The New Congressional District Map is Out

Perhaps right in the nick of time before the Texas Primary would have to be moved back (again) into June, the Federal District Court in San Antonio has issued a new congressional district map that pretty much goes along the lines of the compromise between State Attorney General Greg Abbott and 7 out of 10 groups that opposed the highly discriminatory maps drawn last year by the Republican super majority in the Texas legislature. Click here to view the new district map.

I’m happy with the CD 22 boundaries. It puts my county all in the same congressional district rather than being divided. It puts the East Side of the county in Pete Olson’s district, a part of the county that came out heavily for President Obama in 2008.

However on the negative side, the African-American woman who is seeking the Democratic nomination to run against Pete Olson, Kesha Rogers, gains advantage as well.  African-Americans I know unabashedly admit that a huge factor in helping them decide who to vote for is race. But I have news for her. The word on her, and her looney tunes ideas about Barack Obama being a puppet of the British monarchy is starting to get out.

Lloyd Doggett will have a problem though. Doggett lives within the newly formed CD-35, a heavily gerrymandered district that includes Hispanic areas of Austin, then goes screaming southeast along a narrow corridor that straddles Interstate 35 (a coincidence? I don’t think so) and takes in a heavily Hispanic east San Antonio. Doggett will have to run in the primary against a popular Hispanic man whose name escapes me right now.

And word is coming out on state senate districts. Apparently Wendy Davis’ district will be preserved. Republicans hold grudges, it seems. And Wendy Davis single-handedly dealt them a temporary defeat in the last legislative session. They don’t like being outmaneuvered by an attractive woman.

It makes them look stupid.

But they have it all turned around. It is they who make Wendy Davis look like a genius.

And she probably is anyway.

Abbott: Seven Out of Ten Ain’t Bad

Texas district attorney Greg Abbott has just announced that he has come to substantive agreement with 7 out of 9, actually ten, groups enjoined in a lawsuit to throw out the 2011 redistricting maps. That’s good enough I guess he must be thinking.

After all, these are minority groups and you can’t hope to please them all, can you? They are so unreasonable after all.

So while seven litigants have signed on to an interim deal, two, and the NAACP, a not insubstantial minority group, have not.

From the Austin American-Statesman:

“…but the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, the Black Legislative Caucus and the NAACP have not agreed to support the proposed maps.”

The 2011 maps were obviously drawn to deprive minorities of representation due to them because of their contribution to the growth in Texas’ population between 2000 and 2010. Lawmakers ignored that just as Abbott is ignoring the demands of 3 significant groups who have been discriminated against.

No, in ethnic discrimination, you don’t get to have a majority rules outcome. You satisfy everyone, or you satisfy no one.

Federal District Court Judges are “Troubled”

I think we are seeing the writing on the wall this week as final arguments were made in DC yesterday on the Texas redistricting lawsuit. There is no way that the present district maps passed by the Texas state legislature last year will be allowed to stand. That much is certain. I don’t think I have ever seen this before. Well, yeah. I still remember Judge Sam Sparks telling Tom DeLay to “Run like a rabbit,” but it is a rarity that the federal district court tips their hand.

District court judges are “troubled” by some of the arguments made by the Texas attorney general’s office in defense of the process that was used to draw up state house, senate, and congressional district maps last year.

From The Chron:

“District Judge Rosemary Collyer voiced concern that the house and office of Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Dallas, an African-American lawmaker, were office stripped out of her congressional district, while mapmakers tucked San Antonio Country Club into the district of Rep. Lamar Smith, a Republican leader, at his behest.”

“‘Did Lamar Smith's office get cut out of his district? I'll bet not,’ said Collyer, who added that she is ‘troubled’ by the process the GOP Legislature used and its defense of the procedures.”

“The judges also seemed baffled that Republican staffers who drew the maps testified that they had little guidance from the Republican lawmakers in charge of the process.

‘I have to scratch my head,’ said District Judge Beryl Howell.”

Amazingly, the state’s main defense is that they sought to “consolidate GOP power” in their redesign of district boundaries, not intentionally discriminate against racial minorities. All well and good, but because racial minorities have no affinity with the GOP, it is all one and the same thing, isn’t it? This is why minorities were discriminated against in the first place. They challenged the conservative agenda.

But it’s kind of fun watching the state attorney general’s office digging and digging. Digging a hole that they can’t hope to climb out of.

Fractured Logic

Shaking my head this afternoon after reading an article in the Austin American-Statesman published last Friday. It must be fun being a Texas Republican because you get to operate under a system of logic that is so fractured it looks like a disassembled jigsaw puzzle.

