Texas Redistricting

So I've been reading lately that the Supreme Court is going to take up the redistricting in Texas.  Yeah that is the issue that sent Texas Representatives to Oklahoma and Texas Senators to New Mexico.  It is also the issue that got the Texas Speaker of the House investigated and the U.S. House Majority Leader indicted.

So what.  Well, regardless if you are Democrat or Republican, in my neck of the woods redistricting was a very righteous cause.  You see, in 1990 (and years before) the Democrats pulled the worst gerrymandering in the History of the world and nobody outside my area seemed to care.

It is one thing to chop up a City like Dallas or Austin into three or more congressional districts, but to chop up a city of under 90,000 (in 1990) into FOUR congressional districts is just punitive.  For over a decade my representative was from San Antonio (300 Miles Away).  Some in my city were lucky enough to have one only 115 miles away, but being so fractured, our 22,250 as a percentage of 572,000 per house seat (4%) means a whole lot less to a representative than 90,000 (15%).  Team us up with some SMALLER surroundig towns which were split two or three ways and you really get your representatives attention.

Considering that Midland and West Texas was crippled, we held fast to our State Representative until he became the Speaker of the House and we are proud to call ourselves the Hometown of George W. Bush.  In 2004 we held fast to our call for a representative of our own and pissed off a few Republican's who didn't have the spine to stick it to the Liberals.  I think it is an object lesson for the the Democrats.  Don't piss off West Texas Power Brokers!

If the Supreme Court let's us do our congressional districts again, I hope this time around the Texas House only puts 22,250 Austin-ites into each congressional district.  By my calcualtions that's 29 different congressioanl districts.  Serves the Liberal Bastards right.