The Clipboard: The Soviet Republic of Texas

From an article¹:

You might think America's rigged system of congressional elections couldn't get much worse. Self-serving redistricting schemes nationwide already have left an overwhelming number of seats in the House of Representatives so uncompetitive that election results are practically as preordained as in the old Soviet Union. In the last election, for example, 98 percent of incumbents were reelected, and the average winning candidate got more than 70 percent of the vote. More candidates ran without any major-party opposition than won by a margin of less than 20 percent. Yet even given this record, the just-completed Texas congressional redistricting plan represents a new low. (link)

Ouch.

---

Complete text of the article, The Soviet Republic of Texas, by the Editors of the Washington Post

You might think America's rigged system of congressional elections couldn't get much worse. Self-serving redistricting schemes nationwide already have left an overwhelming number of seats in the House of Representatives so uncompetitive that election results are practically as preordained as in the old Soviet Union. In the last election, for example, 98 percent of incumbents were reelected, and the average winning candidate got more than 70 percent of the vote. More candidates ran without any major-party opposition than won by a margin of less than 20 percent. Yet even given this record, the just-completed Texas congressional redistricting plan represents a new low.

The plan grabbed headlines as a consequence of the flight by Democrats -- twice -- from the state to prevent its adoption. The Democrats, whose only hope, being in the minority in both houses, was to prevent a quorum, eventually gave in; the legislature has adopted the plan. It's abhorrent on two counts. Texas Republicans, egged on by U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, violated a longstanding tradition by redrawing the map in the middle of a census cycle. Their new rule seems to be, why wait 10 years if you can cram something down your opponents' throats today? And their plan is designed to wipe out moderate and white Democrats from the Texas congressional delegation. We don't know whether the plan violates the Voting Rights Act or will survive legal challenge. What is clear, however, is that it will aggravate the triumph of extremes in Washington while further sovietizing America's already-fixed electoral game.

The map Republicans have produced is a remarkable feat of gerrymandering. The 19th District, once confined to the western side of the state, now snakes halfway across it to scavenge voters from the current district of Democratic Rep. Charles Stenholm. Beneath it now sprawls the once-compact 11th District of Democratic Rep. Chet Edwards, which has been completely redrawn to help a friend of George W. Bush get elected to Congress. The south of the state now looks like a pinstripe suit, with narrow districts snaking from north to south in order to pack Hispanic-majority voters in just a few districts, including a new one. Dallas liberal Martin Frost, meanwhile, suddenly has a new district, 63 percent of whose voters are Republican. The goal here is not subtle. As Republican state Rep. Phil King, who helped draw the map, put it to the Austin American Statesman, "I would suspect that [any Democrat] who is not in a minority district would have a very competitive race."

The current Texas House delegation includes 17 Democrats and 15 Republicans. This balance, no doubt, is a residue of a time when Democrats were more powerful in the state than they are today and reflects deliberate incumbent protection by past legislatures. It also, however, reflects the fact that some Democratic members have effectively represented their increasingly conservative districts and remained popular. The pernicious effect of partisan redistricting in general is the weakening of the center with the creation of "safe" seats for both parties -- which encourages the election of people considerably to the left or right of the state's political center of gravity. Do Texans really want a polarized delegation of 22 conservative Republicans and 10 liberal Democrats, as the current plan envisions? Do they really want a state with a white party and a minority party? Republican politicians are engineering it that way, whatever voters may want. For redistricting -- quite the inverse of elections -- is a process in which politicians get to choose their voters. It is a process that a healthy democracy would seek to reform.

reference=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21839-2003Oct13.html