Burnt Orange Report

Redistricting Nationalized

By Byron LaMasters

Democrats are nationalizing the Redistricting battle in Texas with a tour by state senators across the country. The message is that Bush / Republicans are trying to dilute the voice of 1.4 Million minority voters in Texas.

Three of the 10 holdout Democratic senators left their New Mexico refuge for the nation's capital to launch a $1 million national tour to attract attention to their standoff with the GOP over congressional redistricting.

State Sens. Leticia Van de Putte of San Antonio, Rodney Ellis of Houston and Eliot Shapleigh of El Paso announced at the National Press Club on Thursday that they would be part of a concentrated media campaign funded by MoveOn.org. The political action committee, formed in the late 1990s to challenge the impeachment of President Clinton, has taken up the cause of the Texas Democrats and is placing print and television ads accusing President Bush and the GOP of disenfranchising minority voters.

"The Republican redistricting plan would silence the voices of 1.4 million Hispanic and African-American Texans," said Van de Putte, who chairs the Senate Democratic Caucus. "They would either be moved into districts so heavily Republican that their votes won't matter, or would be packed into districts that guarantees them permanent political minority status."

The article also mentions the Move On ad and the plans for the tour:

The ads paid for by MoveOn.org, which debuted in The New York Times, feature a picture of Bush with the warning, "Don't Mess with Texas." It describes the move to realign congressional districts to ensure the election of five or more Republicans as "the worst setback for minority voting rights in four decades."

The ads will run in a number of states, including Texas. The Texas senators plan to travel to Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and Philadelphia on Sept. 8. The senators said they will visit and other cities, including Chicago, New York, Phoenix, San Francisco and Los Angeles in coming weeks.

Maybe they can campaign against the recall when they're in California. I like the idea. Redistricting is a complicated issue that most people don't really understand. I think that it's critical that Democrats explain to people what's really going on in the context of other Republican power grab attempts (CA recall, trying to end senate filibusters, etc.)