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Republican gerrymanderers were planning to create a “metric” to manipulate the numbers of Latinos to the advantage of the Republican Party before the redistricting process in Texas even began, according to recent emails released from the redistricting preclearance trial in Washington, DC.

According to the emails of November 17 and 19, 2010, between two of Texas Speaker Joe Straus’ counsel, there’s reference to the construction of a “useful metric” that could be constructed to identify voting precincts that have high percentages of Latinos, citizens, and registered voters and then identifying these precincts by turnout (performance) levels. The idea was to create a “nudge factor” that could help Congressmen Francisco Canseco and Blake Farenthold in future elections. Both of these Republicans won narrowly, and neither had the support of Latino voters in an election with low Latino voter turnout — but a very high turnout for the Anglo population.

The politicians in charge of redistricting decided that one way to “help” Canseco and Farenthold win reelection was to gerrymander these two districts in such a way as to make them perform Republican . Yet, make them appear to be Latino opportunity districts in order to meet the requirements of the Voting Rights Act. However, they appeared so manipulated that they’re one of the reasons the Texas maps are being questioned in DC in the first place, and why the three-judge panel in San Antonio threw out the original Texas redistricting maps.

Some of this manipulation includes splitting Maverick County (Eagle Pass) in two, splitting the southside of Bexar County three ways, and then including counties from north of the Pecos that had never been included in the traditional 23. Congressional District 27 (Franthold’s) was completely turned on its head with counties south of Corpus Christi cut-off and placed in another district, along the Mexican border while Nueces was placed in a district that ran north along the Gulf Coast and then inland all the way to Travis County. Where CD 23 was constructed by “cracking” and “splitting” traditional Latino communities, Latinos of Corpus Christi in CD 23 went from being a majority of the district population to a numerical minority.

These emails reveal the inability of Republican operatives to get beyond the race issue. What they are saying is that all Anglos are Republicans and all Latinos are Democrats. Well, I have Anglo and Latino friends who would strongly disagree with this racist assumption. Secondly, the email uncovers a level of arrogance that is simply disgusting. They are not just talking about manipulating numbers — these operatives are talking about manipulating the lives of citizens without the people being aware of what is occurring. Finally, in light of all the Republican Party says about outreaching to the Latino community, these emails reflect a fundamental hypocrisy.

The Republican Party needs to disavow itself of such behavior and/or attitudes. If not, then the racial divide that they seem to continue perpetrating will just grow more and more. In the end, the Republican Party will become the party of narrow-minded, racist, nay-sayers and be cast into the dustbins of history.

[Photo By dherrera_96]

A lot of people have commented lately that all of this redistricting business, especially in Texas, is terribly confusing and consequently, no one cares. For political nerds like me, that’s a straight up tragedy, considering that what is at stake is the future in which I will bring children into the world, in which some of us will enter the workforce, in which some of us will retire, a future that will affect us all in important, yet distinct ways.

But I get it. We don’t all have time to be nerds and care about redistricting. Yet, I maintain that there is a very strong correlation between redistricting and something more of us are familiar with, the telenovela.

Just think, what if Fernando Colunga were to play Rick Perry in a movie?!  What if the Supreme Court were stocked with hunks like Eduardo Yáñez?! I’m going do my best at breaking down Texas’ redistricting drama à la telenovela. So let’s break down the characters.

Los Enamorados.

Okay, so technically there is no one “in love” in our little drama here (albeit here are people who are in love with themselves). Nonetheless, in the place of feelings, there are certain “inalienable rights” that are being threatened. The lovers in our scenario, who stand to lose everything here, are: politicians who actually care about their constituents and voters whose ability to vote and be represented is at stake.

Los Malvados.

Unlike in actual telenovelas, some of the good guys in our scenario have mustaches, too. So, the bad guys here are legislators who knowingly disenfranchised voters, while drawing maps that practically begged to be fought over in court. You see, this is almost like when the villain purposefully sabotages the family business and then the chain reaction of disasters start to befall the benevolent family at the center of the telenovela. The bad guys messing up the redistricting process is the first domino to fall and begins our drama.

Los Desastres.

Some people might not find lawsuits as exciting as: people going blind and needing an operation, car crashes, rare diseases, death, kidnapping, swapped pregnancies, unexplained disappearances, amnesia, secret marriages, rape, or any of the other random plot twists that one would find in your average telenovela.

However, I would remind us all that these lawsuits basically determine the future world we will live in. While this particular plot twist cannot be resolved by Friday night, it does carry a little bit more weight. So, the  disastrous plot twists were talking about here are: the disenfranchisement of voters in the first place, the lawsuits that resulted, the Supreme Court stepping in, and the resulting court case from that — all of which has thrown off politicians trying to run for office, which ultimately means that voters get less time and less information about the people who they want to represent them.

Las Víctimas.

