We already have a 'fair' GOP redistricting map

From a Houston Chronicle essay by Texas state representative Jim Dunnam:

Dewhurst has tried to explain this outrage by saying that all Republicans want is a "fair" congressional map that has "somewhere in the neighborhood of 19 or 20" Republican seats. Guess what? That's exactly what our existing map does.

According to official state statistics (viewable online at http://gis1.tlc.state.tx.us) Texas' current map has 20 districts that are more than 53 percent Republican. You heard right. In the 2002 elections, Perry, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn and Attorney General Greg Abbott each won in those 20 districts -- and President Bush carried 21 of them.

Perry's own expert witness on redistricting in the 2001 federal court case called our current map a "pro-Republican gerrymander." Perry and then-Attorney General John Cornyn did not even appeal the court ruling of the bipartisan federal court that drew the map. Why? Because they knew it favored them.

Not only is the current congressional plan so "fair" that it actually favors the Republican Party, it's also been found legal by the U.S. Supreme Court and our Republican Texas attorney general. But sometimes even the best laid gerrymanders don't go as planned. The voters had their own ideas. That's why they sent 17 Texas Democrats and 15 Texas Republicans to the U.S. House.

For the entire essay on Texas congressional redistricting, click here.

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