More "Texas Killer D's" News

Austin AS -- "Some are speculating this request from the Texas Governor's office concerns an effort to locate missing Texas House Democrats," [New Mexico Attorney General ] Madrid wrote. "If so, Texas should understand that since ski season is over, the Santa Fe Opera has not begun and President Bush was just in town, I don't think they are in Santa Fe now. Nevertheless, I have put out an all-points bulletin for law enforcement to be on the look out for politicians in favor of health care for the needy and against tax cuts for the wealthy."

Thanks to Daily Kos

The Washington Post -- Texas Democrats Fly the Coop

Although the immediate cause for the Democratic protest was the redistricting plan, the walkout was the culmination of what has been an extraordinarily venomous session of the Texas legislature -- and a milestone in a tectonic political shift in the state.

Republicans, who in January took control of both houses of the state legislature for the first time in 130 years, have used their new majority to push through a conservative legislative agenda using tactics Democrats regard as heavy-handed to the point of brutishness. On tort reform, school financing, home insurance and other issues, the GOP has pursued its agenda aggressively, refusing Democratic input in a state that has been run with a certain degree of bipartisanship in recent years.

Houston Chronicle, Dallas Morning News and San Antonio Express News have editorials that approve of the runaway Democrats.

The Orange Report on Live Journal has been all over this.

He has a link to the obscene redistricting map

It targets nine of the ten white Democrats in the Texas Congressional delegation. It gives Ralph Hall a more Democratic district, and that's hardly a gift to Democrats in this state. Chris Bell's district is eliminated from the Houston area, and redrawn in south Texas. Bell is then paired with Culberson in the heavily Republican 7th. Lloyd Doggett is drawn into an ugly district that includes northern Travis County and stretches east to Houston suburbs and southeast to coastal Aransas County. Travis County goes from having 80% of its people represented by Doggett to being sliced and diced into four districts in which Travis County residents are a majority in none. Chet Edwards loses one of his base counties of Bell county, and the new 11th district goes to take in heavily Republican Fort Worth suburbs. Martin Frost sees his district go from 60% Democratic to 40% Democratic as the district carves out suburbs while avoiding heavily minority precincts in Dallas and Fort Worth. Gene Green is drawn out of his district, but he could likely move back into the even more heavily Democratic and Hispanic 29th and win. Harris county looks absolutely hideous in the new map - containing all of two congressional districts and parts of seven other congressional districts. Ruben Hinojosa's 15th district would stretch from the Mexican border to include southeast Travis county and downtown Austin. Jim Turner and Max Sandlin would be paired in a sprawling new district through east Texas which divides that traditionally rural district. Nick Lampson is placed in a district that stretches for hundreds of miles along the Louisiana border then comes into to take a large enough chunk of Houston suburbs to elect a Republican. Lampson would likely move into the new 9th district that stretches from Jefferson county and arcs around Houston to include as many minority precincts as possible.