Unlike your average telenovela, there is no small town filled with Mexican peasants that the benevolent —  and inevitably light-skinned — rich family will have to save in our drama. Rather, there is an entire state filled with people like you and me going about our daily lives, trying to make it in this economy, who are now waiting for the courts to do the job elected officials were supposed to do. We are the victims, every person in Texas who believes in a representative democracy could play the role of the Mexican peasant if this were a telenovela. The sad part is, not only would we not look good in those clothes, but this is the real world, and instead of just biting our nails, will be paying the consequences of this for the next 10 years in our daily lives.

Las Consecuencias.

So what are the long-term consequences here? If this were a telenovela, we would be talking: financial ruin, everlasting unhappiness, lost love, not knowing who your real father or mother or brother or sister or child is, being a social outcast, blindness, amnesia, and never being happy again. But since were talking about the real world, the consequences might sound a little bit less spicy, but are actually kind of more hard core. There was talk of having two primaries, which would have meant less people would’ve voted, which would have meant less people would’ve had a say in their elected officials. Then, there’s the original matter of districts that chop people up into constituencies that aren’t really related, and can’t really elect the people they want.

In a sense, some of the consequences are similar — everlasting unhappiness, lost love (if you happen to have a crush on your representative), you could equate physical maladies with political disenfranchisement —  but again, this isn’t going to be resolved in a 2–hour finale. It’s going to go down in a courtroom far, far away, and it’ll be much more boring than Lucero’s angry exaltations.

¿Felices Para Siempre?

This part has yet to be resolved, but it goes down something like this: the final maps take the legislature into account, and franchise all Texas voters, the primaries are not set back too far, candidates have ample time to register and campaign in their districts, and the political process that makes America great is not disturbed.

So what do you think? Are you getting go home tonight and  gossip with your mom about how Texas’ redistricting process is on a cliffhanger because the Supreme Court case doesn’t pick up until Monday, and if it doesn’t go smoothly, Los Enamorados may not triumph over Los Malvados and Las Víctimas could have to deal with Las Consecuencias from Los Desastres for the next 10 years — possibly longer? Ah, well, I tried!

[Screenshot By Televisa]

By Rebecca Acuña, Dep. Political Director for Base Outreach for the Texas Democratic Party

The 82nd legislative session began on a precipice of disaster. Absent of the federal stimulus dollars on which Governor Perry relied in 2009, the session kicked off with a historic budget deficit. The budget shortfall meant that hundreds of thousands of teachers would be laid-off, and that children would be uprooted from their neighborhood schools and be shoved into already overcrowded classrooms.

Texans, reading the gloomy headlines, looked to our Governor for direction during the biennial State of the State address, in which the he would announce his emergency priorities. Rather than address our state’s budget woes, Governor Perry decided to target communities of color with unnecessary laws. And there, during his State of the State before the 82nd Legislature, Governor Perry proclaimed voter suppression legislation a state emergency.

Given that there is no evidence of voter impersonation in Texas, the politics behind the Governor’s declaring voter id a state emergency were evident. It was a move to appease the Tea Party and the right-wing extremists who have taken the Republican Party hostage. An extreme faction that fears the rapidly changing population of our state; a population that is becoming more Latino, and increasingly Democratic.

Sadly, Governor Perry’s “emergency” legislation requiring voters to present photo identification at the ballot box will do more than just stoke the flames of fear. This legislation will place costly and unnecessary barriers between voters and the ballot box and disenfranchise Latinos (yes, I’m talking about U.S. citizens).

According to a 2006 study by the non-partisan Brennan Institute, 11% of all eligible voters and 16% of Hispanic voting-age citizens do not have current government-issued identification. In Texas, more than 600,000 registered voters lack government issued identification. It is because of these 600,000 registered voters that the Department of Justice announced that they would not yet pre-clear — or okay — the voter identification legislation signed by the Governor. In essence, the DOJ said that Texas, under the Voting Rights Act, had yet to prove that the legislation will not become an obstacle to the ballot box.

The costs and burdens associated with obtaining government-issued identification make the law tantamount to a poll tax. Potential voters will have to pay not just for the identification itself, but also for the backup documents needed to obtain that identification; documents like a birth certificate, naturalization papers, or a passport.

Further, if you’re Latino and were born on the border, good luck trying to obtain a passport. There have been numerous incidents in which Latinos, some of which served our country in the armed forces, have been denied passports. The reason? They were born on the border to a midwife because their parents were too poor to go to a hospital. (If you don’t believe me, there’s a lawsuit). Now, no passport can mean no driver’s license, which means no fundamental right to vote. (Note: the law allows individuals to use a concealed handgun permit as identification to vote, but not a Veteran’s Identification Card).

From illegal racial gerrymanders to voter suppression legislation, the governor seems all too eager to trample on the voting rights of Texans. Based on the governor’s record — one that decimates public education, hurts our seniors and our children — it is no wonder that he is trying to do everything possible to keep you from voting.

