Want To Know Why The Democrats In The Texas Legislature Are Walking?

Go to the fifth paragraph for the most succinct explanation of why — first, the Democrat State Representatives and second, the Democrat State Senators — bolted and went to — first, Edmond, OK and second, Albuquerque, NM. In both cases, a denial of a quorum so that Tom DeLay's (R-TX) redistricting plan cannot be implemented. In 2001, the Republicans in the Texas Legislature and the Republican governor admitted failure to redistrict Texas. The task was thrown over to the federal courts and a redistricting map was created and established congressional (and legislative) districts for the 2002 elections. Congressman Tom (The Hammer) DeLay — emboldened by the Republican sweep of statewide offices (governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, and so on) and the first Republican majority in the State Legislature since Reconstruction — created a map designed to eliminate districts that are not lily-white or all-black, or all-brown (Latino). Despite the fact that non-whites (blacks and browns) are the majority of Texans, DeLay has created a map that guarantees 20 or more lily-white Congressional seats (and on-going Republican hegemony in the State Legislature). The Democrats in the State Legislature are fighting against political apartheid in Texas. The vast majority of Texas newspapers have fallen for the Big Lie perpetuated by Congressman Tom DeLay, Governor Rick Perry, and Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst: the Democrats are traitors to the Texas tradition of fighting to their (political) deaths. Texas was redistricted by the federal courts for the decade until the 2010 Census. The people of Texas pay $7 million dollars per special session of the State Legislature (staff costs, and so on). DeLay, Perry, and Dewhurst will drag us into another special session and attempt to force the Democrats to submit to political apartheid. Sound nuts? Look at California! Sound nuts? Look at Washington, DC. If this be treason, make the most of it.

[x TNR]
TRB FROM WASHINGTON
Mistaken Identity
by Peter Beinart
Issue date: 08.11.03

Conservatives have spilled a lot of ink in recent years denouncing two interrelated cultural trends. First, racial separatism--the abandonment of the civil rights ideal of integration; second, identity politics--the basing of political claims on racial, gender, or religious status.

Well, it's time for them to spill some more ink, because both trends are picking up steam--in the Republican Party.

Start with racial separatism. Around the time of the 1990 census, the GOP forged an unholy alliance with civil rights groups: Both would support an interpretation of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that forced states to create majority black (or Hispanic) congressional districts wherever possible. The result was more black members of Congress and more Republican members of Congress--since, stripped of their Democratic-leaning black constituents, many white Democratic congressmen fell to Republican challengers. GOP politicos were thrilled, but principled conservatives were disgusted. The Weekly Standard has called the arrangement, which eviscerated political interaction across the color line, "thoroughly repulsive." National Review wrote, "In another day, this was called 'segregation.' It was wrong then, and it's wrong now."

The good news is that, by the time the 2000 census came along, many black leaders agreed. Their motivations were largely partisan--they realized that handing the GOP a congressional majority hadn't exactly enhanced black political power. But the effects were salutary nonetheless. In Georgia, the state's black officials blessed--and the U.S. Supreme Court upheld--a redistricting plan that added racially mixed districts rather than overwhelmingly black and white ones.

But, while the NAACP now favors integrated districts, the White House and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay don't. In fact, in Texas they are pushing perhaps the most radical political segregation plan in recent memory. DeLay's effort to redistrict as many as eight Texas Democratic congressmen out of their jobs has sparked outrage, mostly because it violates the long-standing principle that states redistrict only once per decade. But equally scandalous is the way DeLay's map would produce an avalanche of new GOP seats. His plan would create an additional black majority district, an additional Hispanic majority district, and a sea of bleached-white districts that would likely vote Republican. As University of Houston political scientist Richard Murray told The New York Times, the "plan basically envisions all Democrats elected to Congress being either from Hispanic-majority or African-American majority districts."

Imagine that: a politically and racially segregated congressional slate from the largest state in the South. It's a recipe for Cynthia McKinneys and Jesse Helmses--politicians who demagogue to their racial bases without ever having to cross the color line in search of a vote. Karl Rove might think that's good for the Republican Party, but in the past conservatives have denounced such schemes as bad for the United States. And, yet, I haven't seen a single prominent conservative condemn the Texas plan. Are they waiting for it to pass first?

And the GOP hasn't only fallen in love with racial separatism; it has fallen in love with identity politics as well. Since President Bush took office, congressional Democrats have proved surprisingly effective in blocking his most conservative nominees to the federal courts. Beltway Republicans have searched for ways to pressure the Democrats to relent. And, increasingly, they have found one: Accuse them of bigotry.

It started with Miguel Estrada, the Honduran-born conservative Bush has nominated to the D.C. Court of Appeals. For more than a year now, Estrada's supporters have tried to focus his confirmation battle on ethnicity. Pennsylvania's Rick Santorum has called Democratic opposition "complete discrimination." Trent Lott has said, "They [Democrats] don't want Miguel Estrada because he's Hispanic," before exclaiming, "Viva Estrada."

The charge is absurd. Democrats aren't upset that Bush is trying to make the federal bench more Hispanic; they're upset that he's trying to make it more conservative. In fact, for years they've opposed hard-core conservatives of all genders and ethnicities--from Patricia Owen to Charles Pickering to Clarence Thomas. Whatever you think about Democratic objections to Republican judicial nominees, they're based on ideology. It is President Bush's GOP that is trying to make the Estrada fight about identity instead.

And now it's doing the same thing with hard-right Alabama federal court nominee William Pryor Jr. Pryor is white and male. But the GOP has grown increasingly creative. And so, during his nomination battle, Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch--over Democratic objections--asked Pryor his religion. Turns out he's Catholic. Democrats on the committee showed zero interest in the subject--instead hammering Pryor for his positions on abortion, gay rights, and various ethical issues. But that hasn't stopped a political action committee with close White House ties from running ads in two heavily Catholic states charging, "Some in the U.S. Senate are attacking Bill Pryor for having 'deeply held' Catholic beliefs." Hatch and fellow Judiciary Committee Republican Jeff Sessions have echoed the charge.

A three-year-old could see the logical fallacy here. Democrats dislike Pryor's views on abortion and gay rights--they don't care whether he came to those views through Catholicism, Judaism, or by reading Edmund Burke. As it happens, almost half the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee who voted against Pryor's nomination are themselves Catholic.

The GOP argument seems to be that, if someone says his political views are rooted in his religion, opposing those political views makes you a religious bigot. That happens to be almost exactly the same argument Al Sharpton used to make. Since his political views stemmed from his racial experience, your opposition to them made you a racist.

Conservatives, as I remember, disliked it when Sharpton employed that tactic. And they loudly denounced civil rights groups when they embraced segregated redistricting. But what happens when the culprits are Hatch and DeLay? So far, not much. The Bush White House seems willing to sell out supposedly cherished conservative principles for partisan gain. Will conservatives even try to stop them?

Peter Beinart is the editor of TNR.

© The New Republic 2003