How Redistricting Hurt Texas

by: Matt Glazer

Thu Nov 16, 2006 at 02:46 PM CST

On October 20th of this year, Burnt Orange Report saw the writing on the wall. If Democrats won the majority, Texas would be the weakest it has ever been on the national stage.

Not only did Democrats win, the party took both chambers of Congress and relegated our ambitious and power hungry Texas Republicans to bench warmers.

For a quick example, in the past week our two Senators Kay Bailey and John Cornyn have moved up the Republican Leadership latter to become Chair of the Republican Policy Committee and Vice Chair of the Republican Conference respectively. Two major and influential positions... of the minority party. Super, too bad they can't direct policy nor help the state without bipartisan support.

How else did the redistricting truly harm Texas?

With DeLay's legacy, we lost great and influential Democrats through out the state. Only Chet Edwards managed to hold on.

The Statesman describes this blow to Texas as, "Tom DeLay's Legacy". Instead of having chairs of committees, for the most part Texas Democrats will be sub-committee chairs.

Nancy Pelosi is the Speaker, but arguably, Texas could have had the highly effective and senior leader of the Texas delegation, Martin Frost, as our Speaker, and at the very least would have been the chair of the highly influential Rules Committee. Abilene Congressman, Charlie Stenholm was in line to help Texas by becoming the chair of the House Agriculture Committee.

The Statesman goes further to say:

Until Tuesday, three Texas GOP House members including Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, whose district includes part of Austin and southern Travis County were poised to gain chairmanships of influential House committees. Smith was in line to gain the chair of the powerful House Judiciary Committee. That's been wiped out and the loss of chairmanships will diminish Texas' ability to shape domestic policy.

Texas also suffers a similar loss of influence in the Senate. The state's senior senator, Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison of Dallas, has been incredibly successful in steering federal dollars to Texas, including increasing federal transportation dollars. But she no longer will head the Appropriations or the Commerce subcommittees. In those roles, Hutchison ensured that Texas cities, counties and military bases got what they needed.

This is not a sad tale of fallen Republican leaders, but a tale of what Texas has lost. There is some good news though. While Texas Democrats will not be the people in charge, they are beginning the road back to leadership.

The Star-Telegram reported this past Sunday of three key Texas Democrats in the increased standing within the party.

Meanwhile, Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco -- a rare Democratic survivor of the redistricting effort -- is in line to exert influence as chairman of a key House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees military quality of life and veterans affairs. Leading an appropriations subcommittee would make Edwards a so-called "cardinal" in the House, an informal title that reflects the position's power to steer federal funding.

Reps. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Dallas, and Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, also figure among the subcommittee chairs in-waiting. Johnson would head a panel on water resources and Lee would be in charge of a subcommittee on immigration -- both issues of great importance to Texas.