It’s one thing for a political party to say that they disagree with their opponents: That’s democracy. But when the Republican Party of Texas starts telling opponents to “go home,” that’s not just anti-Democrat. That’s anti-democratic. And kinda rude.
As reported in today’s issue, the Democratic National Committee is holding its fall meeting in Austin. The schedule is crammed with thrills and excitement (if you’re a big fan of rules committees and caucuses), but the Republican Party of Texas got all hyperbolic about Democrats in what they call a “a bedrock Republican state.” So they have started the Hands Off Texas campaign to send them packing.
In their push back against the horrible idea that there might be Deminykrats in Austin (little late on that one), they resort to quoting Macbeth (“Something wicked this way comes”) and Poltergeist (“They’re here!”). Scarcely a way to encourage civil debate, but between the whole death panels farce and Congressman Joe Wilson, R-South Carolina, getting all shouty during Obama’s speech yesterday, the GOP’s getting a reputation for manners that wouldn’t make their mother proud. Considering that there has been a lengthy push to sell a subtext that all Democrats are brick-throwing anarchists at worst, grandstanding screamers at best, that’s got to sting.
It’s understandable that the Texas GOP got so flustered, since the campaign website inaccurately states that they only have a “slim one-vote Republican majority in the Texas House of Representatives” (which is especially embarrassing, because this is being organized by the Texas Republican House Committee, which probably should know that a 76-74 chamber is actually a two-seat majority). The fact that they’ll be running “a Texas-style send off” on the last day of the Dem’s meeting makes this all much less impressive (yelling “au revoir” is scarcely a big political statement).
But what’s this tizzy really about? Redistricting. To quote the Hands Off Texas website about the Dems’ real intentions:
Apart from forging a Democrat stronghold in a historically conservative state, they want control of the upcoming redistricting process since Texas is poised to gain up to four additional seats in Congress – four potential Democrat reinforcements for Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and President Obama.
Probably worth a little history lesson here: It was a Republican, Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, that tried to pass bipartisan redistricting reform last session, and it was his own party that derailed it. Now they’re the ones screaming that the Democrats might try to take advantage of the existing system (which, of course, the GOP would never do – coughcoughTomDelaycoughcough) that they created and fought to keep unreformed.
This article appears in September 4 • 2009.
