Single Basket Politics
Kos has a post up on the Republicanization of Texas, aka, "the affect of blatent partisan redistricting". While all gerrymandering
stands justly accused of partisan corruption, Delay still managed to make his stand out by doing it in an off year, in 2003, just a couple years after a redistricting already favorable to Republicans, breaking the at-least-one-restraint of redistricting only every 10 years.
Kos says, "Thanks to DeLay's gerrymandering of Texas, the state now has no clout in the Democratic-led legislature." and "Thanks to DeLay, Texas now has zip. Zero. Nada.", and quotes from this article at Dallas News .
The point is very interesting, the idea, as quoted from the Dallas News article, Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, "Tom DeLay and Rick Perry's redistricting efforts gutted Texas. ... I hope that's a lesson that no one, neither party, should ever put pure partisan interest above the interest of Texas." Like a single issue group, a state is perhaps wise to have connections in both parties. Texas, is now heavilly invested in Republican success. As those Representatives do get more experience, they will have great power when Republicans are in control, but will it be worth it to be powerless otherwise?
Will the affect smooth out as the Democrats that do remain get seniority? Is the problem only that the redictricting defeated long standing Democrats, replacing them with less senior Representatives? Or is there a fundamental problem with tipping the scales? The subject is interesting to me because it comports with my idea that to have a truly strong system one needs representatives from multiple perspectives, though in this case it is less ideological and more about the sport of politic.
Comments :
Having single party dominance of a state...
...doesn't seem like a problem to me so long as that accurately reflects the will of the voters. Redistricting of course is not designed to reflect the will of the voters but to subvert it.
I would be strongly in favor of using a computer algorithm to draw congressional boundaries in a way that is as impartial as possible (creating the algorithm to give districts of equal population and to maximize compactness and cohesiveness).
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
me too
on the computer algorithm.
Humans can put some demographic knowledge in... if there is a community along a river, maybe you have a district following the river, and that sort of thing... but you know, maybe not, that's the excuse that lead them to gerrymander the way they do, following some road or whatever.
Ah, yes
the party of inclusion, of tolerance, of light and all things bright and beautiful, shows their true colors in the dKos comments once again. Hypocrites.
I don't recall that the Texas Democratic legislators who fled the state to stop the redistricting plan got much support from other Democrats, either. Chris Bell had a real chance to take the governorship -- how much help did he get from the Democratic Party?
vitriol...yeah...
..but at the same time they have a point. In terms of the nation has Texas contributed anything but problems in the last decade or two? As someone pointed out when their list of accomplishments is Bush, Delay, and Enron they pretty much get to stop being so cocky.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
Tlaloc
You had best get up from behind that keyboard and say those things to my face, friend. Otherwise STFU. I am seriously pissed.
I think this comment
shut down the server :)
Relax guys, it aint worth getting angry over!
Incidentally I love Texas and would consider moving there in the future.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
texas is big
it can handle criticism... I hope.
no?
*shrug*
I'm sorry it upsets you but seriously can you think of any significant contributions made by Texas in the last decade? They have produced some very big negatives, any big positives to warrant your defense of the state? I'm willing to hear your side but if it just boils down to "Texas, right or wrong" then don't expect a huge amount of sympathy.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
Its just rude
Can you think of any significant contributions by Indiana in the last decade? How about Iowa? Or Alabama? Vermont? I wasn't aware that making a significant contribution was a requirement for representation in the federal government.
Do you blame the people of CT for electing Leiberman? Or the people of Arkansas for the evils of WalMart? Or for Clinton's presidency? How about saying that nobody in Arkansas deserves representation in Congress because of WalMart? Or the people in Washington because of the evils of Microsoft? Or Colorado, for the sins of Mr Tancredo. What state was WorldComm in -- should those people be shut out too? How about a comment that says f*** Arkansas, that's what they get for providing Bill Clinton AND WalMart. Would that be acceptable?
Yeah, I should have deleted that response. But this type of thing is exactly what is being posted on Kos. But with much more colorful metaphors than I've used here. It's just like O'Reilly saying that SF deserved to be bombed for shutting out the ROTC.
It's rude and crosses the line.
Like it or not there has
been a lot of "big" politics come out of Texas, and it has affected the rest of the country in a "big" way. Being the home of Texas Oil and Bush's connections to it, I don't see how you can deny a connection to the Enron style tactics that have been employed as a management style for this CEO in Chief.
How seriously do you take O'Reilly? Not very I would imagine.
It isn't anything personal to you, but you seem to be taking it that way.
We love progressive moderates in Texas.
I'm only half stupid
Can you think of any
It isn;t, and Texas has federal representatives. But at the same time the people of Texas have chosen to elect some leaders that frankly have turned out very bad for the country. Given that I can understand where some people are happy that Texas influence in politics has dimmed for the near future.
Does that really seem unreasonable to you?
No it is absolutely nothing like that at all. Calling for violence against someone for differeing views is not at all the same as being relieved that a group that elects idiots is out of power. Whether that "group" is the GOP or Texas or whomever.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
How about the fact
that a lot of Texans are working very hard to make this country a better place, and comments like those make their lives that much more difficult. They have to deal with demonization from the Right and from their own party? That's bull****.
