Texas GOP Leadership Ready To Perpetrate Yet Another Redistricting Runaround

This is from a letter from the Texas HDCC (House Democratic Campaign Committee). I regret that it's not online for me to link. (I also regret that "online" is not in the Firefox spelling checker's dictionary. Is it too much to ask that Firefox reflect actual American English when I specify "en_US"?):

Stephen,

Governor Perry has called the Texas Legislature into Special Session to address redistricting. Perry and Attorney General Greg Abbott are determined to force through redistricting maps before the courts have had a final say on numerous pending claims regarding intentional discrimination and violations of the Voting Rights Act.

The House Select Committee on Redistricting has announced it will hold public hearings across the state. Although notice is short on these hearings, we strongly encourage you to attend one near you.

Hearing dates, times, and locations include:

DALLAS
Thursday, June 6th, 2:00pm
DART Headquarters
1401 Pacific Ave, Dallas TX 75202

SAN ANTONIO
Monday, June 10th, 2:00pm
VIA Metro Center, Terry Eskridge Community Room
1021 San Pedro Ave, San Antonio TX 78212

HOUSTON
Wednesday, June 12th, 2:00pm
University of Houston - Main Campus
Michael J. Cemo Hall, Room 100D
4800 Calhoun Rd, Houston TX 77004

In addition, the Senate Select Committee on Redistricting will hold the following field hearings:

AUSTIN
Thursday, June 6th 9am
Texas State Capitol
Capitol Extension, Room E 1.036 (Finance)
Austin, TX

CORPUS CHRISTI
Friday, June 7th, 5pm
Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi
HRI Conference Center
6300 Ocean Drive, Corpus Christi, TX 78412

HOUSTON
Saturday, June 8th 11am
University of Houston - Downtown
Michael J. Cemo Hall
4800 Calhoun Road, Houston, TX 77004

This is an urgent opportunity to organize and help block the rubber-stamping of State House and Congressional maps that do not adequately reflect the tremendous growth in the Latino and African American populations in Texas.

We look forward to seeing you at one of these important Redistricting Hearings.

Sincerely,

Travis Brock
Executive Director, Texas HDCC

This is an open, baldfaced attempt by Gov. Goodhair Perry and AG Greg Abbott to circumvent the rulings they know they would get from courts in the various pending redistricting cases.

Texas is already long since a "majority minority" state, the "minority" in our case being Hispanic. Republicans know that. They also know that their prior attempts to bamboozle Hispanic-Americans in Texas into supporting a party whose attitude is "go back where you came from" (really? they want them to go back to San Antonio, Austin, Laredo, Houston, Dallas, etc. etc.?) has failed miserably. The only option the Texas GOP has (other than behaving sanely toward ethnic populations, something they are unwilling to do) is to coerce redistricting Texas into districts not reflective of the actual population of the state. And here we go again.

By my count this is the third time within two decades that Texas Rethuglicans have attempted an end-around forcible redistricting of the state. I've about had it with districts that run from one city to another, strung out along one side of a highway. If you have the opportunity, please attend one of the abovementioned meetings and participate in stuffing this fraud back down their goddamned throats.