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Texas Redistricting Plan Punishes Texas Conservatives (ACTION NEEDED)

By: Freedoms Truth (Diary)  |  April 22nd, 2011 at 09:44 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

From the diaries by Erick

Texas Redistricting is underway, and a shocking blunder is about to happen in Texas. The Republican majority is about to pass, at the behest of the supposedly Republican Speaker, a redistricting plan that punishes conservative Republicans so badly, it might as well have been a Democratic gerrymander. Coming off the heels of an amazing Republican victory last November, the plan forces Republican incumbents in 8 districts to be paired off, and curiously, many of them are conservatives and freshmen Reps who opposed Speaker Straus.

Last November, State Rep Bryan Hughes accused Speaker Straus’ team of threatening redistricting actions to get support. Well, that exact operation appears to be going down – and in his zeal for punishing conservative, Straus is making it  harder to keep some Republican seats.  Despite 101 Republicans, the ‘committee’ plan draws only 93 Republican seats. In other words, a map is drawn to deliberately give 8 Republicans the short end of the stick. And worse, many of this is not necessary at all. A glaring example is the pairing of Rep Jim Landroop with Rep Charles Perry, while a nearby district is drawn with no incumbent.

The map hits home here in Travis county in central Texas: Even though they could easily draw two Republican seats, the committee deliberately put most Travis Republicans into a single sprawling district (HD47), while making another seat that a Democrat won by a literal handful of votes in 2010 (HD48) more Democrat! In other words, the committee map deliberately is protecting Democrats better than it protects Republicans. It’s so bad for Republicans, it’s as if a Democrat drew the map.

This YouTube emergency action alert by conservative Republican State Rep Wayne Christian raised the alarm, and his description of what was done to him, will open some eyes. His district has been literally taken apart.

But there is good news in this video: There is an alternative map being drawn up by former State Rep Joe Nixon. The alternative plan draws 97 instead of 93 Republican seats and works hard at fixing manifest problems with the committee map.

Like too many of these ‘insider’ betrayals, this redistricting betrayal is happening too quickly for many to notice or take effective action to oppose. The map was only made public one week ago, the public was given ‘input’ only for 2 days after that, and the House vote on it is next Tuesday, right after Easter. We only have a few days to make a difference. But we will need to in order to save conservatives in the State house. The ACTION NEEDED for Texas conservatives is simply this: Get your State Rep alerted that you want them to support the “Nixon map” alternative. It stops the punishment of conservative State Reps who opposed Straus.

COMMENTS

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  • junkbondtrader41

    But party leaders don’t generally impose punishments that would reduce the absolute number of members in their own party. Even if the Speaker isn’t a perfect conservative (and I don’t know one way or the other), you don’t generally make your army smaller on purpose just to punish your hardliners,

    There is no link to a news story to hear a counter-argument, and surely there is one. You sure this isn’t just your interpretation of the map?

    The rap against “RINOS” is that they’re Republicans before they’re conservatives, right? What’s the accusation here, that this Speaker is a liberal before he’s a Rebublican?

    • bk

      All members vote for the speaker, so if the alternatives are a conservative Republican and a not-as-conservative Republican, the Dems will gang up and vote for the guy who’ll give them some committee chairs and other favors over the guy who is more conservative.

      In fairness it’s been this way for a long time, including when Democrats were in control, but with a 101-49 edge it’s pitiful to (in effect) have the Democrats needing only 27 of the Republicans to get us where we are.

    • http://travismonitor.blogspot.com Freedoms Truth

      It’s a bad map that hurts Republicans in unnecessary ways.

      And you know that by looking at the Nixon alternative. The (former state Rep) Nixon plan nets 4 more Republican drawn seats, has a better map with fewer crazy districts, AND preserves more continuity for the freshman conservative legislators.

      In the interview, Nixon mentioned other big flaws in the committee map, such as a totally crazy and unnecessary district from Fort Worth almost to new Mexico, and that lawsuits were already being filed against it.