As one comment noted
: "7 million [Texans] voted dem in 2005. that is more people than the entire population of 40 other states." They're still outweighed, but we're going to bury them because of some regional animosities?
And even if you don't buy any of this, there's still something low class and dehumanizing about writing off an area of the country because of perceived "backwardness." If people wonder why more Southerners don't vote Democrat, this is part of it.
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
Maybe they should move
So we should let all of Texas slide, despite severely trashing the country, because some there have their heart in the right place? I don't get it. If your next door neighbor is a jackass you don't talk him up just because one of his kids is trying to do the right thing. He's still a jackass. And you especially don't put up with the neighbor having a huge chip on his shoulder after he burns down the neighborhood. Texas can have some respect when they stop screwing up, not before.
Unless of course they are backwards. Look I sympathize, have you ever seen eastern Oregon? It is the worst collection of inbred cousin-$%^&ers this side of the ozarks. There are STILL stores in eastern Oregon that won't sell to "colored folk." That isn't "backwards" it is just backwards. My wife grew up in one such town. She hated it for pretty obvious reasons (being half native american didn't help). So what did she do? She moved. Eastern Oregon makes the state look bad. I accept that, and it hurts but I know that I'll get judged in part by what they do. Fortunately for me the inbreeders are the minority here.
So at the end of the day you basically have two choices- stay and try to change things, in which case you are going to have to put up with being associated with, well the people you've chosen to associate with or move. If being associated with idiots pisses you off that's good, but the ones you should be angry at are the idiots, not the people who don't like idiots. It is the idiots that make you look bad.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
Texas does have its own special flavor.
I adored Ann Richards. Her demise under the "architect" of GJr.'s rise to the Presidency, was a sad day for Texas.
You have to admit Texas does everything big. We shall see what the legacy of the Texas Presidency of GWB looks like to historians. It will be big and I don't think it will be equated with success.
If..... you are a moderate Republican, you have to ask yourself after 40 years of hard work to get a Republican majority, how many short years did it take for Bush Jr. to lose that ground that was fought so hard for. The world betrayal comes to mind.
I'm only half stupid
there are no
moderate republicans here. And generally moderate republicans are not worth asking anything :) Unless they are cool like Moe at Redstate.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
Yeah, I trolled a few.
I have a really really short temper with South-bashing, although occasionally
I try to take the higher road.
But stuff like this
is simply not acceptable on any level, whatsoever:
Although what saddens me is not the comment itself (every site has its lunatics, as we've discussed many times here), but the fact that I'm the only person who troll-rated it, against 3 recommends.
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
I would have troll rated it too.
If I could. :-(
I'm the Bugs Bunny of Swords Crossed!
-4 Strongly Disagree - 0 Meh - Strongly Agree +4You and I agree on something?
I think that's one of the seven signs of the Apocalypse, at least according to my translation. ;)
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
Okay there I agree
I agree that that comment is beyond the pale. That isn't the kind of thing I was trying to defend, what I saw was a lot of people basically saying "oh boohoo Texas isn't important anymore. Serves them right" which is a view I can sympathize with.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
It has 7 troll ratings now
After I added mine. Pico, I came over here because I saw your wonderful diary which did make the reco list. You are dead on correct. Stereotyping like that from *any* side will do no good at all. My parents grew up in New Orleans and all their surviving extended family are still in Louisiana. I would never want to write off ANY state! It's ridiculous.
Thank you much -
let's just say I was totally not expecting that diary to be picked up, much less touch any nerves. Best of Thanksgiving wishes to you and your family, and for the extended ones 'round here.
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
A little optimism:
I posted a metadiary
criticizing those comments, and it got on the Rec list. It's a sore topic for a lot of people, so hopefully this will spark some discussion about why those kinds of comments were unacceptable.
Give it a few hours before it dissolves into a fight, but it's nice for now. :)
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
Interesting diary, pyrrho,
but I have to wonder: you argue that it's in a state's best interest to have strong representation in both parties, that way a loss of party power won't shut the state out completely - and I agree. But how can that actually play out in real politics? How can one party make the claim that it's in their constitutents' best interest to vote for the other party, too?
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
representation
I'm not sure but I think the point is individuals and groups habituated to insisting that the various representational parties are supposed to figure out how to fit the ideas together and work through the parts that compete.
I know it's not always possible, but there are ways... I've discussed National Healthcare with many conservatives, often they are opposed to what they think that means in their head, not to proposals like opening up the Congressional plan so individual citizens can buy in... maybe even subsidizing that for the lower income brackets.
It does make a difference when one assumes that the final solution can be made of good things from both sides.
No clout with the Democrats?
Who cares. Why would anyone want to elect a devil just to have clout with the other devils? If the Democratic party's positions are anathema to the people of Texas how does it help them to elect Democrats (who will promote those positions), especially powerful ones?
No, they should wear that "no clout sign" as a badge of honor, IMHO. It says "We have morals and integrity!"
I'm the Bugs Bunny of Swords Crossed!
-4 Strongly Disagree - 0 Meh - Strongly Agree +4are they totally anathema?
I think that's the point, I think each party caters to different needs.