An editorial about Texas Politics from today's NY Times:
Tom DeLay's Down-Home Muscle
We're happy to note that Tom DeLay's lunge for more political power is running into trouble in his home state of Texas. The special session of the State Legislature, which he prompted in order to redraw the political map to favor more Congressional Republicans, is foundering. A lone G.O.P. state senator is holding out against the House majority leader's plan to redistrict Democratic incumbents out of their seats, thwarting Mr. DeLay's hubristic plotting.
Mr. DeLay, who has a 10-gallon thirst for power, thinks he deserves six more Republican House members from Texas than the voters chose to send last election. He insists that Congressional maps deserve an unusual redrawing outside the normal census season, and he is moving heaven and earth to have his way. In fact, the Federal Aviation Administration just had to tighten its rules to prevent a repetition of last May's debacle, when a dozen agents were put on search alert in airport towers at Mr. DeLay's behest, tracking Democratic lawmakers who fled Austin for Oklahoma to deny a statehouse quorum on the remapping plan. In the service of Mr. DeLay's political ambitions, carloads of Texas narcotics officers were dispatched to find the lawmakers, as if they were potheads. The majority leader, ever the federalist, even had the new Department of Homeland Security keeping its eyes peeled.
Full text:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/17/op...17THU3.html?th
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