Category: Political

How to talk like a pyrate

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date September 19, 2003

Ye be a sorry lot and not a True Pyrate amongst ye! Me thinks it’s because ye can’t talk like a pyrate. How can ye be a True Pyrate if ye can’t talk like one, I says to meself.

A few lessons in how to Talk like a Pyrate for the Pyrate Impaired:

From Maritime Pirates

Cackle Fruit – hen’s eggs

Hempen Halter – hangman’s noose

Nelson’s Folly – rum

Run a rig – play a trick

Dick Cheney:

“There has been significant success in putting Iraq back together again. … Most of Iraq is stable and quiet.”

From Pyrate Talk:

To Go on Account – a pleasant term used by pyrates to describe the act of turning pyrate. The basic idea was that a pyrate was more “free lance” and thus was, more or less, going into business for himself.

Take a Caulk – on deck of a ship, between planks, was a thick caulk of black tar and rope to keep water from between decks. This term came to mean to “take a nap” either because sailors who slept on deck ended up with black lines across their backs or simply because sailors laying down on deck were as horizontal as the caulk of the deck itself.

Quarter – deriving from the idea of “shelter”, quarter was given when mercy was offered by the pyrates. To give no quarter was to indicate that none would be spared. Quarter was often the prize given to an honourable loser in a pyrate fight. If enraged, however, a pyrate would deprive the loser any such luxury.

Rumsfeld:

“In that instance, we had been in the country for about 15 seconds; sometimes I overstate for emphasis …. I should have said, ‘I believe they’re in that area’” around Tikrit and Baghdad.’”

From The Olympian:

Aye, aye: “I’ll get right on that sir, as soon as my break is over.”

Arr: “Yes,” “I agree,” “I’m happy,” “I’m enjoying this beer,” “My team is going to win it all,” “I saw that television show, it sucked!” and “That was a clever remark you or I just made.”

Beauty: The best possible pirate address for a woman. Always preceded by “me,” as in “C’mere, me beauty” or even “me buxom beauty.”

Lubber: This is short for landlubber and is the seaman’s version of land lover, mangled by typical pirate disregard for elocution.

Ashcroft:

“(The government)…should be looking for ways to improve the safety and security of American liberty.”

From The Pirate’s Realm:

Avast – “Avast Ye!” from the Dutch term for ‘hold fast’ and means “Stop and pay attention.”, like, “Get a load of this.”

Black Spot – a death threat among pirates made of a black spot or mark on a scrap of paper with more specific detail sometimes written on the other side, referred to in the story, Treasure Island.

Black Jack – large drinking cups made of leather that were made stiffer with an application of tar

Bumboo – A drink of the West Indies made with watered rum and flavored with sugar and nutmeg

President Bush:

Two years ago, I told the Congress and the country that the war on terror would be a lengthy war, a different kind of war, fought on many fronts in many places. Iraq is now the central front. Enemies of freedom are making a desperate stand there – and there they must be defeated. This will take time and require sacrifice. Yet we will do what is necessary, we will spend what is necessary, to achieve this essential victory in the war on terror, to promote freedom and to make our own nation more secure.

Arrr.

More on how to talk like a pirate and the upcoming presidential candidates at Salt Lake City Tribune. Tis a fine group of privateers.

Political Weblogging

Vote for Whitey, he weblogs

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date September 10, 2003

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Harold Kurtz covered some of of the current buzz about the Democratic candidates, the California recall election, and even Bush’s recent speech. It’s a great recap of quotes from other publications, interspersed with humorous and pithy asides. More importantly, though, it highlights some articles worth following, such as a Salon article that’s worth a serious read or two by all the people who think that Dean’s election is in the bag because he weblogs.

Though you might need to sit through an ad to read it, the Salon article by Farhad Manjoo quotes people from the Dean campaign that are growing concerned that perhaps there is too much emphasis on Dean’s online presence. On TV, it’s beginning to look like his followers are primarily of a specific race, economic level, and educational background.

