Saturday, August 13, 2011
Congressional redistricting political machinations unsealed
“What this shows is an ongoing, months-long effort in which the Republican congressional delegation was working hand in glove with the Republican leadership in Austin to draw districts that protected and expanded Republican control . . . ” Note: Well, what can we say, "Par for the course for politics?" Congressman Smith (21st District), who was one of the lead dogs in this charade, will be representing a third of Hays County if the Republicans' lawsuit is successful and the Texas redistricting plan passes muster. Hays County is split into three congressional districts under the Republican plan. Democrats are challenging the plan in separate lawsuits which have been combined in a San Antonio federal court.
Just for fun, enterprising Hays County citizens might want to inquire about the emails passing between county officials (judge, commissioners, county attorney and consultant Mr. Rios) and private citizens in the county's own redistricting game. A final redistricting map (with new commissioner precinct boundaries) is expected to be voted on at a public hearing of the commissioners court, scheduled Tuesday Aug. 16 1:30pm at the courthouse.
Click here for a view of the fascinating congressional redistricting-related emails. In some, Hays County is even mentioned.
Send your comments and news tips to roundup.editor@gmail.com, to the Express-News (complete story link), to Congressman Smith, or click on the "comments" at the bottom of the story
By Nolan Hicks | San Antonio Express-News
Updated Friday Aug. 12, 2011
Read the complete story
Emails unsealed Thursday (Aug. 11) by a federal judge show that key Republicans involved in Texas redistricting voiced concerns that their plans could violate the Voting Rights Act and actively considered bypassing the Justice Department two months before the Legislature passed a redrawn congressional map.
The more than 400 pages of emails they sent between October 2010 and June show key staffers for Texas House Speaker Joe Straus and U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, who was chosen by the Texas congressional delegation to be their point person on redistricting, were in frequent contact — swapping map proposals, news stories and questions about the law via email.
“What this shows is an ongoing, months-long effort in which the Republican congressional delegation was working hand in glove with the Republican leadership in Austin to draw districts that protected and expanded Republican control,” said Matt Angle, a longtime Democratic consultant who helped to organize one of the redistricting lawsuits currently pending in federal court in San Antonio.
“They were aware and sensitive to the fact that they were likely to violate the Voting Rights Act and were warning each other not to put in writing what they were clearly saying to each other,” he said.
Republicans have long said publicly that any of the redistricting maps passed during the last Legislative session do not reduce opportunities for minority representation in either the Texas Legislature or in the Texas congressional delegation.
“It's a purely partisan statement,” said Sen. Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, regarding a recently filed redistricting lawsuit.
Two months before either redistricting committee in the Texas Legislature had voted out a congressional redistricting map, key Republicans involved in Texas redistricting were actively considering bypassing the traditional Justice Department approval of redistricting maps, opting to take the fight over redistricting straight to federal court in Washington D.C.
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3 comments:
Ask Matt Angle about the interaction between Congressional Democrats in Washington DC and the then Democratic-controlled State Legislature during Congressional redistricting in 1991.
He was employed by former Democratic Congressman Martin Frost at the time. Martin Frost essentially brokered the Congressional map (or large parts of it) that was passed back then during the second of four special sessions called by Gov. Ann Richards after the regular session had finished.
Rep. Frost had sent Angle and senior adviser Bob Mansker to Austin to be sure his Congressional seat in the Metroplex was preserved -- in a district that was being jeopardized by Eddie Bernice Johnson, then a state senator, who was on the senate's Congressional redistricting committee and was intent on fashioning a new African-American district in Dallas that she could win in. She was taking a lot of Democrats away from Frost and other Democratic Reps in the area. By the way, she's been in Washington DC ever since.
Frost got very creative in drawing himself a district he could still win in (gerrymandering, anyone?), but later had to pay back the federal government after an ethics investigation raised an issue with the expenses Frost had used to send Angle and Mansker to Texas to hash out the Congressional plan.
I recommend these documents for anyone who wants to really see some of the behind the scenes stuff that goes on when the Legislature is in the redistricting business -- fighting over territory, fighting over the numbers, etc.
And it's not just the Republicans. The Democrats did the same thing when they were in charge.
Sorry to bog down all of the comments so far, but the SA Express-News article makes it sound as if it was some great revelation that the Republicans were considering (back in early April) that the State might bypass DOJ and file in the DC District Court.
Look at House Bill 1975 from the last Regular Session. This was a BILL that called for anything that involved VRA Section 5 Preclearance to bypass DOJ in favor of the DC District Court. This bill was filed early in MARCH of this year.
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