Rebecca Acuña is the Deputy Political Director for Base Outreach for the Texas Democratic Party.

The fundamental reason we have a Census every 10 years is to determine how many seats each state will have in the United States House of Representatives. After the Census numbers are finalized then each state government is notified if they have gained, lost, or maintained seats in that august body. This year Texas was the big winner picking up four new congressional seats. This increase was attributed to the population growth Texas has enjoyed over the last ten years, 90% of was due to Latinos.

Latinos have higher birth rates, lower death rates and more immigration than any other social groups in Texas. As a result the Latino communities in the Rio Grande Valley, El Paso, Houston, Dallas-Ft. Worth and San Antonio have grown dramatically over the last decade. Some observers, mostly Latinos, concluded that all of this growth rate would lead Texas congressional map drawers (we usually know them by their derogatory appellation “gerrymanderers”) to draw at least three of the new districts in the high Latino growth areas.

¡Bueno, no lo hicieron!

The guys, because the process is controlled by Republican state legislators, didn’t draw Latino majority districts. Instead they decided to get revenge on one of the only two white Democratic congressmen who has been giving them a hard time, Lloyd Doggett, by drawing him right out of his district and created one that would make him run against a Latino, Joaquín Castro. This political act was intended to not simply drive Doggett out of Congress, but to set the Latino community against white Democrats.

The other three districts were designed to elect white Republicans. Essentially, only one of the districts was designed so that Latinos could elect a candidate of their choice to office. The Republican gerrymanderers had been doing this for the last 40 years by stuffing large numbers of Latinos into traditionally Democratic districts, known as “packing.”

Another redistricting trick was to slice up traditional Latino communities and spreading the parts among a variety of both Democratic and Republican districts which guaranteed that Latinos would always remain a numerical minority in those districts, this is known as “cracking.” No wonder Latinos sued the State of Texas in federal district court. 

The trial just ended and was very interesting to observe because, although I’m a political science guy, I came away with a much better understanding of Texas politics over the last 40 years than I thought I would.

These are some of my conclusions:

• Democrats and Republicans had been using Latinos to keep themselves in congressional power and in control of both state chambers by packing and cracking for the past 40 years.
• In the 2001 through 2006 redistricting rounds, Latinos did not have a committed and passionate litigator with lots of resources who would argue their right to representation regardless of political partisanship (this part is super important).
• The Texas congressional redistricting trial is part of a larger national strategy that Republicans have to control all levels of government.
• That Republicans have been anti-Latino regardless of their rhetoric and regardless of the intentions of some reasonable, rational individual Republicans.

Over the next several weeks I will be discussing each of these conclusions in great detail. The reason I have been quiet until now is that I was a witness in this trial, so I really could not share my perceptions, observations or conclusions without jeopardizing my situation and that of the legal team that I was working with until now.

I am not new to this process, I testified in both the 1991 and 2003 rounds of redistricting so that makes me a 30-year veteran of what have come to be known as the “Redistricting Wars.” There have been some amazing revelations in all of these trials but few have really been spoken of by a Latino who has played a part, albeit a small part, in the fight for Latino Voting Rights during this timeframe. Well, camaradas, that is about to change. Hang on to your seats because over the next several weeks I will be sharing some redistricting stories that rarely have seen the light of day.

Hasta luego.

[Photo By Fry1989]

Republican State Rep. Aaron Peña allegedly lied about his involvement in redistricting along the Rio Grande Valley (the border for non-Texans), according to a report from the Texas Democratic Party. Here’s an excerpt from the report:

In April, during floor debate on the state house redistricting proposal, Republican State Representative and member of the House Committee on Redistricting Aaron Pena emphatically and repeatedly stated that he had no role in drawing the actual lines for the controversial district that was created for him in Hidalgo County.

During last week’s redistricting trial, Ryan Downton, the House Redistricting Committee Counsel, testified in open court that he worked with Representative Pena on the district lines after the first draft of the map was released. He then went on to say that Pena would identify specific neighborhoods that he believed were favorable to him so that Downton would include those in his district.

If you recall, Peña switched parties late last year, giving Republicans in Texas just the edge they needed to be able to take ideological issues like abortion and voter ID to the legislature and pop out some harsh new laws.

That Peña was supposedly lying about his involvement in redistricting — which was wrong in a whole slew of ways, including edging out Latino and African-American voters (which we’ll be updating you on this week) — is important because it means there is a lot more going on than he or others have let on (which, again, is something we’ll talk about in our post-redistricting lawsuit coverage).

The report goes on with some partisan bashing of Peña, about how he may have lied about living in his district, and how disappointed Democratic Party leaders are in his behavior. Like I said, our previous redistricting trial coverage here, here and here, fits into this whole equation, and we’ll be letting you know more about the trial and the potential outcome later in the week.

[Photo By Texas House]