EDITORIAL: Let's hope state leaders have the guts to demand real integrity in redistricting

Waco Tribune-Herald
July 18, 2010

Six months out and already the sparks are flying over the prospect of another legislative session wasted on partisan politics and the ever-volatile subject of redistricting. The subject is a provocative one that has some lawmakers craftily rubbing their hands together in hopes of self-preservation, others pondering possible results with dread.

Cities and communities are also anxious about this shameful business, especially when one of the possibilities looming is political impotence. We in Waco fear this. How long, we wonder, are decent Texans to tolerate a redistricting system that is so morally and ethically compromised?

Last week Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, a Texan we greatly admire, appointed members of the Select Committee on Redistricting, only to draw fire from some quarters for excluding lawmakers from Austin and San Antonio — stretches of Texas that favor Democrats — while tilting the committee in favor of lawmakers from heavily Republican Houston.

What’s more, the House redistricting committee consists of eight Republicans and seven Democrats. But the Senate committee is lopsided in favor of Republicans, 7 to 4 — unfortunately setting the stage for the very same sort of guerilla warfare and political hijinks that hijacked our state during the redistricting scandal in 2003.

We ordinarily like Lt. Gov. Dewhurst’s politics but we fear the calamity that he may have sparked. We appeal to Dewhurst, House Speaker Joe Straus and Gov. Rick Perry to strike a valiant blow for fairness and governmental integrity by leading meaningful reform of the way redistricting is done every 10 years after a U.S. Census Bureau count.

That means standing tall for all Texans — really tall — and putting aside partisan habits for better, more honest government.

Some of us are old enough to have witnessed redistricting scandals committed by both Democrats and Republicans over these many years. None has done Texas honor. It’s a stench in the nostrils of honest Americans because it clearly represents a conflict of interest in which lawmakers redraw districts to benefit themselves. It’s akin to letting them count the ballots in their own elections.

California voters, recognizing the gridlock paralyzing their own state government, courageously voted in 2008 to turn over redistricting to a 14-member nonpartisan panel to redraw the lines. The new commission will have five Democrats, five Republicans and four members not aligned with any party.

To approve redistricting maps for legislators and congressmen in that state, they must receive nine “yes” votes from the commission — three “yes” votes from members registered with each of the two largest parties, three from the other members.

Perfect? Probably not, but Californians are clearly sick of the dysfunctional system that has hobbled their state. To their credit, voters there demanded a system that seeks to do something about this corruptive process. They’ve been led in this reform by Republican California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Iowa and Arizona — the latter a state many Texans seem to now respect — are following similar political courses. Some plans would stock independent panels with retired judges.

Is this not a wiser course for us, turning the whole business over to a panel of Texans that puts integrity, voters and demographics above party politics? Can our leaders rise to the occasion? Or are they mere politicians and no more?