My beloved Texas Tangle appears to be all-but over. The artists formerly known as the Texas 11 — and for a short while last week, the Texas 10 — are heading home.
The remaining Democratic state senators agreed last night to return to Texas for a court hearing on their challenge to the redistricting process. Then they’re going home and waiting Gov. Rick Perry (R) to call his third special session on Tom DeLay’s ridiculous re-redistricting scheme.
It’s only a matter of time before that session begins. Perry met with GOP leaders from the legislature yesterday to set their schedule for the third session. Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said it could begin as early as this week.
How depressing.
Meanwhile, Texas isn’t the only state with a legal challenge pending regarding Republicans’ attempts at re-redistricting.
Republicans in the Colorado legislature have attempted a similar stunt. The state’s population growth led to a new congressional district for Colorado beginning last year. When the legislature could not agree on a new map, the issue went to a judge, who drew the lines to be as fair as possible — the new district was one-third Democratic, one-third Republican, and one-third Independent. With this in mind, it came as a surprise to no one that the House race turned out to be one of the closest in America last year, with Rep. Bob Beauprez (R) winning the seat by just 121 votes.
Just as in Texas, however, once Republicans seized control of both chambers of Colorado’s legislature, they decided to ignore decades of tradition and legislative procedure and start redrawing the district lines to their liking. Now the same evenly-divided and competitive district has a strong GOP majority, practically guaranteeing a Republican representative for the rest of the decade.
Republicans in the legislature weren’t shy about their motivations. State Senate President John Andrews said the purpose was to produce “a Congress…where Republicans hold the majority.”
The pending lawsuit questions whether state law allows the legislature to revisit the redistricting process more than once each decade. A decision is expected in the fall.