      Leaving aside the motivation or persons involved, and Rep Solomons ran the redistricting committee, so he’s responsible, we have a map that it not a good map, and we have a BETTER ALTERNATIVE that will be on the House floor in the voting on Tuesday. This vote is an easy indicator of who supports Republicans and conservatives, and who supports bad maps

      If you want any “counterarguments” you can always mosey on over to Burka Blog, the liberal Statehouse watcher who writes for Texas monthly. Or check out liberal texas blogs. The liberals like the plan. They are fine with it and think its ‘fair’, unlike that very nasty DeLay-inspired redistricting of Congressional districts that netted 6 Republicans back in 2004. That should tell you something. This committee plan treats democrats better than conservative Republicans, so of course they like it.

      Back when there was a heated Speaker race, Burka adamantly denied that Speaker Straus would stoop to using redistricting to punish his consvative enemies. Well, when he say the map he sheepishly admitted that is likely what happened.

      “You sure this isn?t just your interpretation of the map? ”

      It’s also very clearly the opinion/interpretation of Rep Wayne Christian and a number of other State Reps who have gotten screwed by this map. Go ask Rep Jim Landroop.

    • AceInTX

      When the Repubs finally took back the Texas House a couple yeards ago after being gerrymandered out of the majority for years by the Dems…the Dem caucus voted as a block for Storaus because he’s…well…let’s just say he’s not the most conservative guy in the caucus…

      So he bacame speaker because he got a handfull of votes from fifth collumn RINOs and a unanimous vote of DemoRATS in the House.

      Straus has spent the last several years since then as speaker stiff arming the conservatives and appointing Democrats to chair committees….Last year a group of Conservatives got together and tried to replace him with a more conservative speaker because at which point Straus came out with the muscle and threatened to gerrymander anyone who opposed him out of their seats…

      Fast Forward to today and the promised retribution is at hand.

      THIS IS WHY I DISPISE RINOS!

      If they can’t beat you outright in elections…they will jump ship and join the Demoncrats….they will support Domoncrat Opponents in their bids agains conservative Republicans…and in this case…they weill form a coalition with Demoncrats to destroy people in their own party to further their political fifedoms.

    • edintexas

      Even allowing that all House members in TX vote for the Speaker (not just the majority party as in the US House), have you ever heard of a Republican Speaker assigning Committee Chairmanships to Democrats? Straus does. Here’s a link to the Straus announced House Committee leadership. You will note that there are many Democrats chairing committees, and those aren’t exactly “throwaway” appointments, there are important committees assigned to Democrat leadership. He owes the Democrats and doesn’t owe those who opposed his continued Speaker position. His minions announced that he would take retribution, and he is. As for hurting “his” party, he owes more to the Democrats than the Republicans for they elected him Speaker to begin with. Once in power, the Speaker has weapons to make sure he stays in power, and Straus is using them for his advantage.

      • edintexas

        http://capitolannex.com/2011/02/09/straus-announces-house-committee-assignments/

        Sorry ’bout that, I had an interruption.

  • chelseagirl

    ..the absence of fair principles used to draw the maps is the issue. Go to the District Viewer and open the Base Plan of Pate or Owens and overlay it with the proposed TX House maps. Instead of using Houston’s Super Neighborhoods to draw the maps, voting precincts were used. The lines of the precicts will change after the City of Houston draws their new City Council map so the precinct lines will become irrelevant. And the Montrose are has been split in two! Natural boundaries like bayous were not adhered to. Artifical boundaries like major roads and highways were not adhered to. The Nixon map is awful and so would an LRB drawn map be awful if reasonable principles are not followed so the voters can choose their reprsentation and not the other way around

  • michaelo

    OK: here’s how it works: call up the two maps on the District Viewer (http://gis1.tlc.state.tx.us/) (Select Maps, Basic Plan H155 or H166- the Nixon maps, then Overlay Plan H134, The Solomon plan). Now, look at the following blocks of counties as units:

    Tarrant, Dallas, Collin, Denton, Rockwall
    William, Travis
    Harris, possibly Montgomery & Fort Bend
    Bexar and El Paso are the same in both

    These county blocks are pretty much plug and play: They could be taken out of the Solomns plan and dropped into the Nixon plan with very little additional modification. The vast majority of the Voting Rights aspects will be associated with those blocks (except for the border regions, which there are some differences). The resulting map would still be a BIG win for conservatives (and leave us the option to correct the couple of outlying issues in the primaries)

    A combined map is doable and I STRONGLY urge both sides to consider it to avoid the kind of House Rep statewide battle no one really needs. We have bigger fish to fry.

