With the 2010 census being complete, the House committee on apportionment is busy redrawing the district lines in states who have lost or gained seats. Any normal person would assume that since Republicans control the House, they would tend to redraw the lines to increase the chances of more republican gains in 2012. But "normal" doesn't describe old-school republicans. It seems the committee is populated by veteran republicans who want to protect their own seats and those seats held by their old-school buddies. So they are intentionally redrawing the lines to make sure tea party winners from 2010 lose their seats.
They are so angry and resentful that voters kicked out a lot of their RINO(republican in name only) buddies in favor of young, idealistic conservatives, that they'd rather get rid of tea-party members than get rid of more democrats.
Boehner and Cantor had better nip this sort of thing in the bud or they might find themselves out of a job. As soon as I figure out who is on the redistricting committee, I'll publish the names and call for them to be targeted in 2012. Voters can play that game too.
4 comments:
Source? Republicans aren't going to lose any seat except in the declining states of the mid-west and will more than gain them in the south. Anyway, this is all done at the state level, so Boehner and Cantor have no control over it except in Ohio and Virginia. I'm skeptical.
For example, Georgia gains a seat and the Republicans control both houses and the governor. So, they will protect the black democrats as they have to per the un-Constitutional Voting Rights Law, try to take out the one white Democrat and make sure the new seat goes GOP. I see no role for Cantor or Boehner.
I'll go back and find the article I got this from, but essentially it said that GOP district lines are specifically being drawn in some states purely to protect old-guard GOP encumbents and if that means eliminating an upstart tea-party newbie, then so be it.
And I think Boehner and Cantor do have influence over redistricting committees as does Reince Priebus. Boehner may be sympathetic to keeping his ten-term buddies around but Cantor should know better and see to it that guys aren't washed out of congress out of spite and resentment. Just because you've been there for 30 years, doesn't mean that seat is your birthright.
That makes more sense to me. In most states, I have no doubt that incumbent protection trumps anything else, at least with the majority party. However, lots of the new state legislators are "tea party" types, so pulling their strings from DC may not be so easy. Every state is different - some even have non-partisan commissions that handle redistricting. Some have the two houses and/or the governor of different parties. Some are gaining seats, some losing, most not changing but the population distribution is changed enough to require moving the lines. Then you have the awful Voting Rights Law demanding that "minority" seats be protected at all costs. It's a pretty complicated mess.
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