Burnt Orange Report

Houston Chronicle on Special Session

By Byron LaMasters

This is today's editorial in the Houston Chronicle:

WRONG PRIORITY Special session on redistricting wasteful, divisive Many Texans, particularly conservatives, resent the meddling of Washington politicians in matters that are clearly the state's business. Gov. Rick Perry, however, is not among them.

An attempt to pass a congressional redistricting plan demanded by U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Sugar Land disrupted the Legislature's regular session. Rather than see an unreasonable and destructive plan become law, many Democrats in the Texas House decamped to Oklahoma, breaking a quorum. Subsequent excesses by state police and Republican leaders in Austin and Washington served to confirm their unreasoning intent and widen the partisan divide.

Now the governor has called a special session, to begin June 30, in a second attempt to do Congressman DeLay's will and slight the interests of all Texans of both parties.

The reasons against redistricting more than once every 10 years have been frequently and laboriously recounted:

· Redistricting this year would needlessly confuse voters thrown into new districts and confronted with unfamiliar candidates.

· It would set a precedent for disruptive redistricting any time control of the Legislature changed hands.

· A special session will cost taxpayers $1.7 million that could be better spent on health care for children or some other vital need shortchanged in the budget the Legislature just adopted.

· The plan DeLay wishes to impose would carve up the state into grotesquely shaped, absurdly elongated districts that would not reflect community and regional interests. Many Texans, both urban and rural, would be deprived of adequate representation and the opportunity to send one of their neighbors to Washington.

Perry said he is confident that Republicans and Democrats can work together to draw a map that is fair, compact and reflects community interests. If that is true, why did Perry try to pass a redistricting scheme that was none of those things?

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, like all other statewide officeholders a Republican, deserves credit for his commitment to let Democrats in the Senate have a voice in shaping state policy. Dewhurst says he will observe the Senate's tradition of allowing any 12 senators to block legislation they deem unacceptable, a rule that encourages some semblance of healthy consensus and prevents a single faction from railroading harmful legislation.

Although Texas is a heavily Republican state, and the current district lines favor Republican chances, the Texas congressional delegation has 17 Democrats and 15 Republicans. This counterintuitive result can be attributed to this phenomenon: Some long-serving Democratic incumbents enjoy widespread support among their Republican constituents.

Given the polls showing most Texans satisfied with their representative in Congress, the governor is wrong to call a special session on redistricting. Texas faces many difficult challenges -- school finance and overhaul of the tax system are the most pressing -- that should take precedence.

Posted by Byron LaMasters at June 19, 2003 03:34 AM