Attorneys from the Texas Attorney General’s office are making arguments before the DC federal district court on why Texas’ new House, Senate and Congressional district maps are not discriminatory toward its minority populations. They argue that it was not the intent of legislators to discriminate against minorities. It was, however, their intent to discriminate against Democrats.

From the Austin American-Statesman:

”In arguments before the court, state lawyers denied any intentional racial bias. They explained that because Republicans control the Legislature, it was only natural that they drew maps that would benefit Republican candidates. The Texas attorney general's office said the reason Hispanics are not the majority in more districts is because most Hispanics vote Democratic, not because of their ethnicity.”

So that makes it OK.

It’s like the guy who recently stole my credit card explained to me that he really didn’t have anything against me and didn’t want to upset me or bring me any trouble, he just needed to get some free stuff.

So that makes stealing, whether it is a credit card or a vote, OK.

Texas Counties Say April 3rd Primary Date is Too Soon

Will there be enough time to put a primary election together next year? Well in this post a few days back I kind of alluded to the fact the tight schedule that the courts have signed on to could be blown if district courts and the Supreme Court drop the ball and fail to come to their various decisions by the end of January. We would be truly cooked.

And now, as it turns out, according to county governments that have filed objections to the April 3^rd primary date, that date is too soon. Assuming that district maps are in place by February 1^st, there is just not enough time to prepare for the election and this could result in massive confusion as voters try to figure out where they vote.

From the Texas Tribune:

“The court based the April 3 date on having a map in place by Feb. 1. But the counties say that wouldn't leave them enough time. The court would give them only two weeks to prepare voter registration certificates that take six to seven weeks to prepare, the groups said.”

“‘If voter registrars are required to mail inaccurate voter registration certificates in order to meet the deadline set by the Court, there is likely to be much confusion among voters. And voter confusion leads to voter disenfranchisement.’”

And the assumption that maps will be in place by February 1^st is the optimistic scenario.

You know, if there are going to be errors made and votes suppressed because of this fiat by the Supreme Court, maybe June 5^th is a more reasonable primary date. By that time, Rick Perry is certain to have dropped from the race for the nomination, and if a presumed nominee has not emerged by that time, Texas Republicans can all vote for the obvious choice to run against President Obama: Ron Paul.

While DC Court Fiddles, Texas Primaries Burn

Fly, meet ointment.

Today we learned that the federal court in DC that is engaged in the lawsuit to decide whether the Texas redistricting violates the Voting Rights Act will hear closing arguments on the case on February 3^rd.

That’s six, count ‘em, six days after the deadline date that county clerks across Texas say they need to have in order to reschedule a single Texas primary election to April 3rd.

And guess what? What if the DC court decides that the boundaries that were redrawn by the state legislature earlier this year were, by design, discriminatory toward Hispanics in Texas? And what if the Supreme Court decides that the district boundaries drawn by the San Antonio federal judges are invalid?

We have, friends and neighbors, one 9 on the Richter Scale clusterf… . Clusterf… .

That is, between these three courts, DC, SCOTUS, and San Antonio, we might just see not just Hispanic voters disenfranchised in 2012, that’s just small potatoes. We get to witness the disenfranchisement of the entire population of the state of Texas.

And that’s what you get when you stay away from the polls in 2010 and allow Republicans to enjoy a super majority in the legislature.

A true clusterf… .

The Stars Align

Well it seems that the stars are aligning for a new, and single, April 3^rd Texas Primary Election. If this happens a condition foreseen in my past musings over this truly foul situation will be averted. That being the nomination of the truly crazy to public office.

The federal judge panel in DC who will decide whether to preclear the recently passed voter ID law, essentially whether or not to agree that it does not violate the Voting Rights Act, have set a trial date. The trial will run between January 17^th and January 26^th 2012.

Meanwhile back in San Antonio, another federal judge panel heard testimony from various elections officials about whether to hold one primary or two. It was just about unanimous among the witnesses that holding two primaries would be unjustifiably costly to the counties and to the state.

Costly at a time when budgets are being slashed.

The Travis County Clerk testified to this effect and offered a solution: move the primary date back. County Clerk Dana DeBeauvoir suggested an April 3^rd primary date, a date that depends on everything being settled by January 28^th.  And now from the look of it from the DC end, it will be settled by then.

Unless the Supreme Court kicks some dust into the air and re-sabotages the whole process.

