Burnt Orange Report

On the Quorum Report, Harv K. alludes to a Martin Frost letter about which districts Democrats might consider running in in Texas. Does anyone have a copy of that to share?

I had a quick read of the opinions. However, because they are a combined 127 pages, I did not have time to digest the myriad and complex issues enough to comment in detail.

Here are some summaries though. First, the Court held that middecade redistricting is not forbidden. (Byut they ruked that weeks ago). Second, to get around the 24th District (Frost) issues, the Court simply held that the District is not a minority-majority district and hence not subject to the full aegis of Voting Act protections. In other words, it's ok to slice and dice.

The Court acknowledged the retrogression problems with the 23rd District (Bonilla), but essentially held that they were remedied / offset with the new 25th (S.E.Austin-McCallen strip). As far as retrogression with the adjacent S. Texas "strip" Districts (15th [Hinojosa] 27th [Ortiz], & 28th [Rodriguez]), the Court essentially says they are not retrogressed enough to be a problem.

The rest of the Districts got less attention, because, in all candor, they had fewer, if any, constitutional infirmities. (Although, there is a ripple effect - if the new 24th were have been blocked bad, then several of the adjacent districts would have been more or less blocked too).

In general, the opinion (in, e.g, denying that the 24th is a protected district, etc.) is very ignorant of the plight of minority voters in this part of the country. Some of the readers on this blog are too young to remember the poll tax, and registration questions (asked to blacks only) such as how many people died on the Titanic, but this happened in out collective lifetime.

(As an aside, I recall a true story of an educated [and certainly literate] black man who tried to register to vote in Mississippi in days not too distant past. He was told all he had to do was read the front page of the Newspaper. Not too hard he thought. He was handed the paper - it was in Chinese. He said, "I can read the Headline." The Jim Crow registars were taken aback - could this guy have fooled them and he actually can read Chinese? He said, "Yep, it says no blacks are going to vote in Mississippi this year.")

The case goes straight to the Supreme Court. Here it will be interesting. Supreme Court cases are, unfortunately, often about policy just at much as they are about law, and redistricting cases especially.

One the other hand, a few of the majority in Bush v. Gore are very concerned about their legacy, having been criticized for being the partisan political whores they were. Will they seek to offset their taint of Bush v. Gore? Who knows.

Assuming an ulitmate loss, we as Democrats need to do two things. War is War. We did not start it, but we sure as hell are not going to lose it. First, in Texas, run as many candidates against these Republicans whose districts have been thinned out. Also atthe State wide level - if we can take 3 of 5 pivitol office by the 2000 race, even without the Legislature, we can fuck over the Republicans through the LRB, like they did to us. (Get ready, payback is a bitch)

Second, do a state-by-state analysis to see in which States we control the entire apparatus of State government, versus the Republicans. Then start our own strategic re-redistricting.

As they say, there are no rules in Love and War. And I just LLLUVVV Tom Delay. ;)

Jim D, because of the special provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, this case wasn't heard by a regular trial court (typically presided over by a single district judge), but by a special three-judge panel (selected by the Chief Judge of the Fifth Circuit and composed in this case of one judge from the Fifth Circuit and two district judges). Again because of provisions unique to the Voting Rights Act, appeals from the decisions of such three-judge panels skip the US Courts of Appeals (like the Fifth Circuit) altogether, and go directly to the US Supreme Court. Unlike the vast majority of lower court decisions brought to it for possible review, the US Supreme Court has to consider these Voting Rights Act cases "on the merits" although it doesn't have to hold oral arguments or write a full-blown opinion, and quite often summarily affirms the three-judge panel decisions without either. I wrote about this in more detail, with quotes from and links to the relevant statutes, in a comment to a post on my own blog in August. And as you might expect, I've also blogged about the merits of this most recent decision, and will spare your bandwidth by not repeating my take here.

Some of the readers on this blog are too young to remember the poll tax, and registration questions (asked to blacks only) such as how many people died on the Titanic, but this happened in out collective lifetime.

And that is relevant to the voting situation in 2004...how?

First, in Texas, run as many candidates against these Republicans whose districts have been thinned out. Also atthe State wide level - if we can take 3 of 5 pivitol office by the 2000 race, even without the Legislature...

Good for you. That's exactly what the judges told you to do:

"We decide only the legality of (the plan), not its wisdom," the court's opinion reads. "Whether the Texas Legislature has acted in the best interest of Texas is a judgment that belongs to the people who elected those officials whose act is challenged in this case."