    Michael Openshaw
    Co-Founder
    North Texas Tea Party

    • michaelo

      the Nixon plan needs our full support.

  • http://travismonitor.blogspot.com Freedoms Truth

    That was my original title for this , but I held back.

    The issue right now is not the Speaker, but a very BAD MAP that needs to be stopped.

    That said, this bad map has the fingerprints of a Speaker more interested in punishing the conservatives than building and protecting Republican party. It’s a sad and sorry result from such a supposedly large GOP majority.

  • AceInTX

    not sure anyone will listen to me

  • bk

    And this is pretty much exactly what people feared would happen.

  • irishgirl

    Am faxing my rep right now.

  • quill67

    I looked at the maps for congressional redistricting without looking at who came up with the plan. I selected the maps that had the fewest crazily draw districts. The best plans by far were Plan106 and Plan 110. Turns out these plans were done by independent group of Owens and Pate.

    What would be the impact to Republicans if either plan 106 or 110 were implemented?

  • junkbondtrader41

    So it’s common to cross party lines in the vote for Speaker, unlike in the U.S. House?

  • annas

    Nearly all our newly elected representatives voted for this Democrat in Republican clothing despite mounds of letters begging them to do otherwise! To whom do you suggest we write???

  • http://travismonitor.blogspot.com Freedoms Truth

    In 2009, when Straus deposed Craddick as speaker, it was a cabal of 11 Republicans, and then the backing of 63 Democrats, which sealed the deal.

    Straus rode to power on Democrat support. He is now the ‘establishment’ power, and the main ‘threat’ to his power is conservatives not Democrats.

  • http://travismonitor.blogspot.com Freedoms Truth

    It’s a better map for Republicans and Texas.

    We dont need to make it about the Speaker, we need to make it about a good redistricting map vs a bad one.

  • rightwingmom52

    Shouldn’t Priebus & the GOP or Gov. Perry make a quiet call to the Texas leadership? Would it do any good for us to call GOP nat’l. headquarters?

  • AceInTX

    if we can pass the Nixon plan…we’ll have new conservative blood in the House as well as protect the freshmen who were duped into supporting Straus last go round…

    I don’t think he’ll be able to sucker them again after he’s singed their behinds and failed to eliminate his enemies…the key to defeating him and the path to our own retribution is passing the Nixon map!

    CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES….FLAME THE PHONE LINES….REMEMBER THE ALAMO!!!

  • burbmom

    will end up with the Legislative Redistricting Board made up of the Attorney General, Land Commissioner, Comptroller, Lt. Gov., and House Speaker. Unfortunately, Straus is on this list. Our Attornery General, Land Commissioner and Comptroller are stellar conservatives. Hopefully, they can show Straus a thing or two.

  • AceInTX
  • audax

    …then you can say…”I’m not a native Texan born…but I got here as fast as I could!”

  • rightwingmom52
  • burbmom

    the existing plan submitted by Solomon, the chairman of the redistricting committee. Nixon Plan 166 will help with 97 republicans. Quite a difference if you are one of the 16 no longer in the loop.

    The plans will be heard on the House floor this Wednesday giving conservatives a short window to call their reps. My rep claims it’s an issue of being able to successfully fund 82 disticts and win them or having 97 on the line and not be able to raise the money. They are pretty much looking for the easy way out….less campaigning. It’s blatant retaliation to those who opposed Straus as speaker.

    I might also add how little legislation has made it to Perry’s desk. Straus put his top buddies as chairmen of the various committees. The following bills are languishing….E-verify, sanctuary city. The sonogram bill, photo id are all still held up between the Senate and the House.