For instance, the article reflects concerns by Dean supports, such as Steve Chaffin, an unofficial coordinator for Dean in Ohio:

Chaffin … worries that because Dean has relied greatly on the Web as a campaign tool, the candidate’s message has not been widely received by “blue-collar people” and minorities. This concern, which has popped up repeatedly in the media, is shared by many other Dean supporters, including Richard Hoefer, a San Francisco filmmaker who believes that the campaign has been too “blog-centric.” Asked if he thinks there’s a homogeneity to Dean’s base, Hoefer responds, “You mean whitey?”

In some ways Dean’s campaign reflects the same audience I’ve seen at tech conferences and symposia – white, primarily urban, middle/upper class, white collar, professional, highly educated. The only difference from what I can see is that there is more equal distribution of men and women than in these other venues.

Some of this is leading to concern that Dean is focused too heavily on webloggers, and that would be a mistake. In St. Louis there are probably about 2000 webloggers, at most. Yet there are close to 250,000 registered voters in this city. Rather than reaching out to the 200,000+, is Dean’s strategy focused primarily on that 2000?

According to the article:

The danger that supporters appear most wary of is “preaching to the choir” – bringing the pro-Dean message only to folks who are already inclined to accept it. Indeed, Richard Hoefer calls this the biggest pitfall of Dean’s blog strategy. “I’ve been at odds with Dean for America because I criticize them for being too blog-centric,” he says. “I think they preach to the converted, and it bugs me because I think they’re missing the boat. I think Dean has incredible appeal to blacks, Latinos, minorities – but the message hasn’t gotten out there yet because they have been too focused on the blog.”

If the registered voters in this city follow along racial lines, 51% will be black.

Manjoo says, no worries, because the webloggers are on top of the problem. In fact, if there is one major criticism I have of the article, it is the authors constant rah rahing of webloggers, and how we’re aware of this danger and how we’re doing something about it. He writes:

The self-awareness of the potential shortcomings of Dean’s campaign is exactly the kind of thing you might expect from people as well-educated and affluent as Dean supporters tend to be.

Everyone in the audience who’s affluent, please raise your hand.

There is also an assumption in the article, and elsewhere, that once Dean bags the Dem nomination, the minorities and the women will fall in line, little ducks in a row; the good thing about the online presence is it’s attracting that most fickle of voters – white men:

Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, the proprietor of the popular lefty blog Daily Kos and a consultant to the Dean campaign’s Web efforts, says that even if Dean is failing to appeal to minorities now, they will come to him if he wins the nomination. Meanwhile, Moulitsas says, polls show that Dean is currently attracting a crowd that the Democratic Party has had trouble with in recent elections – white males. This is partly because of Dean’s use of the Web, Moulitsas says, but mainly because “he’s a very aggressive candidate in his speaking style, and the anger. Nobody wants a president that’s a wimp, and Dean sounds tough, he sounds like he’s ready to kick some ass, and I think that really fires men up.”

Well, shucks, son. If you want to talk tough, our man Bush dressed up in a pilot’s suit and landed on an aircraft carrier. I reckon his toy gun is bigger than Dean’s, what say?

If this is a typical Dean supporter speaking out, and this is the type of advice Dean is getting, he hasn’t rat’s tail’s chance in a room of rocking chairs of taking the election away from Bush.

I have some numbers for you:

Alabama 9
Colorado 8
Texas 32
Arizona 8
Mississippi 7
Kentucky 8
Minnesota 10
Louisiana 8
Indiana 12
Illinois 22
Missouri 11
Nebraska 5
Idaho 4
Alaska 3
Kansas 6
Iowa 7
Georgia 13
Oklahoma 8
Ohio 21
South Dakota 3
Tennessee 11
Utah 5
Wyoming 3

These are electoral votes for the other states. The quiet ones, the insignificant one. These are the states populated by people that quietly watch the debates in Washington DC, and the demonstrations in New York, and the protests in San Francisco and see the tongue rings and cluck their own tongues at the foolishness of these kids. These are states made up of blue collar and white collar workers, blacks and whites and native Americans and Hispanics and Asian-Americans and Indian-Americans and Arab-Americans. They’re Christian for the most part, with some Muslim, Hindu, and Jewish people. A Buddhist or two. Maybe. Even some folk with tongue rings, because it is a free country, son.

