The US Supremes have put their dribbling rubber stamp on the Texas electoral redistricting as pushed by disgraced Rep. Tom DeLay, he of the Gumby hairstyle.
Gerrymandering is the purposeful redrawing of electoral districts to make sure that your candidate gets all the votes in the district, while your opponent gets none. This harkens back to voter profiling and I’ll apologize up front if you’re offended by the stereotypes associated with ethnic and racial groups: These aren’t my conclusions.
African-Americans tend to vote for liberal Democrats. So do Hispanic-Americans. Volvo-drivers who wear Birkenstocks tend to vote Green or Libertarian.
Rich white folks tend to vote for Republicans. If your congressional district includes only rich white Topsider scum and you’re a Republican reptile, then you have a beautiful district that you’ll probably win.
If you have some yacht pigs, some poor folks and recently-beaten then-laid-off middle class minivan meat in your district, then count the numbers. You might not win, or you might have to actually work hard to win as a Republican. The Democrat might very well win, if you can be painted as a bought-and-paid-for-limousine-jumpseat-slut for Lockheed. That isn’t too hard a picture to paint, especially when dealing with Texas Republicans.
DeLay jiggled the Texas electoral map so that Hispanics were underrepresented in as many districts as he could get away with. District boundary lines were drawn through whole neighbourhoods to split the Hispanic vote into as many parts as could be rigged.
Still, the Supremes let it stand. Unfortunately the Supremes also said that Texas could fiddle with the maps any time they felt like it. Texas Democrats wanted re-districting limited to once every ten years, as noted in the Constitution, not every time some incumbent was in danger of losing his seat. Texas jiggled the map twice in 2000.
This makes me doubt the wisdom of the Supremes. Gerrymandering is the crudest form of election rigging known, aside from Nicaraguan “Dignity Battalions” shooting at voters with automatic weapons.
This also tells me if an aggressive media finally catches Cheney and Dubya cuttin’ up the cash in the East Wing, then the Supremes won’t do jack.
RoadDave 