Oh that’s classic. Tom DeLay says those Texas state Senators, who are off in New Mexico to stymie his re-redistricting plan, are guilty of violating the federal constitution.
From Fox News Sunday this morning …
TONY SNOW: All right. Let’s switch to another topic. Texas — there is an imbroglio about redistricting. Republicans want to change the map because their Republican majority is substantial in your home state.
But there’s a question. These same Republicans, a couple of years ago, agreed to a redistricting, or at least, in courts, got involved. Why should Republicans get another bite at the apple?
TOM DELAY: Well, we haven’t had the first bite. We’re supposed to, by Constitution, apportion or redistrict every 10 years. The state legislature in Texas couldn’t do it in the last legislature, and three judges did it and they did a very poor job, as evidenced that the fact that we have a minority of Republicans in our congressional delegation.
What — you know, we in Texas, Tony, have prided ourselves on honor, duty and responsibility. Unfortunately, the Democrats in the state legislature don’t understand honor because they’re violating their oath of office to support the United States Constitution. They don’t understand their duty, which the Constitution calls for in redistricting. And they don’t want to accept responsibility for it, so they ran.
We’re insisting that the Constitution be upheld, and we feel very confident that if the state legislature does its duty and redistricts, then we will end up with a majority of Republicans in the congressional delegation.
Now that’s classic. DeLay is pushing an effort which is entirely unprecedented in the last half century and hasn’t been commonplace in this country for well more than a hundred years. And his opponents, who are resisting his efforts, are guilty of violating the constitution.
Persistent, chronic up-is-downism …
