Burnt Orange Report

Here it is: Dallas Redistricting Hearing

By Byron LaMasters

I missed parts of the hearing, but I attended the vast majority of the hearing between 8 AM and 11 PM. The part in which I missed, I’ve used other reports to fill in the details. I've included excerpts of reports obtained via email by Tom Blackwell (a Dallas County Democratic precinct chair) and Collin County Democratic Party Chair Deborah Angell Smith.

I arrived at the Dallas redistricting hearing at UT-Southwestern a little bit after 8 AM on Saturday, when there were about 30 Democrats in the parking lot. By 8:30 AM two buses had arrived from Waco and Temple with supporters of U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards (D-Waco), and the crowd swelled to over 100 Democrats. At that time, State Rep. Terri Hodge (D-Dallas) had organized a press conference, as the hearing was being held in her district. Flanking her were State Rep. Roberto Alonzo (D-Dallas) and U.S. Rep. Martin Frost (D-Arlington), whose district would be chopped apart in the Republican redistricting proposal. Also joining the press conference were State Rep. John Mabry (D-Waco), House Democratic leader Jim Dunnam (D-Waco), State Rep. Lon Burnam (D-Fort Worth), Redistricting subcommittee member State Rep. Richard Raymond (D-Laredo), and U.S. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Dallas). The entire north Texas Democratic legislative delegation was united in opposition to the re-redistricting. Martin Frost received an especially warm welcome. During the press conference, a truck drove up with a 15 foot blown up rat with “Rick ‘the rat’ Perry” written on it. That drew quite a reception, and distracted everyone from the press conference for a few minutes. A friend of mine also dressed in a Darth Vader costume and held up a sign reading “Darth DeLay”. Several others dressed in storm trooper costumes. Before we were allowed into the hearing, we were handed sock puppets to hold up when Republicans were speaking to symbolize that they were puppets for Tom DeLay. We were also, all given “Deny DeLay: In America voters choose their Congressmen, Congressmen don’t choose their voters” stickers.

By 9 AM, the crowd had grown to several hundred, and everyone was allowed inside the building. I almost felt like I was in an African American church for a few minutes as a group of several dozen African Americans sang some Black spiritual songs softly, while we filled out witness affirmation forms and waited to enter the auditorium. Only 250 people were allowed into the auditorium due to the firecode. Shortly after 9 AM, the auditorium filled up, and no more people were allowed to enter. I was able to get in at the beginning, but had to leave shortly in order to attend the executive board meeting for the college caucus of the Texas Young Democrats. After the meeting, I had to wait in line for nearly 30 minutes to get back into the hearing. I signed a petition for a potential lawsuit saying that I was denied access to the hearing room.

The hearing began with a bang. Rep. Richard Raymond (D-Laredo) was mad as hell, and he represented how about 90% of the audience felt. I’d say that the audience was about 90/10, Democratic / Republican. Redistricting subcommittee chair Kenny Marchant (R-Carrollton) didn’t call the meeting to order until nearly 10 AM. Marchant tried repeatedly to get everyone quiet, which was not an easy task. One woman in the back kept complaining about the sound, and shouted “I can’t hear you” repeatedly for about five minutes. Finally, Marchant asked if someone in the front would switch seats with her. Within a few seconds, someone offered, and the problem was solved. Still, heavy heckling continued for awhile. After Marchant gave an introduction, Richard Raymond was recognized to speak, and said that this unprecedented hearing was illegal, and a sham, but that he intended to cooperate to allow the voices of the people of north Texas to be heard. After the “illegal and sham” remark, 90% of the crowd rose to give him a prolonged standing ovation, something that occurred dozens of times throughout the day.

