Editorial



Odessa American, Odessa, Texas



http://www.oaoa.com/columns/edit071803.htm



Friday July 18, 2003



Governor should rethink position



THE POINT — Republicans aren’t giving up on their redistricting attempt.



When 11 state senators pledged Monday to block the Texas Senate from 

taking up congressional redistricting legislation, the subject appeared 

dead — again.



But Gov. Rick Perry, like the proverbial mad scientist, wants to bring 

this monstrosity back to life once more. On Tuesday, Lt. Gov. David 

Dewhurst said Perry told him he would call another special session of 

the Texas Legislature.



Thanks to the Senate’s two-thirds rule, it takes 21 senators to agree to 

bring a bill to the floor for debate. When Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa rounded 

up the signatures of nine other Democrats and Republican Bill Ratliff on 

a letter opposing redistricting, it looked like the Democrats had 

succeeded in preventing the remap attempt.



Give the governor credit: He’s tenacious. Redistricting died the first 

time when Democrats in the state House foiled his and Speaker Tom 

Craddick’s attempt to redraw congressional boundaries in the regular 

session. The Killer D’s fled to Ardmore, Okla., until a legislative 

deadline passed.



Not content to let the subject die, the governor called a special 

session to revive redistricting. By doing so, Perry put the goals of the 

Republican National Committee ahead of his own state. The push to redraw 

the map comes from U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Sugar Land, 

who wants more than 15 Republicans to represent Texas in the 32-seat 

congressional delegation. Nothing wrong with that desire, but the GOP 

should work on making itself more attractive to voters instead of 

diluting the federal representation of Texans. In their zeal to redraw 

congressional districts in their favor, Republicans have stretched and 

distorted the boundaries beyond all logic.



In hearings around the state, Texans — including Republicans worried 

about rural areas — told lawmakers that they didn’t want legislators to 

redraw the congressional boundaries, but the bill passed the House in 

the special session. However, with 11 senators willing to stand against 

the remap, it’s dead in this special session. For now. Dewhurst has 

talked about dropping the two-thirds rule. The lieutenant governor 

should not change the rule after he said he would keep it, especially if 

he wants to keep all the political goodwill he built during the regular 

session of the Legislature.



Perry should think carefully as well. If he actually follows through and 

calls yet another special session on redistricting, he will lose any 

shred of bipartisanship he claimed to have. Each one of these special 

sessions costs Texas taxpayers at least $1.7 million at a time when the 

state is struggling with its budget — not to mention the current lawyer 

bills and the costs of future court challenges related to redistricting.



The only way the Texas Legislature should approach redistricting is to 

let the computer draw the map. Lawmakers should adopt software that can 

randomly draw district boundaries according to whatever specifications 

it receives.



Currently, the state Legislative Redistricting Board uses RedAppl 2001 

to model districts. This program lets users manipulate the boundaries 

manually, and it’s what redistricting backers used to come up with 

300-mile long congressional districts.



Another program, Texas Automated Redistricting plan Generation and 

Evaluation Tool (TARGET) automatically draws maps according to input 

from the user. If Perry and his fellow Republicans really wants fair 

redistricting, he should back a plan to use TARGET to draw congressional 

districts with equal populations that are compact, contiguous, simply 

connected and follow, when possible, existing political boundaries.



If the governor calls another special session to force partisan 

redistricting on a state that doesn’t want it, he will lose even more 

credibility in the eyes of Texas voters of all political leanings.