Now here is one thing I am hoping. I am hoping that Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor does not recuse herself in this hearing on the redrawn district maps scheduled for early January. She did that recently, I think to provide an example for Justice Clarence Thomas about when and where it is appropriate to recuse himself from the lawsuit challenging the Affordable Healthcare Act, an act his wife openly opposes.

I am hoping that Justice Sotomayor looks beyond the fact that she is Latina, and the Voter ID law passed by the Texas legislature is openly anti Hispanic.

SCOTUS Sabotages the Texas Primary

It shouldn’t be of any surprise that the Supreme Court of the United States, the court that appointed George W. Bush to a second term as president, has served us up another pile of steaming manure by ruling that all redistricting maps in the state of Texas are null and void until they get a chance to rule on them.

On January 9^th 2012. Yep, that’s three weeks after the December 15 2011 filing deadline for the Texas Primary Election in March 2012.

Chaos ensues. How can one know if one resides in the state house or senate district that he or she is filing for? Or what about the congressional districts, especially when – next year – Texas has an additional 4 congressional seats.

The Supremes give no clue how Texas is to handle this very heavy-handed decision. Do we keep the presidential primary and hold another one for the state and local offices later on?

When is the filing deadline?

What does this all mean?

But if I were to guess, and I guess about stuff all the time, I would have to say that this puts a new look on the Republican Primary. The way things are going, it doesn’t appear to me that a presumptive nominee will emerge before the March primary, so keeping the Texas primary in March is all but certain. But if Texas is forced into having two primaries, the excitement of voting for the Republican nominee will be limited to just that race, state and local races won’t benefit from the higher poll numbers of a presidential year. This means that a later primary for the state and local offices will be as lackluster as a school board election. And we all know what happens when there is a low turnout.

The bat-guano crazies, unelectable any other time, all win in their primaries.

All of this, courtesy of Justice Antonin Scalia.

No Deference is Exactly the Point

Now, as part of the presentation of new congressional district maps drawn as a result of a continuing federal trial in Washington, DC, all sides were given the opportunity to submit comments before noon yesterday. In and among the comments filed before the deadline was this choice gem filed by the state:“Showed no deference?” Deference?

Because the Court changed all 36 congressional districts, it is clear that the Court has showed no deference to the congressional redistricting plan enacted by the Texas Legislature.”

Now I know the meaning of that word, but perhaps someone needs reminding what the word deference actually means. Here is one definition: “respectful submission or yielding to the judgment, opinion, will, etc., of another.”

In among those words are these: respectful, judgment and opinion.

That is being respectful of the judgment and opinion of the Texas Legislature. An opinion, and a judgment that because of how they drew these district maps up, is beneath the respect of everyone.

Really and truly? The state is critical of how the 3-judge panel, two of them being Republican appointees, redrew the congressional district maps because they got no respect?

That’s kind of the idea, you know.

But I’m willing to cut the judges some slack and say that probably not all of the district boundaries needed to be redrawn, but because others definitely had problems, when you move a boundary in one district because it is unfairly drawn, that means that this same boundary that is shared by a neighboring district also has to move, even it there is no good reason to move it.

It’s either that, or the congressional district map was so poorly and unfairly drawn that it actually required that all 36 districts’ boundaries to be adjusted. That is, the state just proved the plaintiff’s case.

Color Me Thankful

Color me thankful today, the day before Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving Eve if you will. Thankful for the 3-judge panel of federal judges who oversaw the drawing up of a new congressional district map that will very probably be used in the 2012 election.

You see, Texas gained nearly 4.3 million additional citizens between 2000 and 2010, with over 60% of them being Hispanic. So you would think that the state legislature would draw up new congressional district maps that would reflect this change in the state’s demographics and give at least 2 or 3 of the new congressional districts coming to Texas from other states to this ethnic group, wouldn’t you? But no, this is Texas, and in Texas you don’t do the right thing if you are on the right, you do what is in your conservative heart’s best interest. You create 4 new Republican congressional districts, and in the meantime you divide Texas’ capitol city into 5 congressional districts where there were two before, and you put one of the most liberal Texas congressmen in an Hispanic-dominated district with an Hispanic primary challenger.

In short, you do the wrong thing.

Fortunately, Texas chose the wrong side in the American Civil War, and then behaved very badly in the years after Reconstruction, passing law after law that discriminated against ethnic minorities. This brings the state under the purview of the Voting Rights Act signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson.

A law that requires that all redistricting maps be reviewed by the federal government before they can be put into use. And the feds are fairly obvious in their view that there has been a gross miscarriage of justice in the maps that the legislature produced.