After a couple of somewhat civil exchanges, things got really heated when Raymond called on Kenny Marchant to step down as subcommittee chair, since Marchant had a conflict of interest, as he would likely run for one of the redistricted seats. Marchant will likely run in the new 24th district if the proposed map is adopted. He had intended to run in the current 32nd district in 2002, but U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions decided to run in the 32nd instead of the 5th. By playing along, and not challenging Sessions, Marchant was to be rewarded by Tom DeLay with his own seat. The exchange between Marchant and Raymond went back and forth for about 30 minutes as the audience taunted Marchant, and repeatedly shouted "Give it Up! Give it Up!". Finally, Raymond made a motion to remove Marchant as subcommittee chair that was not seconded. The second Democrat on the subcommittee, Ruth McClendon (D-San Antonio) was absent all day. All three Republicans, Kenny Marchant (R-Carrollton), Carl Isett (R-Lubbock) and Kent Grusendorf (R-Arlington) were present, along with Raymond. Other state representatives attending the hearing were allowed by the chair to participate on the panel, could question witnesses, and submit documents and information for the recond (although they did not have a vote on the committee). So, throughout the day Lon Burnam (D-Fort Worth), Yvonne Davis (D-Dallas), Terri Hodge (D-Dallas), Roberto Alonzo (D-Dallas) and Jim Dunnam (D-Waco) participated on the panel. Burnam wore a “Deny DeLay” t-shirt under his suit.

Finally, the hearing got underway. U.S. Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Dallas) riled up the crowd early with her passionate opposition to the re-redistricting. The elected officials spoke until about 3 or 4 PM. The Democrats were generally applauded, while most Republicans speaking were shouted down and heckled. The Dallas County Republican Party Chair Nate Crain really riled up the crowd when he responded to a question by Lon Burnam asking him if he could name one Republican president since Abraham Lincoln that had done anything for minorities in this country. Crain answered by saying “George W. Bush” which was followed by about five minutes of pandemonium as the vast majority of the African Americans and Hispanics in the audience were incensed. Shortly after Crain, a former Democratic State Representative from Fort Worth, and current Republican spoke, saying that redistricting was good for Black people, because it gave Blacks a new district. He received similar fury from the audience, where he was called "Uncle Tom" and worse. Later, the (former) state representative from Fort Worth that defeated the pro-redistricting Black former rep spoke, saying that he defeated his predecessor, because he was a sitting Democrat who endorsed the Republican gubernatorial candidate.

One of the more powerful speakers was the independent mayor of Waco who urged the committee to not change the 11th district, represented by Chet Edwards. She said that the re-redistricting proposal would have moved the power base of the district to the Fort Worth suburbs, and that the Fort Worth suburbs, and Waco did not share common interests. City Councilmen from Temple and Killeen also spoke in opposition to changes in Chet Edwards district. All of them were upset that redistricting hearings were not held in central Texas. Waco, Temple and Killeen urged the subcommittee to hold hearings in central Texas, but the Republicans on the committee showed little interest. Raymond made a motion, which was not seconded, for the subcommittee to hold hearings in Waco and Laredo. Jim Dunnam made a statement for the record that he thought that the treatment of his constituents that had travelled from Waco to testify at the hearing was atrocious. Dunnam said that only two or three of the dozens of his constituents that attended the hearing had the opportunity to speak before their bus left.

Other speakers included Dallas County Democratic Chair Susan Hays, the Republican and Democratic County Chairs of Tarrant County, and Republican and Democratic national, and state committee men and women. City councilmen from Dallas, Forth Worth, Denton and McKinney all spoke in opposition to redistricting. A city councilwoman from a small exurban town of 1200 was ridiculed for speaking in favor of redistricting, but then asked the committee to change the map, because the proposed map would have divided her town. Well boo-who. After she spoke, she came back to gather her things in the row behind me, and I said to her, “Excuse me ma’am, but your testimony was really dumb. If you don’t want your little town to be divided, then you don’t want redistricting. You’re an idiot”. She didn’t say anything, and walked out hastily. An elderly woman sitting next to her thanked me for what I said.

