illegal, per se.

If I'm reading your insinuation right: Republicans have somehow provoked this as a means to arrest Democrats. No doubt, by such a conspiracy theory, this is a precursor to imprison them without trial for secret execution.

So, no, not really. Come up with some evidence more convincing than an FDR quote and specious allegations, then we'll talk.

Doesn't this remind anyone of what happened to Paul Wellstone and Mel Carnahan?

This article touches on something that's been bothering me for a while now.