Austin Motel
TravCo "Gerrymandering"
RECEIVED Mon., July 8, 2019
Dear Editor,
Pot, meet kettle.
Really enjoyed Michael King's essay on redistricting and mean ol' Tom DeLay ["Point Austin: The Victory of Tom DeLay," News, July 5]. I'm sure Mr. DeLay also had a hand in the history of other line-drawing in Travis County over the years. King might want to check the history of line-drawing for Travis County Commissioners Court precincts over the past couple of decades.
For over 100 years, these precincts were drawn in simple squares, covering the four corners of Travis County (NW, SW, NE, SE). All that changed as soon as an avowed Republican (oh, the horror!) was elected in Precinct 3.
The following election, when a second conservative candidate came close to winning the Precinct 4 seat in Southwest Travis County, the Democrats on the court went into full apoplectic gerrymandering mode. Precinct lines were redrawn again in 2011 in order to further tweak the Democrats' stronghold on the court, creating precincts which would even make Tom DeLay blush.
To the left, gerrymandering is only bad when it is used by the other guys.
Aren't you guys the ones who always preach that diversity is good?
Pot, meet kettle.
Really enjoyed Michael King's essay on redistricting and mean ol' Tom DeLay ["Point Austin: The Victory of Tom DeLay," News, July 5]. I'm sure Mr. DeLay also had a hand in the history of other line-drawing in Travis County over the years. King might want to check the history of line-drawing for Travis County Commissioners Court precincts over the past couple of decades.
For over 100 years, these precincts were drawn in simple squares, covering the four corners of Travis County (NW, SW, NE, SE). All that changed as soon as an avowed Republican (oh, the horror!) was elected in Precinct 3.
The following election, when a second conservative candidate came close to winning the Precinct 4 seat in Southwest Travis County, the Democrats on the court went into full apoplectic gerrymandering mode. Precinct lines were redrawn again in 2011 in order to further tweak the Democrats' stronghold on the court, creating precincts which would even make Tom DeLay blush.
To the left, gerrymandering is only bad when it is used by the other guys.
Aren't you guys the ones who always preach that diversity is good?
Billy Newberry
Staff writer Michael King responds: While I don't begrudge Mr. Newberry his complaints about Democratic redistricting, his local electoral history seems more than a little fuzzy. A Republican (Gerald Daugherty) has served off and on in Precinct 3 (which is Southwest), and in 2010, Commissioner Margaret Gómez defeated her sole opposition (a Libertarian) with 84% of the vote, in Precinct 4 (which is in Southeast Travis County, not Southwest). While the Democrats on the Commissioners Court have not been shy about jockeying voters among each other – indeed, that's made Precinct 3 more Republican, not less – there is simply no comparison between the Travis County precinct boundaries and the extreme GOP gerrymandering of the Austin/Travis County congressional map.
