Concerned Citizens

This legislative session Sen. Jeff Wentworth (R-San Antonio) authored a bill (SB 315) that would change the redistricting process for congressional districts to be managed by a bi-partisan commission instead of the normal partisan wrangling that occurs in the Texas legislature every decade. However, the Austin-American Statesman’s Postcards blog is reporting that Sen. Wentworth has pulled the bill from consideration after a “split among Republicans continued to block a vote on the issue.” Rather than endure a potential floor fight on this or end up unsuccessfully getting the bill scheduled Wentworth threw in the towel and pulled it from consideration.

Wentworth had encountered prior issues with the bill earlier in this session when he tried to bring the bill up for a vote. At that time conservative Republican senators voted against the bill which failed on a vote of 15-11, missing the  mark by one vote. “GOP hard-liners oppose the commission because they want to retain control over redistricting, as long as they control the Legislature.” However, this thinking might serve to come back to haunt the senators if Texas voting trends continue and Republicans lose control of the legislature. Evidence of this movement occurred when the margin in the Texas House shrank to a two vote difference.

I wrote earlier about the bill and a similar bill proposed by Rep. Mark Strama (D-Austin) and the benefits of such a piece of legislation. Wentworth has tried in two prior sessions to introduced similar legislation and had hoped the changes in the Texas legislature this year might yield success for the bill. But, based on the reports, it appears the Texas Senate does not feel the time is right for the change and want to push it out to another redistricting session.

This particular redistricting session is going to be a crucial one since, as Paul Burka of Texas Monthly reported on Sunday, Texas is expected to grow by 20% in the next census. Such growth is expected to increase Texas’ representation by two votes in the U.S. House of Representatives and also result in two more electoral votes for Texas. With continuing declines by Republicans being experienced in Congress recently the battle for every Congressional vote will be strong and hard during the next redistricting period. Also, don’t expect Texas Democrats to be that ameniable a bunch after the DeLay fiasco in 2003.

While Texas Democrats may not necessarily be looking to avenge the losses the grudges between the parties is still pretty strong after the off-cycle redistricting session engineered by Tom DeLay that eventually ended up in his demise in Congress. If anything, a bi-partisan commission would help mend the wounds between the parties and demonstrate a more reasonable and fair process to Texas voters. Winning this fight just might lose the war for Texas Republicans if voters sense a lack of cooperation by the hard-liners.

However, it looks like Sen. Wentworth will miss his opportunity to provide a fix for the system during this redistricting cycle. This was the last window to correct the problem for redistricting after the 2010 Census. The next window will be in 2021 after the 2020 Census unless another out-of-cycle redistricting session is planned.