EDITORIAL
If you are not satisfied with the redistricting job done for Congress, don’t blame anyone other than the Texas Legislature. Too many of them got caught up in trying to create Washington congressional districts for themselves or overly ambitious cohorts.
After all, the pay up there is 20 times higher than the comparable one they receive in Austin.
But unbelievably shoddy work in Austin and a bevy of dumb mistakes by our state Attorney General Greg Abbott resulted in a San Antonio federal court tossing the whole mess out the window.
As a result, Congressman Lloyd Doggett is now running in the western two-thirds of Hays County and in his stronghold of southern and western Travis; he’ll have relatively easy sailing. Doggett has represented Hays County for many years, taking over the seat when former Congressman Jake Pickle stepped down and retired.
Young Joaquin Castro has a dream district in his native San Antonio, and the eastern Hays County folks who were in Doggett’s district a week ago are now in a district which will almost surely elect a San Antonio Democrat.
Gone and good riddance is the cock-eyed proposal to have three congressional districts in Hays County, making us the only county of less than 200,000 in the U.S. to have that many congressmen. It was a very dumb idea that should have died at birth but didn’t.
Hays Countians will have to wait a few more days to allow our county’s efficient team of Election Administrator Joyce Cowan and Map Magician Steve Floyd to straighten out the Legislature’s badly flawed plan. A good result is already evident. Instead of having 61 voting precincts to accommodate the three congressional district scheme, our local gurus will manage to reduce it to slightly more than 50.
That’s, at the very least, a welcome improvement.