    The conservative agenda has been thwarted by our Speaker of the House, Straus, and Lt. Governor, Dewhurst.

  • freemanja1991

    because we can make at least 4 Hispanic majority R Leaning districts. thus thwarting legal challenges.

  • http://travismonitor.blogspot.com Freedoms Truth

    “My rep claims it?s an issue of being able to successfully fund 82 districts and win them or having 97on the line and not be able to raise the money ”

    Your Rep is a very bad liar… We ran 112 State Rep races in 2010. and won 99 of them! Frankly, the idea that they would deliberately draw fewer GOP seats for lack of money is an absurd copout. If we ran only 82 races, we wouldnt have the massive majority we got. Of COURSE they can fund who they want, and of course we have 100 incumbents. the Nixon plan make 97 seats that are 55% GOP or better, that means the incumbents there will have a structural advantage for re-election. They will be able to raise the money to survive.

    The Solomon/committee plan creates a number of open seats that make it harder and more expensive to run and win.

    “I might also add how little legislation has made it to Perry?s desk.”

    Yes, the House performance has been abysmal, absolutely abysmal.

  • Menlo

    Upon relief he was not heading State Affairs, I guess he now heads redistricting?!

    He is one of the elitists who first pushed for Straus back in 2009 and is, based on his record and character in the past, as bad if not worse than Straus himself! I should have known better than to think he wouldn’t be in a powerful position.

    If anyone needs to be primaried, it is he. Unfortunately, the majority of people who call themselves “Republicans” in his Carrollton area district re-elected him in a very close primary just last year. Needless to say, he’s likely not going anywhere.

  • edintexas

    The conservative agenda CONTINUES to be thwarted, This is just a continuation of the last legislative session under Straus.

  • melbedewy

    who where LOUDLY defending this Strauss character in January?
    They seem to have lost radio contact.
    Somebody better primary this scumbag.

  • burbmom

    He also voted for Straus even though he was getting calls 20 to 1 to vote against him. We are trying to recruit a true conservative to primary him. 85% of races are determined at the primary level not the general election;)

  • audax
  • http://travismonitor.blogspot.com Freedoms Truth

    First, let’s not confuse – I am speaking of Texas Statehouse plans, not US Congress districts. The beef is specifically with the Solomons House map H150 / H155.

    The Congressional plans are labelled C, as in plan C106 and C110 “Pate or Owens” maps for Congressional districts. Texas House maps are labelled H. The Solomons map is H150 (or H153), and the Nixon alternative map is H155, and updated as H166. All the maps can be viewed here:

    ftp://ftpgis1.tlc.state.tx.us/DistrictViewer/

    That said, and looking just at central Texas on the CD maps, it looks like both plan C106 and C110 give Democrat LLoyd Doggett in Travis county a district centered on Austin, while plan C112 puts that into several districts. So at least 1 more GOP seat with C112 versus C110 or C106, could be more.

  • burbmom

    I appreciate your attention to the details. Dewhurst is not going to end up on my list. As Lt. Gov he is holding up legislation is the Senate conservatives are trying to get to the governor’s desk. Instead, the Senate is passing resolutions praising the radical Iman Gullen (SR 85, I think).

  • http://jhpruitt.blogtownhall.com/ kipling

    The RPT has come out in support of the redistricting plan that punishes conservatives.

    http://www.texasgop.org/news.asp?artid=300

    You can contact the RPT office at 512-477-9821.

  • audax

    What a joke Dewhurst is., and he wants to run for Senate?…LOL. I am so disappointed in our GOP State House of Reps and Lt. Gov. I hope we are going to primary some of the RINO’s and clean up this mess Strauss and Dewhurst have brought about. My own Rep Beverely Woolley is such a dissappointment too. Talks the conservative talk, walks the RINO walk.

  • ihateliberals

    of the Progressive Liberal movement into all aspects of government. If we continue to allow the ouster of Conservatives from the Party our nation is going to be in serious trouble. Even more so than now. A Split Party will give all the power to the Democrats.