The Clipboard: Texas tactics not right for Ohio GOP

From an article¹:

So is Ohio going to be the next Texas?

Will Ohio Democrats have to go to Indianapolis or Pittsburgh to thwart Republican plans?

Some Ohio Republicans, taking a page from the Tom DeLay, hard-core right-wing Republicans of Texas, want to redraw the state's congressional districts. Never mind that this has already been done in the wake of the 2000 Census; and that Republicans did it. (link)

A funny editorial that makes a serious point:

What's at stake here, beyond the congressional seats, is the principle that maps are redrawn once a decade. If that principle disappears, American politics changes a lot. Fights about maps — for state legislative races, as well as congressional ones — could become perpetual.

That's a description of a dysfunctional democracy, because fights about maps are the most partisan, most personal, most intense fights a legislature sees. When they are going on, everything else can stop. And the wounds they leave can be among the least likely to heal.

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Complete text of the article, Texas tactics not right for Ohio GOP, by the Editors of the Dayton Daily News

So is Ohio going to be the next Texas?

Will Ohio Democrats have to go to Indianapolis or Pittsburgh to thwart Republican plans?

Some Ohio Republicans, taking a page from the Tom DeLay, hard-core right-wing Republicans of Texas, want to redraw the state's congressional districts. Never mind that this has already been done in the wake of the 2000 Census; and that Republicans did it.

Never mind that before the Texas effort, everybody played by the rule that once a decade is it for redistricting. Never mind that nothing has changed as to where people live. (The new map would, of course, be based on the 2000 Census, just as the current one is.)

Never mind that the Texas Republicans have been denounced by other Republicans for overreaching, or that Texas has become a national laughingstock as the result of its fight over this issue. (Democratic legislators have left the state twice, so as to deny the Republicans the quorum necessary to conduct business. If the Democrats were in the state, they could be arrested and forced to attend, under an old law.)

Never mind that Ohio Republicans already have a 12-6 margin in the state's congressional delegation, far exceeding any margin they could imagine getting in this state in a hard-fought presidential election.

Despite all that, Republican state Chairman Robert T. Bennett (under White House urging, some suspect) and Cuyahoga County Chairman Jim Trakas have been floating a plan that would give the Republicans another district by merging two high-profile Democrats into one district. The immediate victims would be presidential candidate Rep. Dennis Kucinich and Rep. Sherrod Brown.

When the current map was approved, some eyebrows were raised because it wasn't as hard on the Democrats as it might have been. The Republicans did pick up the 3rd Congressional District seat of Democrat Tony Hall, but the district they drew was widely expected to result in Rep. Hall's re-election, if he ran, which he was expected to.

Meanwhile, Rep. Brown wasn't targeted for extinction, though many had assumed he would be.

But the Republicans had their reasons: Gov. Taft didn't want Rep. Brown to run for governor. And the Legislature had delayed so long in approving a plan that Democratic help was needed to meet a deadline.

That's the way the cookie crumbled. You can't uncrumble a cookie.

What's at stake here, beyond the congressional seats, is the principle that maps are redrawn once a decade. If that principle disappears, American politics changes a lot. Fights about maps — for state legislative races, as well as congressional ones — could become perpetual.

That's a description of a dysfunctional democracy, because fights about maps are the most partisan, most personal, most intense fights a legislature sees. When they are going on, everything else can stop. And the wounds they leave can be among the least likely to heal.

Gov. Bob Taft and Republican leaders in the Legislature are reported to be uninterested in drawing a new map now. That's good news. It reflects well on their realization that they've got enough problems to focus on, problems that directly affect the well-being of many Ohioans. But the governor of Texas was reported to be against extraneous redistricting for a while, too. No more. Party pressure can become awfully intense.

Gov. Taft's instincts are right. He needs to stick to them. And he needs to be encouraged to stick to them.

reference=http://www.daytondailynews.com/opinion/content/opinion/daily/0823redis.html