By J. Lyn Carl, GalleryWatch.com
Austin, TX –
Since 1961, Sen. Jeff Wentworth (R-San Antonio) has watched or participated in the congressional redistricting process that takes place in Texas every 10 years, and he hasn't liked what he's seen, especially in the last congressional redistricting fiasco when he said Texas "was held up to ridicule nationwide."
Thus the San Antonio Republican today announced he has filed legislation that would bring about a "fair and balanced process" for congressional redistricting in Texas.
Wentworth's SB 1404 would take the responsibility for congressional redistricting out of the hands of members of the Texas Legislature and put it in the hands of a nine-member, bipartisan, independent board of citizens that he calls the Texas Congressional Redistricting Commission.
Wentworth said the majority party cannot resist encouragement from a political party to do its bidding, regardless of the party. "We felt mistreated for several decades," he said when he was a member of the Republican minority in the Texas House, and then when the Republicans became the majority, "We did the exact same thing we complained of."
He said for too long the state has had a system that "regardless of which party is in the majority, they use the power of the majority to gerrymander" their own districts.
Wentworth noted that in 2001 and 2003, he chaired the Senate Redistricting Committee, and said the leadership was "reluctant" to put an equal number of representatives from each party on the panel. However, Wentworth found that when there is an equal number from both parties, they realize they have to be "fair and balanced and moderate" to work together.
The power of redistricting currently resides with the Legislature, said Wentworth, but his commission would include eight citizens elected by the Legislature. That, he said, would mean partisan politics would still play a part in the process, "but in a fairer way." The Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate would each appoint two members to the panel. Those eight would then choose a non-voting ninth member as chair and the commission would be given a time frame in which to complete its work.
In the even of a tie, Wentworth proposes a similar procedure followed by the Illinois panel. In some other states, if there is a tie, the panel loses jurisdiction and the responsibility then falls to the Supreme Court of that state. He said Texas Democrats would not like that process in Texas because there are nine GOP judges on the State Supreme Court, adding that Republicans would feel the same way if the court were dominated by Democrats. Thus, he said, as in Illinois when there is a deadlock, Texas would add a ninth voting member to the panel. To determine who that person would be, said Wentworth, Republicans and Democrats would each select a candidate, the names of those two candidates would be put in a hat and the person whose name is drawn would become the ninth member.
Both sides would expect the other's nomination to be a "hard core" member of the party, he said, adding, "I don't think either side wants to run the risk of that." Thus they would be encouraged to get together and come to a reasonable compromise before that happened.
Wentworth said an independent commission would be "for the good of everybody in the state," noting that most Texans "don't want this poisonous atmosphere" to spill over into other areas of deliberation in the Legislature. He said the public wants members focusing on important issues such as health care, transportation, public safety and water, "rather than fighting over who is going to have more congressional seats than the other."
While Texas leans 56 percent Republican and 44 percent Democratic, Wentworth said of the current 32 Texas congressional seats, that means 18 should be held by Republicans and 14 by Democrats. Instead, he said, the margin is 21 Republicans to 11 Democrats. He called that "unbalanced," and said a redistricting commission would ensure a delegation that is "perfectly fair and balanced for both."
Rep. Jim Keffer (R-Eastland) is the House sponsor of the bill but was unable to attend the press conference because he was laying out his HB 3 property tax relief bill on the House floor. However, several other members of the House offered support for the bill. Rep. Mark Homer (D-Paris) said passage of the bill will take an "extremely partisan matter" out of the hands of the Legislature and Rep. Eddie Rodriguez (D-Austin) said "anything is better" than what happened during the last congressional redistricting fiasco. "Anything would be a more fair process than what we went through two years ago," he said.
"It's unfair whenever one party dominates the drawing of districts," said Rep. Mark Strama (D-Austin), adding that it is also unfair when they draw their own districts and choose their voters rather than the voters choosing their representatives.