FIGHT FOR REPRESENTATION GOES TO COURT
15 October 2003

Democrats have taken their fight for the representative soul of Texas to federal court, in an effort to block Republicans in Texas from altering the Congressional map in order to take seats away from Democrats in the next election. The Democrats argue that the plan is unconstitutional and that it deliberately reduces the number of minority districts in Texas from 11 to 10.

The redistricting plan was signed into law on Monday, the 12th of October, by Republican Texas Governor Rick Perry. Estimates are that the new plan could yield between 5 and 7 new seats for Republican candidates in the next election.

CBS News quotes US Rep. Martin Frost (D) as saying, "It's a brutal and ugly trade-off: Seven GOP politicians win, but 3.6 million minority Texans lose." Observers have criticized the entire process, as put forward by Republican leaders, as an attempt to undermine the basic voting rights of all Texas voters, not just Democrats and minority voters.

The redistricting is supposed to be done the year following a federal Census, but the Republicans in Texas claim that they have a right to give Texans the proportion of Republican representation that they want today. Essentially, the Republican position boils down to a claim that voters who choose one party as the majority in state government would never choose the other party as its majority in Congress.

TEXAS DISTRICT CHANGES POSTPONTED
11 October 2003

Amid delays in bringing the issue to a vote, the Texas legislature again found itself without a quorum present to cast the deciding vote on redistricting. Republicans have been aggressively pushing to alter the Texas Congressional map, in order to sway the state's representative advantage from 17-15 Democratic to a Republican majority delegation.

LEGISLATIVE COMBAT IN TEXAS
13 March 2003

Democratic members of the Texas legislature have gone into hiding in Oklahoma, in order to deprive the Republican majority of the 2/3 quorum required to conduct business. The cause: an attempt to redraft electoral districts to further favor the ruling majority. The great escape is an act of governmental defiance, and of protest against what is seen as an attempt to undermine democracy.

Republican Governor Perry ordered State Troopers to round up the legislators and bring them in to vote. But the lawmakers escaped, leaving Republicans desperate to achieve a quorum by this week's deadline, lest their pending work be cancelled altogether. Democrats claim that the Republicans are trying to rig electoral districts to reduce minority representation and create a new de facto segregation, the primary benefit of which would be to favor Republican candidates, who already hold a majority.

Many are now questioning where responsibility resides, where recklessness, where courage. Democrats have portrayed their stand as courageous and a deliberate and necessary act to combat the "tyranny of the majority". Republicans claim that the Democrats simply want to undermine their party and the rights of the Texan electorate. But the story fits into a long-evolving, and worsening trend, in which state majorities consistently seek to redraw boundaries to their own advantage, as if they wanted to apply a death-blow to in-state opposition (and by extension to democracy).