Texas Redistricting
Texas’ Democratic state legislators may have temporarily preserved their state’s gerrymandered congressional districts by fleeing town; but David Guenthner says it’s a temporary victory:
Longer-term, though, the walkout could work to the Republicans’ advantage. The state is struggling to close a $9.9 billion budget shortfall and it will be touch-and-go whether the lawmakers can patch together enough revenue and budget savings to completely close it by next Monday. There are also sharp differences between the house and senate on medical liability, insurance regulation, and transportation.Failure to reach agreement on any of those fronts could prompt Gov. Rick Perry to call a special session this summer, to which Perry would probably add redistricting to the agenda. This would hurt Democrats because they would have another issue to keep them in Austin, the Republicans would have time to get the redistricting process and plan right, and the Democrats would lose their biggest stopper - the senate’s two-thirds rule. In a regular session, two-thirds of the senate must agree to bring a bill to the floor, meaning that even if the Republicans all voted together, they would have to pick up at least two Democrats. In a special, that drops to a simple majority, which allows the Republicans to pass a plan even if they lose every Democrat - and three Republicans.
Initial polling shows Texans reacting very negatively to the walkout. Add in some of the bills that died from the walkout - tougher penalties on child pornographers, allowing students who are victims of violence to change schools, automatic expulsion of students who assault teachers, increasing the school property-tax exemption for the elderly and disabled, the creation of “Choose Life” license plates - and all of a sudden Republican challengers to the rural Democrats have some hot-button campaign ads. With Bush atop the ticket, Republicans could bolster their majority by several seats - and make future Democratic walkouts vastly more difficult to pull off.