Others testifying included former Dallas City Councilman Al Lipscomb who repeatedly compared the Republicans to Hitler. Former Congressman Bob Gammage gave us a history lesson, and suggested that Speaker Craddick planned to break quorum himself when both Gammage and Craddick were members of the "Dirty Thirty", a bipartisan group of rebel house members in the early 1970s. Rep. Roberto Alonzo, who defeated Garcia in the primary, was present for much of the testimony, and asked good questions of the witnesses. The response to testimony by Dallas School Board member / Democratic Precinct Chair Joe May was that the 24th Congressional District was a minority opportunity district. Some witnesses spoke about the practice of Gerrymandering by 'packing and cracking.' In this case it was to pack minorities in the 30th Congressional District (EBJ) and divide up or 'crack' and divide their neighborhoods into areas that are absorbed into Republican districts. This “cracking” was especially evident in Tarrant County where the minority neighborhoods were cracked into multiple suburban districts. One Hispanic woman said that she would mobilize her friends, her family, her chicanitos and chicanitas to kick out Republicans. Local LULAC and NAACP leaders testified in opposition to re-redistricting. One Republican precinct chair made several offensive comments. One, she said that Republicans had become the majority party the right way, through hard work and grassroots organizing, while the Democrats resorted to vote stealing and buying votes. That caused quite an uproar, and Richard Raymond asked her what she thought of Republican voter intimidation and vote stealing in Florida in 2000. Raymond also referred to Bush’s 2000 “election” as a Supreme Court selecting, “if the Supreme Court can select our president, what’s the problem with the Court drawn maps”. Two, the Republican precinct chair made a comment saying that “people of your ilk” were responsible for a lot of bad things, as she looked directly at Richard Raymond. The audience was stunned. Terri Hodge asked her what exactly she meant by “people of your ilk”, and the lady said “well, Democrats”. We laughed. Right. Another racist Republican.

One of the more interesting testimonies was by a Rice professor that said that the proposed DeLay / King map was going to be a court map even if adopted by the legislature, because the courts would undoubtedly make revisions to the map, because he believed that in its current form, the map violated the Voting Rights Act. One of the arguments that many Republicans have made for redistricting is that they believe that the legislature, not the courts should be responsible for drawing the maps. This testimony seemed to refute much of that argument. Richard Raymond questioned that argument every time a Republican made it. Raymond asked each Republican using that logic how they felt about Rick Perry skirting his constitutional duty by not calling a special session in 2001 to address redistricting. Only one Republican, some severely balding guy from the Tarrant County Young Republicans said that Perry should have called a special session in 2001. Around 8:30 PM Marchant decided to introduce a proposal to limit the testimony of the remaining witnesses to five minutes. Raymond objected, and said that he thought that it was unfair to the people remaining to limit their testimony, when others spoke for much longer. The LULAC guy shouted out, "if you're willing to stay all night, stand up"! About 75% of the crowd stood up and started chanting "All Night! All Night!". Eventually, Marchant's proposal passed 3-1. Around 9 PM the court reporter stumbled up to the panel and notified Kenny Marchant that he was about to pass out (he had been working 12 hours straight, as the committee decided to skip the scheduled lunch recess). That propted a lawyer friend of mine to say "lets give him a hand, he's been working hard all day". That prompted applause by everyone in the room. Raymond asked that it be put in the record that the court reporter received a standing ovation for his work.

The Dallas County Democratic Party did a great job of getting people out there. The party sent out emails and made phone calls. They provided lunch for Democrats at the hearing. I truly believe that the current Republican overreaching is causing the Democrats in this state to unite in a way that I’ve never seen before in my lifetime. Black, White and Hispanic Democrats stood together yesterday, united in our opposition to re-redistricting. We all realize that we have much more in common than not, and that we all share similar goals and dreams for our party and our country. The hearing gave me a great opportunity to meet with other Democrats, and make progress towards getting young people, and college Democrats on board with the College Caucus of the Texas Young Democrats. There were leaders from SMU and UTD at the hearing, and we made progress in bringing them on board with our organization. Anyway, I left the hearing at 11 PM. I was tired, hungry and exhausted. Unfortunately, I didn’t have an opportunity to testify. I had intended to testify in opposition, and tell the subcommittee that this type of behavior is why so many young people don't get involved in the process. People of my generation often feel that our votes don't make a difference, and that politicians don't care about our issues. Nothing makes that more evident than the proposed redistricting map which divides the student populations at UT into three districts, two Represented by San Antonio Republicans, and one by a Hidalgo County Democrat. The hearing lasted until 1:45 AM. At that point Richard Raymond made a motion that the subcommittee report that they take no further action on redistricting. At first he was denied a vote, then Marchant allowed it. It was denied on a party line 3-1 vote.