'Some of the readers on this blog are too young to remember the poll tax, and registration questions (asked to blacks only) such as how many people died on the Titanic, but this happened in out collective lifetime.'

"And that is relevant to the voting situation in 2004...how?"

- Those who cannot remember history are doomed to repeat it.

Have we lost all sense of historical perspective? I am afraid some of us have.

To point out the obvious, Mr Harden, Texas and other States have an abysmal history of treating minorities like second class citizens and denying them any political power. This denial of political power was so extreme that the Voting Act was passed, among othe measures. One reason that 2004 is different than 1965 is because of the progress made by such Act. The forces that would deny political power have not gone away (E.g. "Wouldn't this country be better off if Strom Thurmond had been elecetd President."; President Ronald Regan annoucing his campaign for Presidency in a small Southern Town, tiny and historically insignificant but for a black lynching, and stressing a platform of 'State's Rights.' Gov. Barbour of Mississippi proudly associating himself with the CCC, the modern incarnet of the KKK; David Duke becoming a politcal force in Lousiana; etc., etc.) As they say in the South, "our history is not that old, in fact, it's still in the present."

These forces of racism have not been eradicated; they have been "chained" by the Voting Rights Act, which wisely assumes such lingering forces, hence the certification process that lasts still today, ca. 40 years after its creation.

The opinion rather cavalierly ignores the historical context of the Voting Rights Act and allows two minority districts to be gutted.

I suggest that the minority voters of D-FW and South Texas think that is very relevant in 2004.

The opinion rather cavalierly ignores the historical context of the Voting Rights Act and allows two minority districts to be gutted.

This is the most blatant and unapologetic argument for judicial activism I have seen recently. And if you want historical context, I suggest you go back over the last few thousand years in search of tyranny, for that is what you propose here - judicial tyranny, in disregard of both the voters of Texas and their representatives who passed the redistricting.

Thankfully, the judges instead ruled on the merits, under the rule of law established in the Voting Rights Act.

Per Newt's request I have cut this from the press release:

NEWS from U.S. Rep. Martin Frost (TX)
Ranking Member, Rules Committee -- 24th District of Texas
For Immediate Release: 6 January 2004
“Voters across North Texas have encouraged me to run for re-election in their districts. I will make a final decision by the January 16th filing deadline, but I am fortunate to have friends, supporters and substantial political bases in several of the new districts.

“For instance, the new 6th District includes my home and the entire city of Arlington, which has always voted strongly for me. It also encompasses Navarro County and the parts of Ellis County that I had the privilege of representing in the 1990s.

“The new 24th District includes Grand Prairie, which I have represented for 25 years, as well as Duncanville, Cedar Hill and parts of Dallas that I have represented for 20 years. It has no incumbent.

“The new 26th District includes almost all of Fort Worth’s African American community, which has provided key support for me since the 1990s. And the Republican incumbent is a freshman.

“The new 32nd District is almost majority-minority - 49 percent of its population are minority Texans - and it includes North Oak Cliff’s Hispanic community as well as the Jewish community of North Dallas. Before moving to Arlington, I lived in North Oak Cliff for nearly 30 years.

“In any of these districts, I would expect a very competitive, very expensive campaign for re-election. After all, Tom DeLay and Texas Republicans have admitted they drew this map to take me out of Congress. It will be an unprecedented race - the likes of which Texas hasn’t seen in modern history - and I look forward to the challenge. It may take $3 million to win it. Both my allies and my political opponents know that I can raise those resources. They know that a broad and bipartisan group of North Texans will join me in the fight for our home. And they know better than to bet against us.”

