Suck it, Tom Delay

[Lefty Scaevola]

alea jacta est.
sic transit gloria mundi

[Guynemer]

Q, you earned this for that brutal pimpslap of Ned:

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Oerdin
I also think Tom Delay is a dirt bag for gerrymandering all of the Congressional districts in TexaS IN order to prevent fair elections. There is winning elections because you have better ideas and then there is corruptly rigging everything in order to prevent competitive elections. Unfortunately, such a miscarrage of democracy isn't illegal in this country.

Um... why weren't you up in arms when the Dems did this for close to 100 years? Is it just because it's Delay?

The Texas Republican gerrymandering is no worse than what the Dems did before. What goes around, comes around.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
The Texas Republican gerrymandering is no worse than what the Dems did before. What goes around, comes around.

Actually, it was, as the Republicans "broke the rules" by gerrymandering outside of the normal time frame. It was mandated that redistricting was only done every 10 years, after a census. The Repubs up and decided to redistrict 2 years later, which is something the Dems had never done and is precisely why they were up in arms over it. Just another example of how the rules need not apply for Delay & Co.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Actually, it was, as the Republicans "broke the rules" by gerrymandering outside of the normal time frame. It was mandated that redistricting was only done every 10 years, after a census. The Repubs up and decided to redistrict 2 years later, which is something the Dems had never done and is precisely why they were up in arms over it. Just another example of how the rules need not apply for Delay & Co.

Yeah, it's something the Dems haven't done, because they CONTROLED THE GOVERNMENT since the late 1800s! They never had to do so!

The Republicans came to power for the first time in decades and said, lets give the Dems a taste of their own medicine. More power to 'em. There is no federal law saying redistricting ONLY has to occur after the census. It has just become tradition.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

what about changing the house of reps to proportional national representation? but that would need a constitutional amendment.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Yep... you couldn't get around that except with an amendment. It'd probably never happen. First, it seems too alien. Second, a lot of people like knowing their rep represents their little area and would prefer it to 5 reps representing a much larger area.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
There is no federal law saying redistricting ONLY has to occur after the census. It has just become tradition.

That's not the point. It was mandated as such under Texas house rules, but the GOP decided to ignore those rules and do their own game.

Redistricting after every census makes sense, as you have to reflect the demographics. Redistricting willy-nilly whenever you feel it will give you the optimum political advantage is just dumb, as it will just tell the opposing party to do the same when they return to power. So it's a total **** move.

[Lefty Scaevola]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
That's not the point. It was mandated as such under Texas house rules, but the GOP decided to ignore those rules and do their own game.

Wrong, amateur lawyer, the rule was not invovled since the legislature had failed to do said resdistricting in the first session.

[Boris Godunov]

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/may2003/tex2-m15.shtml

The redistricting had been done already by a nonpartisan panel in 2000, so another one wasn't due until 2010.

And nobody said it was a legal issue, it was an issue of standard practice and policies. The GOP blatantly violated longstanding tradition for a power grab, thus opening the floodgates for retaliation when the pendulum swings the other way.

[Lefty Scaevola]

DP edit

[Lefty Scaevola]

The was the panel of judges after the legislature failed to pass a plan. The legislature rules only apply the actions of the legislature, twit. The court having made a plan does not count as the legislature having passed a plan. The legislature has duly passed only one redistricting plan since the census. You could have firuged that out, even from a crappy article the world socialist website.

[JohnT]

The GOP blatantly violated longstanding tradition for a power grab, thus opening the floodgates for retaliation when the pendulum swings the other way.

Again totally ignoring the possibility that this itself was payback for 40+ years of gerrymandering by the Dems, eh Boris?

Not that that makes it right, but let's shed a little historical perspective on this.

[Boris Godunov]

And the court passing the plan was a perfectly legitimate way for it to be accomplished under Texas law, given the legislative failure to act. Nothing in the rules says otherwise. If the courts hadn't any jurisdiction, then you might have a point, but otherwise, you don't.

Redistricting isn't mandated for the purposes of partisan politics (though it's used as such), it's mandated to more accurately reflect the demographics of the state. So it doesn't matter if the GOP "missed out on their chance" in 2000 or not. Doing an end-run around the established precedent, while legal, was still a blatant power grab.

No name calling necessary, see?

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by JohnT
Again totally ignoring the possibility that this itself was payback for 40+ years of gerrymandering by the Dems, eh Boris?

Not that that makes it right, but let's shed a little historical perspective on this.

Nobody denied they hadn't done it before, but again, it was mandated by Texas law to do it every 10 years. Of course the party in power is going to try and gain from it.

However, redistricting every time a legislature feels like it is a big difference. The second the Dems get a majority again, they'll have the precedent to do it. It could go on like that forever. Let's see what that does to voter disenfranchisement when nobody knows what the hell district they belong to anymore.