Truthiness for All

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Redistricting commission

Bill to take partisanship out of redistricting gains force in Legislature.

Texas House should support redistricting reform

The citizens of the state of Texas need a non partisan approach to the job of Congressional redistricting. Too often the State legislature is unable to get the job of redistricting done due to partisanship. A very messy power grab in 2003 by the new republican majority in the State legislature that lead to eleven Texas Senate Democrats fleeing the state for Oklahoma and New Mexico for 46 days in a quorum busting effort to prevent the passage of the redistricting legislation. This ultimately failed, however the U. S. Supreme Court did throughout the District 23 as in valid citing a Section 2 violation of the Voting Rights Act.

State Senator Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, has been introducing legislation to create an independent redistricting commission since 1993. This commission would have 4 Republican and 4 democratic appointed members plus a none voting chairperson that would be chosen by the members. The members of this commission would hold no elected office or be involved in party of electoral politics while serving on the commission.

I think that Texans would benefit from a bipartisan redistricting commission such as the one proposed. It would remove one of the most overt demonstrations of partisan power by taking it from the political parties in the Legislature. The commission should, being bi-partisan, create more sensible congressional districts for the state. Our present congressional map is considered by many gerrymandering at its worst.