Another federal judge panel has ruled that “the State of Texas used an improper standard or methodology to determine which districts afford minority voters the ability to elect their preferred candidates of choice.” So we now have some new maps that favor the election of 3 Democratic congressmen representing Hispanic majority/minority districts. New districts in San Antonia and Fort Worth as well as a new district in South Texas.

A zoomable district map can be found here.

But perhaps the nicest thing about this new map, in my own personal case, is what the judges did to my congressional district, Tom DeLay’s old district, CD-22. CD-22 used to look like one of those Indonesian leather shadow puppets called Wayang Kulit. Here is the old map.

See? It was distributed over a broad demographic in parts of 4 counties, twisting through southern Harris County so it could take in NASA and then head south to dilute the Democratic vote in Galveston County. Here is the new map.

The new map unites Fort Bend County and takes in northern parts of Brazoria County. NASA is gone from CD-22 and is now in the new CD-36 dominated by East Texas and the deep red evil that resides there.

Now, in 2008, Fort Bend County voted 49% for Barack Obama. Fort Bend County came within 8000 votes of tipping to the winner of that year’s presidential election. So I am guessing that where we had in CD-22 a safe congressional district for Republicans, today it is less safe.

It Depends on Which Federal Interference You Prefer

In reaction to the redrawn State House and Senate district maps revealed by a 3-judge panel of federal district court judges, Texas Attorney General reacted with righteous outrage that the will of the people of Texas to elect themselves the most conservative state legislature in state history has been usurped by these militant judges (two of whom are Bush appointees).

From the Austin American-Statesman:

“In a response filed with the court, Attorney General Greg Abbott challenged the three sets of maps — one for the Senate, two alternatives for the House — as an improper overstepping of authority by ‘unelected federal judges’ over the will of the elected Texas Legislature, which approved its own maps earlier this year.”

That’s right, they weren’t elected. Two were appointed by George W. Bush.

But today we hear that House Speaker Joe Straus has also weighed in, and has issued the threat that if the 3-judge panel doesn’t rule on maps that are more similar to the ones passed by the legislature, that they would file suit and take it to the US Supreme Court.

That’s right, that other panel of unelected federal judges, the one that rules for Republicans far more often than it rules for Democratic causes.

So it’s not so much about the unelected part, and it certainly isn’t about the part about them being federal officials ruling over state matters, another thing intimated by the AG, it’s all about who is on your team.

Proving again that the maps were drawn up with the most heinous of self-interested motives: winning through subversion of the election process.

That is … they are still doing it. If this isn’t completely obvious, justice is truly blind.

Federal Judges to Redraw Texas Congressional District Maps

OK, now this is getting a little weird. Shades of the 60’s. I just finished reading this article at The Chron that the 3 judge panel that is currently hearing the case filed in San Antonio challenging the GOP-friendly congressional district map will be drawing up an “interim map” of Texas congressional districts so that Texas primaries may go ahead unimpeded by timing issues as another court case proceeds in Washington, DC.

From The Chron:

“Federal law forbids local elections officials from preparing to implement the new state maps until a federal district court in Washington, D.C., decides whether the redistricting plans passed by the Texas Legislature earlier this year comply with the minimum requirements of the Voting Rights Act, a process known as "preclearance.”

As I said, shades of the 60’s (and 50’s) when the feds came down hard on Southern states for segregationist laws and policies, imposing a national standard on a backward looking South.

I feel a little like I am living in Selma, Alabama in 1964.

Tossing Out New District Boundaries: A Win or a Hollow Victory?

There is a curious piece on the Austin American-Statesman’s Postcards page about the victory that Democrats achieved today when Federal District Judge Orlando Garcia issued an order that blocked implementation of the new GOP-friendly district boundaries – definitely a victory. Definitely.

From the Austin American-Statesman:

“The court order signed by U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia, one of three federal judges hearing legal challenges to how parts of the redistricting process, prevents the new maps from being implemented until the court decides otherwise.”

“The order notes that the maps have not been approved as yet under a section of the U.S. Voting Rights Act by the U.S. Department of Justice, as required. A separate lawsuit over that approval is pending in a Washington, D.C. federal court.”

So yeah, it makes sense to stop all work on implementing the boundary changes because this issue is far from being resolved. The feds may just tell them to go back to the drawing boards like they did before.

But the curious thing is this, On the one hand, State Attorney General Greg Abbott’s office has been identified as defending the new boundaries, and on  the other he denies that this is a victory for Democrats because he did not oppose the lawsuit.

