Above are maps showing the 35th congressional district in Texas. Smell something fishy? Or maybe the word is "serpenty," like a dinosaur with a little spike at the end of its long tail? Upon inspection, the spiky tail encompasses a big chunk of metro San Antonio. The head and body, meanwhile, are made out of a wide swatch of the Austin metropolitan area. In between, the district is about as wide as Interstate Highway 35. Since Austin and San Antonio are two heavily Democratic areas within red Texas, a half wit can tell that this is a glaringly obvious attempt to pack Democratic voters into a single, overwhelmingly Democratic district. If the fat northeasterly part and slightly bulbous southwesterly part were within two adjoining districts that looked something like a figure in a geometry book, there would be two Democratic representatives going to Washington. Instead, there is only one.
The district map was challenged in court, and last year a panel of federal court judges held that three Texas districts, including the 35th, violated both the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act. Texas appealed, and earlier this week the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, reversed the decision of the federal court panel. So there is nothing illegal about a blatant political gerrymander, and the 35th district of Texas is "good to go" until at least the next census. The remedy, it seems, is for the Democrats to win more elections so they can start drawing their own sleazy maps--and holding open vacant Supreme Court seats until one of theirs is in place to appoint the next justice.
What a country! It's perfect that the president should be a buffoon.
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