January 7, 2004
Texas Redistricting
Stephen Green notes:
The reason the court didn't rule on the wisdom of the Republican plan, is because the plan didn't have any.While it had no wisdom the plan's gerrymandering goals were clear. But these goals have been shared by Democratic majorities in the past and James Joyner reminds us that the process is not inconsistent with current practice:
So, while unusual, the 2003 re-redistricting was the first legislatively created one ratified by the courts.Steven Taylor has it right on redistricting:
Having said all of that, I am increasingly of the opinion that an entirely different system of districting needs to be developed that would do away with conscious partisan districtcraft, and would lead to more competitive elections.Stephen Bainbridge also wants to see an end to redistricting partisanship:There is no doubt that across the country whichever party is in charge has drawn the lines to their advantage to the detriment of seriously competitive electoral contests in many, many districts. The only good news is that voters don't always cooperate with the best laid plans of mice and legislature, and vote the way they want.
My own hope is that eventually we will say "enough is enough" and get rid of all this partisan gerrymandering in favor of a nation-wide system of nonpartisan redistricting designed to maximize the number of competitive seats. But I'm not holding my breath.We would probably pay much less attention to this type of thing if our representatives (at all levels) did not dabble in this kind of stuff (link via Zombyboy). Posted by Steve on January 7, 2004
Agreed. As a Republican, I didn't feel good about the Texas redistricting, although I felt even angrier about the Democrats self-righteous pose on the subject. The fact is, putting districting in the hands of the elected officials is an invitation to abuse of one kind or another; the tough part is coming up with a plan to district intelligently and reasonably in a way that cannot be abused by either party.
Posted by zombyboy at January 7, 2004 10:46 AMUnless and until the Voting Rights Act is repealed, redistricting MUST continue as it did in Texas. Creating safe minority districts as required by the VRA mathematically makes the remaining population more Republican. In heavily GOP states such as Texas, the real gerrymandering is the work that was done in previous years to artificially retain Anglo Democrat seats such as Martin Frost's. Even an "independent" commission would have its hands tied since the majority-minority districts cannot be retrogressed. Democrats and others complain about non-competitive districts, but they also want to ensure that the minority-majority districts are NOT competitive. You can't have it both ways...
Politics is a dirty business. The demolibs have had their way with districting for too long. Now it is our turn. Perhaps in the future there will be an alternate means of redistricting that is more fair. However, remember that fair is only what is agreeable to all parties of which each thinks they are getting the best part of the deal they can.
Posted by Patriot at January 11, 2004 7:13 PM
