{"id":1066,"date":"2004-01-09T13:52:46","date_gmt":"2004-01-09T18:52:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/1066.html"},"modified":"2004-01-09T13:52:46","modified_gmt":"2004-01-09T18:52:46","slug":"jim-turner-is-the-first-of-many","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/jim-turner-is-the-first-of-many\/","title":{"rendered":"Jim Turner is the first of many"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now that Tom DeLay’s obscene re-redistricting scheme appears to have passed legal muster<\/a>, the real problems begin. Hard-working Democratic House members from Texas now have to figure out how to keep their jobs after the Republicans have underhandedly stacked the deck against them.<\/p>\n

Rep. Jim Turner, a four-term Democratic congressman from East Texas, for example, announced yesterday that he has “no realistic opportunity to seek re-election to Congress.” He’ll retire<\/a> at the end of the year.<\/p>\n

It’s a sad fate for a lawmaker who deserves better. Sure, Turner is far<\/i> less progressive than I am, but he’s made a name for himself in Congress and has earned the right to seek re-election in a fair district. Turner is the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee and a member of the House Armed Services Committee.<\/p>\n

To be sure, Turner isn’t alone. One of my absolute favorite members of the House, Rep. Chet Edwards (D-Texas) has seen his congressional district sliced up<\/a> for the GOP’s advantage, too. Now he’ll have to run in Texas’ 17th CD, which is now 65% Republican. Another personal fav, Rep. Martin Frost, is in a similar predicament<\/a>. <\/p>\n

As Molly Ivins said<\/a> today, “I just hate when Tom DeLay and Karl Rove get away with a dirty deal like this.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now that Tom DeLay’s obscene re-redistricting scheme appears to have passed legal muster, the real problems begin. Hard-working Democratic House members from Texas now have to figure out how to keep their jobs after the Republicans have underhandedly stacked the deck against them. Rep. Jim Turner, a four-term Democratic congressman from East Texas, for example, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1066\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}