Conservatives Without Conscience

“By drawing districts that snaked hundreds of miles across various counties,” the NAACP reported, “Republicans drained African American and Latino voters from integrated Democratic districts and replaced them with enough white Republican voters to outnumber remaining white Democratic voters. As a result, DeLay converted a 32-member Texas Congressional delegation that had been evenly divided between the parties into one in which Republicans enjoyed a 10-seat advantage after the 2004 election.”[29] Under the federal Voting Rights Act, Texas was required to submit any changes in its voting laws to the federal government for approval by the Department of Justice. After it sent its 2003 redistricting plan to Washington, five lawyers and two analysts in the department’s Civil Rights Division rejected it in a seventy-three-page memorandum highlighting its flaws. But Bush appointees at the Justice Department rejected the findings of their own experts and approved the highly partisan plan.[30] When opponents of the scheme took it to federal court, they ran aground because of the uncertainty of the law under existing U.S. Supreme Court rulings. It was not until late 2005 that the Supreme Court agreed to hear their objections, which makes it unlikely the issue will be resolved before the 2006 congressional elections. In the past, the conservative majority of the Supreme Court has tried to stay out of such political issues, so it remains uncertain whether the high Court will make a ruling in the case. But everyone should hope that the justices opt to clean up this mess, for its ramifications are national.

Indeed, the actions of DeLay and his allies in the Texas legislature have already encouraged similar activity (so far unsuccessful) in other states controlled by Republicans, namely Georgia and Colorado. In turn, a few Democrats, relying on the adage that “you can’t play touch football when the other guy is playing tackle,” have proposed that states they now control, such as Illinois, New Mexico, and Louisiana, pursue their own partisan redistricting plans. But so far Democrats have chosen to talk, not to play this game. DeLay’s actions in Texas provided less than a handful of additional votes, but Republicans have shown that with their authoritarian style they can and will govern the House, and the nation, with only the slightest majority.[*] They have maintained control of the House by mastering “the one-vote victory” strategy, which DeLay has made into an art form.

Although he is not particularly close to Bush II, since he had been openly critical of his father (claiming that moderate Republicans like Bush I were moral compromisers), DeLay is a team player and recognizes the power of the White House, so he has been more than willing to push Bush administration programs. As majority leader, he knew how to count votes and how to twist arms to enact laws with almost no majority support. “Time and again,” the Washington Post reported, “on high-profile bills involving Medicare, education and other programs, [the GOP leaders] have calibrated the likely yeas and neas to the thinnest margin possible, enabling them to push legislation as much to their liking as they can in a narrowly divided and bitterly partisan House.”[31] For example, the Post reported, the 2003 vote on Medicare was 216–215, the Head Start vote was 217–216, and those in favor of providing vouchers for children in the District of Columbia public schools prevailed with a 209–208 vote. By picking up four more votes from Texas in 2004, Republicans gained even greater control. DeLay—and no doubt his successor, John Boehner—held Republican members of the House in line through threats and money and, by playing hardball, demanded and obtained votes when he needed them. But the leaders are not foolish and understand that some moderate members cannot vote for every hard-right measure and survive in office. So the GOP leadership rotates among the moderates in the ranks, not forcing all of them to comply with every vote, but using them one at a time when one vote is needed for victory, as well as when voting on rules. The system is blatantly imperious, completely undemocratic, and conspicuously authoritarian. Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank, with two decades of service in the House, correctly stated that the “House of Representatives is no longer a deliberative body.”[32]

The K Street Project: Jack Abramoff and His Friends