Y’all, I’m headed off to the Texas Senate Redistricting Hearings today in Houston.  They say some Republicans are gong to speak and you know me, I cannot miss stoopid.

So, here’s some entertaining from one of my other jobs.  Hope you enjoy it.

Meanwhile, feel free to talk about whatever you want to talk about.  I’ll check in every now and then to approve comments, but not when a Republican is speaking.  You have to keep both eyes on them to duck the idiocy if it comes loose.

UPDATE:  Look, I know this whole hearing thing is a dog and pony show and meant solely to create a record for Democrats to take court, but the Republican senators didn’t even make a show of listening.  Most of them had left before the hearing was half over.  Luckily, I got a picture of Senator Dan Patrick defending his precious maps during the first part of the hearing, wearing his usual smug face.

The speakers were 50 – 1 against the GOP maps.  Now all this stuff is more complicated than Chinese algebra using Roman numerals.  These maps are bouncing around between about three different courts, the Legislature, and a Texas Attorney General who believes that the War of Northern Aggression ain’t over yet.

I heard only three speakers who favor the maps.  One of them accused people of color of being racists because they would like the opportunity to be represented by a person of color.  This fella believed that white men can represent anyone just fine and if you don’t believe that, you’re a racist.

He’s missing the point.  Minorities are not asking for new minority districts that would insure that a minority is elected.  They simply want the opportunity for a minority to win.  Under current maps, districts are set up so that only a minority can win or only a white person can win.

Here’s an example.  My state rep Rick Miller.  His district was created not for merely a white Republican to win, but for Rick Miller to win.  His predecessor wanted Miller to win so he fixed to maps to make it happen.  Miller’s district looks like an octopus on crack.

It was so damn silly that two streets were cut out of his district to eliminate a popular minority female who wanted to run against him.  They kept her from running by putting her in a safely Democratic district.  To do this, my town, the county seat!, was sliced down the middle.  The district was drawn to eliminate his enemies and protect his friends.

Rick Miller

He’s a damn thug.  A normal drawing of the boundaries would have made it a coalition district – meaning that blacks, Latino, and Asians would together comprise a small majority.  It doesn’t promise any of them the district, but it gives them a chance – a chance that Rick Miller was too chicken to take.

The upside is that this is Tom DeLay’s old district.  I would like to warn Miller than the last man who tried to play cute with redistricting ended up on Dancing with the Stars looking like a damfool as a convicted felon.  From what I’ve seen on Miller’s life, this would be an improvement.

My county has four state rep districts and at one time or another, I have lived in three of them.  I haven’t move since Elvis died.  Heck, I was in all three just during this redistricting process.

Decades ago, before Tom DeLay, redistricting in Texas was decided by a bunch of independent nerds who sat in backrooms and decided boundaries based on fairness and population, not by politics. Those were truly the good ole days.