Bush Administration Defense of Texas Remapping ...
The Washington Post has been fairly consistent in recent months with this story regarding the battle over legislative redistricting in Texas. Still, they keep leaving one crispy, rather important detail out (we'll get to that in a minute). This dates back to the days when Congressman Delay was "King of the Hill" (in true form almost idolizing the Fox cartoon series on beer guzzling, introspective working class White Texans pontificating life and the American Way) ... well, who knows, he probably still is as the rule of law in Washington is upstaged by the rule of favors. Anyway, Delay got greedy and wasn't satisfied with overrunning Capitol Hill, K Street and the Red State frontier - he needed a heavy Lone Star shout out.
Serious drama unfolded between hardheaded Texas Republicans and equally stubborn Texas Democrats over the redrawing of voting districts as the Texas GOP (rallied by Delay's "Hammer"ing hands) sought to tighten its political grip nationwide by sending even more Republicans to Washington. Republicans, it seemed, would vicariously run the country through everything Texas. Well, it is the state of all things Big ...
The Administration now feels compelled to rush to the aid of Texas lawyers in a bid to underscore (or salvage) that control in the wake of Delay's fall and over concerns that the Texas Republican delegation could shrink in the 2006 Congressional mid-terms. But, what's problematic for opponents of the remap is that it's somewhat difficult to argue African American voting power in Texas was diluted when the 2003 plan partly contributed to the election of an additional Black Congressional Member to the Texas delegation in 2004: Rep. Al Green (D-TX), overseeing the 9th District in southwest metro Houston. We've read Texas newspapers highlighting that interesting factoid. It causes reason for pause: can we frame this case as the story of politically anti-Black/anti-minority Republicans seeking to usurp Black and Latino electoral power in Texas? And how does Green factor into all of this? What's his take? Or was this a personal power grab driven by the lust of one Member who didn't care about unintended "consequences" so long as he got what he wanted? Appreciate the Post headlining the issue, but it would be nice if we got some perspective from the fairly prominent African American members in the Texas delegation who must have some sort of angle on this.
Serious drama unfolded between hardheaded Texas Republicans and equally stubborn Texas Democrats over the redrawing of voting districts as the Texas GOP (rallied by Delay's "Hammer"ing hands) sought to tighten its political grip nationwide by sending even more Republicans to Washington. Republicans, it seemed, would vicariously run the country through everything Texas. Well, it is the state of all things Big ...
The Administration now feels compelled to rush to the aid of Texas lawyers in a bid to underscore (or salvage) that control in the wake of Delay's fall and over concerns that the Texas Republican delegation could shrink in the 2006 Congressional mid-terms. But, what's problematic for opponents of the remap is that it's somewhat difficult to argue African American voting power in Texas was diluted when the 2003 plan partly contributed to the election of an additional Black Congressional Member to the Texas delegation in 2004: Rep. Al Green (D-TX), overseeing the 9th District in southwest metro Houston. We've read Texas newspapers highlighting that interesting factoid. It causes reason for pause: can we frame this case as the story of politically anti-Black/anti-minority Republicans seeking to usurp Black and Latino electoral power in Texas? And how does Green factor into all of this? What's his take? Or was this a personal power grab driven by the lust of one Member who didn't care about unintended "consequences" so long as he got what he wanted? Appreciate the Post headlining the issue, but it would be nice if we got some perspective from the fairly prominent African American members in the Texas delegation who must have some sort of angle on this.
posted by BPblogger at 9:20 AM
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