National GOP?s redistricting gurus paint Texas? mapmakers as blundering know-it-alls

Texas GOP legislative leaders blew off advice from some of their national party?s?redistricting experts and went for broke in their congressional remap last year, producing ?chaos? and denying the state a chance to slow the Mitt Romney bandwagon in March?s super Tuesday presidential primary, according to a published report.

Texan Robert Draper, writing in The Atlantic magazine, quotes Washington-based, Republican?redistricting consultant Tom Hofeller as saying that until the next census is taken in 2020, the Lone Star state will provide a cautionary tale of how a remap effort can go wrong.

?The new horror story, he?s decided, will be Texas, which stood, this past cycle,?as a powerful example of how reckless a redistricting process can become,? Draper writes, speaking of Hofeller.

Draper notes that the state GOP?s ?mangled effort? to extract a net gain of four Republican U.S. House seats ? and? to yield not a single new one to Hispanics and blacks who fueled Texas? population growth ? triggered an ?entirely predictable consequence? that Hofeller and other Washington Republicans warned of:?The new congressional and legislative maps have ricocheted between three federal courts,?which delayed the state?s GOP primary until late May, long after conservatives Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, one of whom probably would have carried Texas,?had conceded defeat to Romney.

Draper quotes an unnamed GOP legislative leader as saying Hofeller and Republican National Committee counsel Dale Oldham ?created an adversarial relationship? and ?rubbed raw? the Legislature?s bigwigs.

Texas instead used inexperienced staff and legislative point men, Draper says.

U.S. Rep. Lynn?Westmoreland, R-Ga., described on his website?as the House GOP campaign committee?s vice chair overseeing congressional remapping efforts for this cycle, told Draper the state?s legislative leaders solicited no advice

?Well, the Texas Legislature basically told me,??We?re Texas, and we?re gonna handle our maps,?? Westmoreland said. ?You know, I?m just saying that when you have a population increase of 4 million, and the majority of that is minority, you?d better take that into consideration.?

Actually, it was excluded from view. And the courts insisted on drawing a new minority-dominated congressional district in Dallas-Fort Worth, which Democratic state Rep. Marc Veasey of Fort Worth is likely to capture in November.

Draper?s piece also describes blow-back from tea party types?who?ve protested?U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess? vote for last summer?s debt-ceiling deal. The Denton County Republican ?dipped his toe in the moderate waters,? Draper says. And it has vivid illustrations of such redistricting gems as the ?Glock Pistol,? the 27th Congressional District centered on Corpus Christi, and the ?Bottle Opener,? the 23rd District in far West Texas, which may be the only one of the state?s 32 U.S. House seats that?s in a true swing district.

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Source: http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2012/09/national-gops-redistricting-gurus-paint-texas-mapmakers-as-blundering-know-it-alls.html/

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