“For the plaintiffs to somehow applaud this ruling as a win is like claiming victory at the end of the first quarter of a scoreless football game.”

How this equates to a football game is something that can only be found in the mind of a Texas Republican. This is more than a game. And the fact is, now a federal judge has weighed in on the new boundaries and found them to be at least questionably illegal vis-à-vis the Voting Rights Act.

Redistricting is as inevitable as death and taxes, but not when it involves removing whole ethnic groups from any ability to be represented in state or federal government. In redistricting, you can do an awful lot, but you can’t do that.

Two Down and One To Go

I need a hat trick. This past year the Texas Legislature passed some pretty bad legislation. Voter ID, of course, which I discussed previously, The Sonogram Law, also discussed previously, requires that women who seek an abortion, for any reason, have a sonogram done so they can be convinced one last time not to have the procedure done – a law so invasive on several levels that it greatly offends those who are lovers of liberty. And then there was the decennial redistricting where district boundaries were heavily gerrymandered to exclude minorities from having representation in the state house and in congress.

Well, as mentioned previously, enforcement of the Sonogram Law was stayed by Judge Sam Sparks in federal district court, thus eliminating that law that Rick Perry requested as “emergency legislation.” And now, today, we see that the Department of Justice has filed in court a lawsuit that challenges the way the legislature redrew state house and congressional district boundaries, saying that it was done specifically to discriminate against minority voters – voters who usually vote Democratic.

From Think Progress:

“The Department of Justice weighed in today on the controversial Texas redistricting map that Gov. Rick Perry signed in May and civil rights groups argue intentionally weakens the Latino vote to benefit Republicans. The DOJ signaled their concern that the map discriminates against minorities and therefore violates the Voting Rights Act of 1965.”

That’s two.

Now I am looking for a hat trick. I have been told that September 23^rd is a date that is important for the DOJ to challenge the Voter ID Law, arguably the harshest law ever passed anywhere recently that attacks one’s ability to vote in an election. Really. This law makes Jim Crow Laws look like decent treatment in that we know it is all about limiting Democrats’ ability to vote, but its stated purpose is to prevent foreign nationals from voting, a non-existent problem.

I’ve no idea what will occur on the 23^rd. It could only boil down to posing additional questions to the state, thus postponing a filing challenging the law as yet another VRA violation.

A filing that seems all but inevitable.

So that’s the three-fer I am hoping for.

But on the other hand, why not go for broke? Why not challenge the constitutionality of yet another bad law passed by the legislature this year? Why not challenge the constitutionality of the biennial budget? This is a budget, passed by a Republican-dominated state legislature that fails a constitutional requirement that public education be fully funded. With an anticipated rise in enrollment, the legislature passed a law that did not cover new students, or old ones for that matter.

So in actuality, I want a four-fer.

Redistricting Case: Defense Goes for Suspension of Belief

I find it amazing that today, on the day of the first Republican Presidential debate to include the Texas governor, attorneys defending Texas’ redistricting plan are saying that because of new diversity trends in Texas, people of the Hispanic persuasion are less likely to vote for an Hispanic, a race vote they call it, and contend that there are some Hispanics that will vote for Republicans, and, they say to my shocked surprise, there are some white people who will vote for Democrats.

No, really, he said that.

Now while it is true that, nationally, Hispanics have voted for Republicans a third of the time, you have to look at what kind of Hispanic you are looking at. Cubans are also Hispanic, and Floridian Cubans tend to vote for neoconservatives because of their anti-Castro sentiments.

That and they still haven’t gotten over Jack Kennedy’s handling of the landing at the Bay of Pigs.

What is true is that Hispanics do like to vote for Hispanics, and African-Americans do like to vote for African-Americans. Ask Chris Bell if you don’t believe that.

This argument demands a suspension of belief. Hispanics in Texas would be absolutely crazy to vote for a Republican candidate these days, especially with all the rhetoric about immigrants, Sanctuary Cities, and solving the issue of illegal immigrants in Texas.

No, it is completely obvious what Republicans who drew the new congressional district boundaries had in mind. They wanted to take the increase in population, fueled by an increase in the Hispanic demographic, and turn it into a bigger Republican majority in congress by effectively negating the Hispanic vote in 3 out of the 4 new congressional districts. All you have to do is read the newspapers. When Hispanics vote, they vote heavily Democratic – when they turn out – which they didn’t do in 2010. And now, because of that in 3 out of 4 congressional districts, Hispanics are being disenfranchised.