BACKGROUND:
• Overwhelming minority opposition to GOP map: Joining federal lawsuits against the new GOP map were LULAC, the Texas-NAACP, the Coalition of Black Democrat, MALDEF and the American GI Forum - as well as both of the African American Members of Congress from Texas and 5 of the 6 Hispanic Members. (The exception is GOP Rep. Henry Bonilla, who received only 8% of the Hispanic vote in 2002, and so was given a new TX-23 that is so much more Republican and less Hispanic that it is no longer a Hispanic district.) 35 of the 37 Hispanic and African American members of the Texas Legislature voted against the GOP map.
• GOP map sacrifices Hispanic & African American political strength: It reduces from 18 to 10 the number of districts where Texas minority voters can elect their candidate to Congress. It drops from 11 to 10 the number of effective Minority Opportunity Districts - where minority voters can elect the candidate of their choice on their own - and it eliminates all 7 existing Minority Influence Districts (TX-1, TX-2, TX-4, TX-9, TX-10, TX-11, TX-17) - where minority voters form coalitions with other like-minded Texans to elect the candidate of their choice to support their interests in Congress.
o The two Minority Opportunity Districts eliminated are TX-23, which is currently controlled by Hispanic voters, and TX-24, which is currently controlled by the African American voters who averaged 64% of the Democratic primary and 59% of the Democratic runoff in the 1996 to 2002 election cycles. The new plan creates just one new Hispanic district (the new TX-25), and no new African American districts. The new TX-9 is a reconfigured version of the exiting TX-25 in Houston, which is already an effective minority district. Neither new district compensates the millions of minority Texans disenfranchised in other areas of the state.
• LULAC on TX-15, TX-23: “District 23 is no longer a Hispanic district…[It] takes away any chance for the minority community to elect a candidate of their choice.” [LULAC federal trial brief, Pg 5-6]. “In the 2000 redistricting the Texas LRB redrew the [State House] district and reduced the Spanish surnamed registration from 70.8% to 60.7% Spanish surname voter registration. The Department of Justice objected to the reduction as a retrogression of Mexican American voter strength. The 64% HVAP and the 56.7% Spanish surnamed registration [for TX-15] under the new plan are less than the Hispanic voting age population and Spanish surnamed registration rates that existed in the state representative district during the 1980s, when only Anglos were elected under the 1980’s redistricting plan.” [Same brief, Pg 11]
• Texas-NAACP calls TX-24 a “minority opportunity district”: “[T]he new Congressional redistricting plan does dilute minority group voting strength, most notably in Congressional Districts 10, 15, 23 and 24.” [Texas-NAACP trial brief, Pgs. 3 & 11].
• Overwhelming public opposition: In the St. Legislature’s field hearings this year, 90% of Texans testified against re-redistricting. In more than 200 editorials, at least 21 Texas newspapers opposed it.
# # #

Bet your bottom dollar, Frost will run against Sessions.
_____________________________________________________
Mr. Harden,

To call enforcing the Voting Rights Act as judicial activisim, is argument by slogan, and deserves no response. To equate the United States Judiciary's actions in helping to eradicate racism in this country through enforcement of civil rights laws with some of the worst tyrannies known to man displays a shamefully ignorant view of history.

Do you earnestly beleive that Brown v. Board of Education is the kind of "Judicial Tyranny" that can be equated with, for example, the Wansee Konferenz / Endloesung of the Nazi tyranny?

To call enforcing the Voting Rights Act as judicial activisim

? I stated that the judges, by finding in favor of the map, properly enforced the Voting Rights Act...and by doing so (cavalierly ignoring the "historical context" of poll taxes a half century ago), thereby AVOIDED judicial activism.

The Voting Rights Act ended abuses against minority voters - that's precisely the law that was upheld yesterday.

Who me writes " War is War. We did not start it, but we sure as hell are not going to lose it."
Funny....just who do you think the Republicans learned from the tactics of gerrymandering? I grew up here in Texas watching the Dems do it decade after decade. You also say
" we can fuck over the Republicans through the LRB, like they did to us. (Get ready, payback is a bitch)"
It already is Who me...it already is.

Democrarts guilty of excessive gerrymandering? Hardly.

The principal reason for the historic preeminence of the Democratic party in Texas has little to do with gerrymandering and everything to do with the fact that Texas was truly a one-party State, in the sense that there were no Republicans. Liberal and conservative alike were Democrats. It was truly a "big tent" party.(Perhaps too big)

The Democrats never had to gerrymander to maintain partisan political advatage. You don't have to "crack" and "pack" Republicans if there are hardly any Republicans. Instead, the fight was intraparty, and primaries were a bloodbath.

So get your facts and history straight. The Democratic Party was never guilty of such a blatant power grab. Chalk that one up as one more Republican lie.

P.S. I still never get over the fact that Republicans refuse to admit that the so-called Gerrymandered map used by the Courts after the 2000 census was drawn by John Corynn's expert, who stated that the map had the intent of electing 20 Republicans. It just so happened that 5 "Republican" Districts liked their Conservative Democratic Congressmen and kept them. (A throw-back to the days of a "HUGE TENT" Democratic Party).