Want an election news scandal?
Here's one you may not have heard about, Rick Lyman covered it on the back of Saturday's New York Times (A26, "Texas Rivals Offer Competing Redistricting Plan"). Background, Texas redrew their Congressional districts after the census. (The legislature couldn't come up with a plan so the court did.) Due to the GOP doing quite well in state elections, the state legislature later decided they'd take up the redistricting issue. (Traditionally, you redistrict every ten years based on the census results.)
This led to many conflicts. Just the proposal of redrawing. The Texas House saw some Democrats walk out and the state's Senate followed. (One group went to Oklahoma -- and Tom DeLay, the prime force behind the redistricting plan, and others thought it would be 'fun' to divert resources and have Homeland Security try to locate them; while the second group went to New Mexico.) The attempts to postpone it didn't help. The districts were redrawn to give Republicans a majority. The issue finally ended up in the Supreme Court where they elected to focus on only one district, the 23rd. They felt it under-represented Latino voters and needed to be redrawn to meet the Voting Rights Act.
Did you follow all of that?
Well, remembering that Congressional elections take place this November, follow this: to redraw that district, other districts -- surrounding districts -- would have to be changed. The Republicans (apparently without Tom DeLay's help this time -- but who knows?) have a plan that would, Lyman writes, remove one US Congress member from his own district (Democrat Lloyd Doggett), and split Travis County into three districts while taking some of district Henry Bognilla (Republican) currently represents and giving it to the district that Henry Cuellar (Democrat) now represents. The Democrats plan would reduce the the geographical size of the 25th district (which Molly Ivins once compared to Picasso-like for the creative manner in which Republicans drew it out). (That's the extent of Lyman's coverage of the Democrat's plan.) (There are other plans drawn up by other groups, Lyman doesn't review them.)
But here's the thing to focus on, the Supreme Court turned over the issue of the validity of the newly drawn 23rd district "to a three-judge panel of the Federal District Court." The plans have been submitted to the three-judge panel. Arguments will begin on August 3rd. As the Associated Press pointed out: "The high court did not set a deadline for a new map, but changes would have to be made soon to be effective in the November general election." That may lead some people to respond to the question of "Who are you going to vote for?" with "I'm waiting to find out where I live."
The same AP story notes that Texas Governor Rick Perry states this is really a legislature issue and, after he sees the court's verdict, he may call a special session of the legislature to redraw the 23rd district (that would mean if he's unhappy with the judges' call). The AP fails to warn readers this isn't idle talk from the man Ivins has dubbed "Governor Good Hair." Perry called two special sessions on this issue already. (The first led to the walk out to Oklahoma, the second to the walkout to New Mexico.) Assuming he's unhappy with the judges' decision, this might mean that it's September before the voters of the 23rd district (and those surrounding them) know exactly which candidates they'll be able to choose from.