DeLay's redistricting plan doesn't quite produce expected results
By Kirstin Ellison
Posted on Thu Dec 14, 2006 at 12:20:01 PM EST
Democrats picked up a 30th House seat this week, and once again, it's all Tom DeLay's fault. This time, though, it's more than just his long list of scandals dragging down the Republican Party. This time, his direct actions may have cost the GOP the seat.
On Tuesday, former Representative Ciro Rodriguez (who'd lost his seat due to DeLay's mid-decade redistricting) narrowly beat incumbent Rep. Henry Bonilla in a runoff election, largely due to the redistricting that changed voter demographics. It was an unexpected win, and it certainly adds insult to injury to the disgraced DeLay.
The former congressman from Texas was the mastermind of a 2003 redrawing of congressional lines in the state that led to the removal of six House Democrats in the 2004 elections.
Two years later, DeLay's fortunes have suffered a near-total reversal, as the redistricting map that once seemed certain to cement his legacy and GOP majorities for years has instead led to the end of that career and may well be a building block for a reenergized Democratic Party in the state.
To those in the reform community who were dismayed to see the redistricting process being abused for partisan gain at the expense of fairness to voters, this is the cherry on top of the DeLay disgrace sundae.
"The genius of Tom DeLay is now seriously in question," said Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University. He added that the overall result of the DeLay-led redistricting plan was, "at best, a wash for Texas."
One thing of DeLay's that's not in question, however, is his relentlessly acrimonious nature.
Asked about the effect of the plan, DeLay flashed a bit of the hardball rhetoric that made him both famous and infamous. "The redistricting plan was quite successful -- after all, it made a political has-been out of Martin Frost," he said, referring to his longtime Democratic nemesis, who lost to Rep. Pete Sessions in 2004.
Ah...there's nothing like using the power granted to you by the trusting American public to pursue personal vendettas.
Yeesh. And the parties wonder why voters are so cynical.
Tags: Tom DeLay, Henry Bonilla, Ciro Rodriguez, redistricting, Texas, In the States (all tags)
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