[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 11447]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          TEXAS REDISTRICTING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Chocola). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Lampson) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. LAMPSON. Mr. Speaker, I had prepared a little bit different 
remarks, but after listening to the last few speakers, particularly our 
good friend the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton), who spoke earlier 
about the shape of some of the districts and some of what happened with 
the development of this redistricting plan in Texas, I thought it might 
be appropriate to show some of the comparisons.
  I also listened a few minutes ago to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Turner) talk about those wonderful people who spent so much time 
searching for the remains of the Columbia after its dissolution on its 
return from space. What a magnificent bunch of people who spent so much 
of their time and effort trying to pick up the pieces to that 
spacecraft and to find the heroes who died in that craft.
  It is interesting that some of what has transpired with this 
redistricting can be directly affected to my work that I have put forth 
in behalf of the Johnson Space Center and the magnificent people who 
live in that Clearlake area of southeast Houston and north Galveston 
County. Those are areas that, through this redistricting plan, all the 
work that I have done in working on the Subcommittee on Space and 
Aeronautics could very easily be moved away from the Ninth 
Congressional District, a part of an area that has been represented 
continuously for over three decades. The community of interest there 
could very likely be dissolved because of this.
  We have talked about gerrymandering. We have talked about the 
creation of congressional districts that split communities, that 
literally take away communities of influence, centers of influence, 
that communities have been together for a very, very long time.
  What it does do as an example in my home county of Jefferson in 
southeast Texas where recently we had a redistricting for the State 
senate, Jefferson County was split into two different parts for the 
first time in the history of that county, since 1835. What it does do 
is to take a part of the southern part of Jefferson County and connect 
it to a much larger population area in basically the city of Houston. 
It takes the northern part of that county and brings it over into 
another part of the city of Houston.
  The city of Houston is wonderful, and I represent part of it, but so 
is the city of Beaumont. What happens is that the people who live in 
Houston now can control the future of the city of Beaumont, because a 
large number of people in one part of that district will determine who 
the Representative will be, Democrat or Republican, and consequently a 
center that is completely different, a center of influence around 
Beaumont or Port Arthur, Texas, becomes watered down, and it does not 
matter whether they are represented by a Democrat or a Republican, they 
are going to not be able to express their interests in the same way, 
and they certainly will not be able to elect a Representative of either 
party that is going to be controlled by the larger area of population.
  The current districts of Texas look like this. This was a map that 
was drawn and approved by a Federal district court in Texas, made up of 
two Democrats and one Republican. The districts are reasonably compact. 
The Ninth Congressional District is one that also is reasonably 
compact, including all of Jefferson County, Chambers County, Galveston 
County and a part of Harris County over here where the Johnson Space 
Center is. We will see, potentially see, hopefully we will not see, but 
under this plan the State of Texas is proposing to change that district 
to look like this, where it splits this county, it splits this county, 
Chambers, and moves into Harris County in a very convoluted, 
gerrymandered area.
  The interesting thing about this particular map is that the center of 
influence changes away from all of this area, because over 400,000 
people live in this squiggly little part of inner-city Houston over 
here, connected and controlling the interests of the people who live in 
this much larger area. That is not fair. That is not fair to the 
citizens who have a specific interest different than the interests of 
those folks over there.
  We will talk more about this. I hope that my colleagues and my 
friends across the country will also be looking at how this is 
developing and why it is unfair to the citizens, not to the elected 
officials.

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