By J. Lyn Carl, GalleryWatch.com
Austin, TX – Congressional redistricting took yet another wild and crazy turn today as a House subcommittee meeting was temporarily halted by protesters, police and a recurring redistricting theme - lack of a quorum. The subcommittee meeting, held in Brownsville, drew busloads of angry protestors who urged Chair Rep. Joe Crabb (R-Atascocita) to end the meeting.
According to reports from the Brownsville Herald, Crabb and fellow committee member Rep. Mike Krusee (R-Round Rock) were the only two members of the five-member subcommittee who showed up for the public hearing. Absent were subcommittee members Reps. Mike Villarreal (D-San Antonio), Kino Flores (D-Mission) and Jim Pitts (R-Waxahachie). Flores was reportedly at the site of the meeting, but did not attend. Attending the Brownsville meeting rather than the Lubbock subcommittee meeting to which he was assigned was Rep. Richard Raymond (D-Laredo).
In Brownsville today, Raymond called the subcommittee hearings "flawed" and "illegal."
"This entire process has been an assault on Texas' rural and minority communities," said Raymond. "Republicans have furthered this injustice by refusing to hold full and fair hearings all over the state, as has long been the tradition on redistricting matters in Texas. And Republicans have systematically tried to silence the voices of those of us on the committee who oppose their efforts to weaken the impact of Hispanic voters and other communities of interest across Texas."
He explained that he attended the Brownsville hearing today because it was the only one in which border area residents could participate. He said the hearings "are nothing but a lame attempt to cover-up an unfair and illegal Republican power grab in Texas." Current congressional redistricting districts are fair and reflect "Texans making choices with their ballots," said Raymond.
Raymond and two other House Redistricting Committee members, Reps. Ruth Jones McClendon and Vice Chair Mike Villarreal, this week sent a letter to Chairman Crabb protesting their having been assigned to subcommittee meetings far from their districts. They asked if their assignments were retribution for their having participated in a walkout during regular session that broke the House quorum and prevented the redistricting bill from coming to the floor. Villarreal and McClendon both today reported to the subcommittee hearing in their hometown of San Antonio rather than to the one in Lubbock to which they were assigned.
The regular session walkout - or bus-out - in which the three participated was a four-day trip to Ardmore, Okla., orchestrated by Rep. Jim Dunnam (D-Waco). More than 50 Democratic members of the House (dubbed the Killer Ds) crossed the state border into Oklahoma to bust the House quorum and be out of the reach of the long arm of the Texas law, which no matter how long its arm is - cannot reach across the border into Oklahoma.
"My first thought," said Dunnam in an interview with GalleryWatch.com today regarding the Brownsville fiasco, "was I'm going to get blamed for this." However, the Waco Democrat denies having known anything about what was happening in Brownsville today until he heard about it by e-mail. "I knew nothing," he said.
Dunnam said the protests show that, "People don't want to do this (redistricting). And it's being done so heavy-handedly, why would anybody not expect somebody somewhere to say, 'no?'"
The Killer Ds' leader said he is not sure if this morning's events and the lack of a quorum were planned or not. "Democrats don't keep very good secrets," he laughed, "so I have a feeling it just happened."
Dunnam said the actions by Villarreal, McClendon and Raymond in attending hearings in their districts rather than the ones outside their districts to which they were assigned were to be expected. He said he did have advance notice from Raymond that the Laredo Democrat would attend the Brownsville hearing today rather than the one in Lubbock.
"They were justifiably upset," he said of the three being relegated to hearings outside their districts. "What does Richard Raymond know about Lubbock? He probably couldn't find Texas Tech if he got there." Dunnam said no one knows the district better than the representative who lives there.
Dunnam said that during a redistricting hearing during the regular session Raymond asked that there be a vote on the proposed field hearings and said Rep. Geanie Morrison (R-Victoria) left the hearing so there would not be a quorum and the vote could not be taken.
Bob Richter, spokesman for House Speaker Tom Craddick, said today's incident is "not a big deal."
"If they (Democrats) don't want to have the hearings, they simply deprive the people down there who wanted to testify the opportunity to testify. But you'd at least like to have seen the hearing conducted in the usual manner."
Richter predicted the events in Brownsville today would have little, if any, effect on the special session that begins Monday. "I suppose if we didn't have a quorum in the Redistricting Committee, that it could put a damper on things," he said, "but I think there will be a quorum in the House Monday and that we will go ahead and go forward with this.
"I don't see how you can shape government if you don't participate in it - which is pretty much what they did when they went to Oklahoma."
"I plan to be there Monday," Dunnam said of the opening day of the first called session. He said he expects House Democrats to meet either Sunday or even on Monday before the House convenes at 10 a.m., but there have been no meetings to discuss issues or strategy.
He did say that Craddick told him Wednesday that the Speaker expected to post a House Redistricting Committee hearing for Monday, the first day of session.
"We need to stop this entire unconstitutional process before it wastes any more taxpayer money," said Raymond as the special session date approaches, "and go back to concentrating on the real problems we were elected to deal with - school finance, public safety, the well-being of our children and health care for our frail and elderly. These are issues Texans care about."