09.10.07

Are Democrats Statewide Prospects Improving Because Of GOP Gerrymandering?

Posted in 2008 Primary, Around The State, Election 2008, Immigration at 5:21 pm by wcnews

First there’s this less than enthusiastic article, A statewide Democratic win in cards?, by Clay Robison that starts like this.

Sooner or later, the Democratic Party will recapture a statewide office in Texas, a feat that hasn’t occurred since 1994.

What a great topic for an article, some day the Democrats will win statewide in Texas, they can’t lose every race from here to eternity. He goes on to talk about an upcoming Democratic Primary battle for the right to challenge a Perry-appointed/uneelected Supreme court judge. There are those that disagree, but EOW believes, that primary challenges are mostly good things. While, I’ll concede the money issue, I believe whichever candidate comes out the other side is then battle-tested, and ultimately a better candidate in the general election.

Now compare the above article to what Harvey Kronberg has written today at News 8, Immigration debate could have repurcussions for lege.

When Republicans John Cornyn, David Dewhurst and Carole Strayhorn sat on the Legislative Redistricting Board in 2000, they had one mandate — create as many Republican seats in the Texas Legislature as possible.

Despite public assurances to the contrary, the threesome ripped apart communities of interest, splitting up cities, towns and school districts. They disenfranchised millions of Texans who never understood that redistricting made the Republican and Democratic primaries in March more important than the general election in November.

It was actually 2001 when the initial redistricting took place. That “mandate” was to ensure a GOP Texas House so the travesty of 2003 could take place. Also remember there were two other members to the LRB, Speaker Pete Laney (D) and Lt. Gov. Bill Ratliff (R), that voted against the plan. But as with any redistricting plan, assumptions were made. But reality can render assumptions meaningless, and bring about unintended consequences.

But as Republican redistricters, Cornyn, Dewhurst and Strayhorn were operating on an assumption that may place the GOP at greater risk than anyone could have imagined at the beginning of the decade.

The map drawers knew the Hispanic population in Texas was exploding. Despite some success in wooing Latinos by then-Governor George Bush, they also knew that two out of three Hispanics typically vote Democratic.

Unphased, the number-crunchers advising Cornyn, Dewhurst and Strayhorn reported the growth of legal Hispanic voters in Texas was not a big issue because of their historically low voter turnout. The calculation was that Hispanic participation would only grow by one to two percent per election meaning Latinos could be parceled into otherwise safe Republican districts.

Of course, that was before the immigration debate inflamed passions with lurid rhetoric. Polling shows Hispanic support for Republicans has collapsed.

(Just check out this HChron article, GOP losing support with Hispanic voters). The GOP anti-immigration rhetoric could be nullifying that assumption of 2001.

Suppose for a moment the numbers crunchers were wrong. Republicans need anti-immigration positions to energize a key part of their base. But what if the inflammatory rhetoric from Republican candidates ignites Texas Hispanic voters and their participation jumps not by the traditional 2 percent next year but instead by 7 or 10 percent?

It happened in California twenty years ago.

I am not yet predicting anything, but if the stars align, the anti-immigration debate could make the Texas Legislature a very different place in 2009.

More on this from Kuff and Dos Centavos.

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