Politics
Party Poopers
The legislators in charge of drawing new congressional districts are both veteran Republicans. So why is the GOP nervous?
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That sort of thinking is not welcome news to Republicans. According to Congressman Joe Barton of Ennis, one of the point people for the state's GOP delegation, the Republicans' goal is to pick up at least seven seats during the redistricting process, including both of the new seats that the state is entitled to because of population growth. After the new boundaries are drawn, Barton hopes the split is at least twenty to twelve in the Republicans' favor. This means that five or more seats now held by Democrats would have to change hands.
The first battle is likely to be over where the two new seats will be located. The main growth areas are suburban Dallas, suburban Houston, the Interstate 35 corridor north and south of Austin, and the Rio Grande Valley. Only the Valley is likely to produce a Democrat. The next question is, Which five Democrats are vulnerable to having their districts drawn in a way that could cause their defeat? Republican and Democratic incumbents interpret the numbers as differently as they would Rorschach inkblots.
"The white Democrats—their seats are at risk," Barton says bluntly. "They are an endangered species." The Voting Rights Act and the federal courts protect minority districts, prohibiting any political boundary maps that dilute the voting strength of African Americans and Hispanics. That means that legislative mapmakers are unlikely to make changes that would harm the reelection of minority Democrats in Congress—Sheila Jackson Lee of Houston, Eddie Bernice Johnson of Dallas, Charlie Gonzalez of San Antonio, Ruben Hinojosa of Mercedes, Ciro Rodriguez of San Antonio, and Solomon Ortiz of Corpus Christi. In addition, Gene Green of Houston, an Anglo Democrat, holds a seat in a district comprised mostly of minority voters. Many of the inner-city districts have lost population, and the only way these districts can approach the ideal population figure of 651,619 and still continue to be safe seats for minorities is for the boundaries to be redrawn to include new Democratic areas.
That's bad news for Anglo Democrats in nearby districts, such as Martin Frost in Dallas and Ken Bentsen in Houston. If they have to cede Democratic voters to minority members, they too will need more population to bring their districts to 651,619. Unfortunately for Democrats but fortunately for Republicans, the growth in Republican suburbs means that GOP incumbents have excess population that can be shifted into these redrawn Democratic districts. "We've got Republicans to share," Barton says, almost giddily. "We've got a surplus of sharing." A prime target for Barton's "sharing" is Frost, whose district abuts Eddie Bernice Johnson's in Dallas. "Frost is going to get a lot of leftover Republicans," Barton says. "That's the facts. That's not a Republican plot."
Another Democratic congressman on the Republicans' "endangered" list is Ken Bentsen, the nephew of former U.S. senator Lloyd Bentsen. Conventional wisdom holds that Bentsen's Houston district will have to be mined for Democratic-leaning minority voters to help Sheila Jackson Lee, then backfilled with Republicans. Bentsen, not surprisingly, sees things differently. The population growth pattern has been more complicated, Bentsen argues, because minorities are no longer as segregated as in the past. "The state is multiracial," he says. "We are seeing the assimilation of minorities in what were all-Anglo neighborhoods. The candidate who will be successful in the future is the candidate who can build a multiracial coalition." His prediction for the new congressional map could hardly be more different than Barton's. "Republicans definitely get one of the new seats—northern Houston or Dallas County. There will be another district in South Texas. Beyond that, there's not a case to be made that they get anything else."
Neither Barton's nor Bentsen's views are likely to be of much consequence to Texas lawmakers, who generally agree that everything seen from a Potomac perspective is distorted. "Most members of the Legislature believe that congressmen consider themselves superior," says Wentworth, who has had about a dozen "pleasant" meetings with members of Congress since being named Senate redistricting chairman. "About the only issue they are interested in talking to us about is their boundaries." Delwin Jones early on communicated that his fealty lies with members of the Texas House, not those in the U.S. House. When U.S. House Republican whip Tom DeLay of Sugarland came to meet with Jones about redistricting, he was invited into a Capitol conference room to which his local legislators had been summoned.
"Delwin explained the process to him," recalls state representative Tom Uher, a Democrat from Bay City. "He said, 'You need to visit with your delegation.'" And how did the most powerful Texan on Capitol Hill react? "He may have expected some different treatment," Uher acknowledges. Afterward, Jones sent all members of Congress from Texas a letter asking them to meet with the Texas House members in their districts to draft a suitable plan for their areas.
As a result, Jones has already drawn fire from his party for his viewpoint that the redistricting plan should protect incumbents. A memo circulated by a board member of the Texas Federation of Republican Women accused Jones of "ignor[ing] the best interest of the Republican party." Jones, however, regards keeping current districts largely intact as "respecting the people."
"We would be, in a sense, disenfranchising the voters if we singled out members" by significantly changing their districts in a way that led to defeat, Jones says (and Wentworth agrees). "We have to give some consideration to the express will of Texas voters."
The biggest question about congressional redistricting, however, may not be what the process overseen by Jones and Wentworth will produce, but whether their product will be the final word. The bill could become a victim of partisan wrangling, particularly in the Senate, where legislation cannot even be considered unless two thirds of the members vote to allow it to come to the floor. Substantial opposition by either party could cause the bill to die unheard. Or Governor Rick Perry, a strong Republican partisan, could veto a bill that he believes doesn't do justice to the GOP. If no redistricting bill makes it into law, then the federal courts will draw the Texas plan. Even if a bill does become law, it will undoubtedly be challenged in court. That's when politicians of both parties will find something they agree upon—that they'd prefer a plan of their own hatching over one devised by the judiciary. However birdbrained, the new creation would at least bear the markings of its progenitors.
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