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Senator Paxton, I presume
By Ken Byler
It's been said that good judgment comes from experience, and sometimes experience is gained from bad judgment, but everything usually works out like its supposed to.
I don't know how big of a part bad judgment played in state Rep. Ken Paxton's quest to become speaker of the Texas House of Representatives. As everyone knows, the attempt to oust Rep. Joe Straus as speaker failed miserably.
As expected, Paxton was banished to the back-bench boondocks. But now the stars appear to have realigned in his favor.
Paxton will undoubtedly win Florence Shapiro's vacant Senate seat now that Scott O'Grady has suspended his campaign. That is, if the Republican Party can hold its primary election before the next Texas legislative session.
Now, the question of the day is: Are ethnic politics holding the Republican primary elections hostage?
As always, the weapon most frequently used in ethnic politics is victimhood, with the words "underserved" and "disadvantaged" used extensively.
For years, some politicians have held a seat in the legislature by making their constituents feel like they've been cheated by another group of citizens or the other political party.
Ethnic politics is where everything that isn't done, from fixing pot holes to lax police protection, is blamed on racism. And racism appears to be the ideological currency of the extremists in both parties.
Drawing city council places and legislative districts along ethnic lines whereby politicians like Eddie Bernice Johnson and John Wiley Price are virtually assured lifetime employment as public servants is ethnic politics.
After the Democratic sweep in the elections of 2008, it was a forgone conclusion that Democrats would be in charge of redrawing Texas congressional districts soon after the completion of the 2010 census.
It was estimated that nearly one million Hispanics were missed in Texas and California on the 2000 census.
Before the 2010 census was taken, Regional Census Director Gabriel Sanchez said this regarding the 2000 census: "Obviously you have a lot of Hispanics and a lot of recently arrived immigrants ... We missed a lot of babies ... those people aren't tied to the community."
I suppose whether that would be considered a problem depends on you point of view. If in the city of Dallas, which is now 40 percent Hispanic, if you were to ask a man on the street if illegal immigration was serious problem, the odds are good that his answer would be, "No es una problema serio."
The backlash of President Barack Obama's "transformation" of America put 100 Republicans in the Texas House of Representatives. And now their House majority and 2010 census figures regarding Hispanic Texans have caused some folks to reconsider the district boundaries.
According to an article by Bill Burch in the Texas Insider, Texas has had an increase of nearly 4.3 million people since the census of 2000. Democrat Party officials and the League of United Latin American Citizens claim that 60 percent of this population increase is Hispanic. But according to the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, almost 58 percent of those Hispanics are not citizens.
Of the 25 million Texas residents counted in the 2010 census, 27 percent are children not of voting age. The percentage of black, voting-age Texans is 12.7 percent. For Hispanic Texans, it's 24.7 percent. The percentage of white, voting-age Texans is 58.8 percent, and for Asian and all others it's 3.7 percent.
If a person wants to believe that only folks from their own ethnic background can effectively represent them, they'll insist that those ethnic percentages apply to the Texas legislators. But it's awful hard to find a plausible reason for laying out congressional districts for a portion of the citizenry that can't vote.
For years, there have been two points of view on that subject. Undocumented immigrants are viewed by most conservatives as illegal aliens, while most liberals view them as unregistered Democrats.
And as usual, when Democrats don't win at the ballot box, they tie things up at the courthouse.
It appears to a lot of folks that Democrats want to delay the April 3 primaries until June 26. That would make choosing delegates for the National Republican Convention at the scheduled June 7 Republican State Convention impossible.
By delaying the primaries, the Democrats hope to make Texas Republicans' impact on the national convention null and void.
So it's debatable on whether this redistricting thing is about constituent representation or party politics.
Until Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott works the redrawn district maps through the federal court system, no one is sure who represents who in some districts.
As for me, I'm willing to skip all the primary folderol and start referring to Ken Paxton as Senator.
Ken Byler is a Star Columnist, an author and artist. E-mail at kbyler@tx.rr.com.
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