This cannot stand, but I am not holding my breath that the 5^th Circuit Court of Appeals will rule correctly. I am waiting for the Department of Justice to weigh in on whether the redistricting plan violates the Voting Rights Act. It does, they will, and another Republican project in the 82^nd Legislature will crash into a hillside.

LULAC Files Redistricting Lawsuit

It might just as well be 2003 all over again. That is the year that LULAC (League of United Latin American Citizens) filed suit challenging the legality of the 2^nd in a decade reapportionment and redistricting engineered by Tom DeLay to maximize the number of congressional seats in the Texas delegation to be occupied by Republicans.

The case went all the way up to the Supreme Court who came down on the side of LULAC, and Texas 23 district boundaries had to be redrawn to more accurately reflect the demographics. LULAC cited the 1975 Voting Rights Act which forbids just that kind of racial discrimination.

Well guess what, the Solomons map, the one that apportions Texas 4 new congressional districts in a wildly anti-Hispanic way is being challenged by LULAC along the same lines as CD 23’s boundaries were drawn.

This year it is even more heinous what the Republicans have done. Texas’ population growth can be directly correlated to the growth in its Hispanic population, which is why Texas got 4 more House seats. Yet the way the map is drawn, 3 of the 4 seats split the Hispanic communities and will most likely elect Republicans. Only one district will be a Democratic one, and very, very, heavily Hispanic.

So naturally, LULAC filed suit. And when LULAC files a lawsuit, odds are very good that they will win. They are very good at this.

But you know, this time I think it won’t come down to another Supreme Court decision. This time I think the Obama Administration’s Department of Justice is going to be taking a look at this map and use the authority given to it by the VRA to reject it outright.

It certainly would be a great way for the Obama Administration to issue another public smack down on Rick Perry.

Senate Redraws State Board of Education District Boundaries

Yes, because of the 2010 Census, all the district boundaries are set to be redrawn by a Republican majority Texas legislature. Today I saw where they decided to change my district from District 10 to District 7.

You can see if you are affected by going here.

So, I lose representation by one Republican, and gain representation by another one. Arguably a more conservative one if the stories I hear about David Bradley are accurate.

In commenting on his attitudes toward the constitution and religion during the board’s recent adoption of social studies standards, Bradley is famously known for saying this:

“I reject the notion by the left of a constitutional separation between church and state. I have $1000 for the charity of your choice if you can find it in the constitution.”

Now the words separation between church and state do not appear anywhere in the constitution. But neither do the words homosexual, gay or lesbian appear in the constitution. Yet the constitution has been used as a basis for the argument that discrimination on account of sexual orientation is illegal.

You see, the constitution was written to be overly general in some areas, and overly specific in others. Guidance in figuring out what the Framers had in mind in the general areas is usually provided by examination of what the Framers wrote separately, in personal letters and in The Federalist Papers.

So when the Establishment Clause of the 1^st Amendment was written, what was on the mind of the Framers? What was on the mind of the Framers when they added this little beauty to the constitution?

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”

Look no further than Thomas Jefferson’s 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptist Association. In it he wrote this:

"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between church and State.”

Quod Erat Demonstratum.

So Mr. Bradley, you can cut a check for the Fort Bend County Women’s Center. They could use a break from a man, and not the kind of breaks that they usually receive from men.

Texas House Redistricting Map is Out and Viewable

Want to know whether you are going to have the same state rep in 2013 that you have for the current legislative session? Go to the website and take a look. What you have to do after clicking on the link is click on “Select Plans,” then scroll down to “PlanH113 Rep. Solomons Statewide House Proposal.” And double click on that map. You can zoom in and see where you live and what district you will reside in.

I got moved from Zerwas’ District 28. Dr. Zerwas, a gas passer, is a moderate Republican (I think). I was moved to Charlie Howard’s District 26. District 26 looks like an amazing jigsaw puzzle piece. It is so contorted that it gives me a backache just looking at it. Charlie Howard is a tool of developers and a misogynist extraordinaire. And the way it looks, it is going to take another Republican to unseat him.

Ron Reynolds’ district looks safer than ever for him. He loses the Richmond/Rosenberg area but maintains his stronghold in eastern Fort Bend County.

New to the area is District 85, a district that once described a patch of land around Lubbock. Redrawn to this area, it’s mostly rural, and takes in Rosenberg and parts of Richmond and then flies down US 59 through Wharton and Jackson Counties. There are more cows there than people.

Too bad cows can’t vote.