The far right defends its attempt to gerrymanderish violation of the law. (1 Viewer)

[Vader]

AUSTIN, Texas - An attorney for the state argued in court on Thursday that its proposed congressional map would make districts more compact, while plans by Hispanics and Democrats aimed for a partisan edge in the court-ordered revision of Texas districts.

Ted Cruz also told a three-judge federal panel that the state's entry in the court-ordered revision of Texas districts was not meant to target Democrats.

The proposed map would shift Austin, the hometown of longtime Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett (news, bio, voting record), into a district now represented by Rep. Lamar Smith (news, bio, voting record), a San Antonio Republican.

The arguments came as the panel began hearing arguments about how to redraw southwestern Texas congressional districts to restore minority voting power.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that a huge southwest district violates the Voting Rights Act because the power of the minority vote was diminished when concentrations of Hispanics were split into two districts.
U.S. District Judge Patrick Higginbotham, the presiding judge, asked Cruz why the state map called for eliminating Doggett's political base. Cruz said the state was trying to make the districts more compact. Doggett's current district runs from Austin to the Mexican border.

Cruz also said the maps submitted by Democratic and Latino groups, which were submitting their arguments later Thursday, tried to create too many Hispanic districts and gain a political edge.

The federal panel can select one of the maps submitted by the parties in the case or draw their own voting lines to fix the district in question.
It was unclear when the three-judge panel may issue a decision, but Texas elections officials say a ruling by Monday is necessary for changes to go into effect for the Nov. 7 election.

The ruling resulted from a lawsuit against the state filed by Democrats and several groups of minority rights activists. The high court upheld most of the map, drawn by state Republicans in 2003 to put more Republicans in office, but ruled that the district now represented by GOP Rep. Henry Bonilla (news, bio, voting record) is unconstitutional.

The district stretches from Laredo north to San Antonio and west to the edge of El Paso. It's the only district that must be redrawn, but neighboring districts will likely need to be tweaked to comply with any changes.

New maps have also proposed by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the League of United Latin American Citizens, and Bonilla, Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar, and Republican Rep. Lamar Smith.

SOURCE: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060803/ap_on_el_ho/redistricting_texas

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The above action is why the far right needs to be strictly forbidden to hold political office of ANY kind.

It's time for the far right to realize that this country is sick of thier conspiritous asses doing whatever it takes to screw everybody except them and their big business special interests.

For the record, I would take the same position if the far left conspired to gerrymander their way into polictal control over a state.

:spin:

 

[Voidwar]

The Dems in Texas did just that, not 15 years ago.

link

Then the Republicans went to fix it and the Dems ran to Oklahoma.

Link

 

[disneydude]

Let me give you an example of gerrymandering at its worst:

In Utah, the state for years divided its 3 congressional districts horizontally. Since most of the population of Utah is in the Northern Salt Lake City area the first congressional district included the northmost portion of the state and portions of Salt Lake County, the Second District Salt lake County primarily and the third - Utah County (home of BYU) still northern Utah and the remainder of the state (Which is fairly unpopulated).

Because Salt Lake City/County tends to be more Democrat than the rest of the state, the 2nd congressional seat has normally gone to a Democrat. Of course the REpublicans who control the rest of the state decided to redraw the lines vertically. This makes absolutely no sense because Northern Utah and Southern Utah are vastly different communities, it also covers approximately 500 miles of territory.

The result, rather than having a congressman that is acquainted with the needs/concerns of the electorate, they are now spread out all over and have to deal with a lot of competing interests.

The end result: It backfired and the Democrats have still won the seat in every election since the gerrymandering. In fact, the Republicans almost lost the 3rd congressional district (which has been strongly Republican) on a couple of occassions.

Gerrymandering by EITHER party is bad. Congressional districts should be drawn by a bipartisan committee taking into account the needs of the electorate, not what favors one party over another.