There are some webloggers here, but not as many on the coasts because the Internet just never had the impact here as it did elsewhere. These states count themselves thankful, too, as they watch California’s unemployment exceed 10% in some areas due to the Dot Com implosion.

These states don’t have the electoral punch of California or Florida or New York, but combined these states are enough to elect a president. Half these states with New York, or Florida, is enough.

I think of those yellow ribbons and American flags I saw in Kentucky, in the towns along the way, through Indiana and Missouri and I know that behind those doors are union members and blacks and women – traditional Democratic voters. I also know that while Dean is meeting with the white, educated, internet savvy males at a Weblogger Meetup in San Francisco (earning some more Internet bucks), Bush is speaking at a plant that builds bombs here in St. Louis, giving an uncomplicated speech that’s equal parts patriotism, anger, hope, and fear.

And Bush isn’t some governor from some tiny state that allows gays to marry (as they’ll see it) and has all those independents who betray their party (as they’ll see it); and he isn’t some weblogger who works at Harvard in Boston or a software company in LA. Bush comes from Texas, that’s about as American as you can get. He worked in his Daddy’s business, he believes in God and Country and he’s one of us, these people will think. Even though they might be union members and blacks and women, they may in the quiet of that voting booth hesitate over Dean’s lever; hesitate and move on and pull down the one next to Bush’s name because he’s a man more like them, though they can’t stand him, and really don’t trust him.

Better the devil you know, then the devil you don’t.

Political

Admission

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date September 9, 2003

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I woke up this morning after listening to Bush, Ashcroft, and Rumsfeld’s speeches in the last few days and I thought to myself, I don’t need to fight Bush’s re-election – he’s doing a good job of not getting himself elected all by himself.

After all, there’s not a one of us who isn’t aware that Iraq was no direct threat against the United States; that there weren’t stockpiled Weapons of Mass Destruction lying about; there was no need for such a quick dismissal of the UN process and even quicker entry into the war. We’re all aware that the post-war planning was based on assumptions that the Iraqi were going to be so happy to see us invade their country, that they would shower our soldiers with flowers and immediately set aside their deep religious differences and create a new and democratic governing order, quickly putting an untouched oil business in gear to pay for it.

And now, we’re hearing the price tag, 87 billion dollars. This is enough money to provide adequate medical care for every person in this country; enough to bring all of the closed schools back to their strength; enough to, well, do a lot of things that would have some positive impact here in this country. But we’ve invaded Iraq, and destroyed the infrastructure of the country at the same time – we have a responsibility so we have to foot this bill and listen to news about people getting killed, but I assumed that we’d be a bit peeved at the President for getting us into this mess.

And then there’s Ashcroft, with his traveling Tear Down the Constitution tour. After all, we’re a country that prides ourselves on our freedom and our privacy and any laws that would allow the FBI to search homes without notification, to obtain library records for people who are suspect, to hold people without due process of law, would surely not play in among the corn fields of Iowa.

From North Carolina, the Herald Sun wrote:

During an abbreviated press conference, Ashcroft, who provided individual interviews for television media but only a group interview for the press, avoided questions about the act’s effect on illegal immigration and the strain the act has placed on local budgets.

When asked about detentions of foreign citizens, Ashcroft said, “We don’t detain people without charges.” He then added, “I no longer supervise most of the immigration process. Most of those functions are now under the Department of Homeland Security.”

This sounded very much like Rumsfeld’s dismissal of not finding WMD in Iraq with stating that this was really the responsibility of the CIA, not the Defense Department. This was in addition to him saying that to criticize President Bush’s Iraq policy was aiding and abetting terrorism. Something to do with Somalia.

I would think that all of this, combined with the worst employment situation since the Depression and the worst deficit in history, would be enough to throw Bush out of office; but I bet I could sit down in any coffee shop, from sea to glorious shining sea, and hear from American after American defending Bush and defending our policy in Iraq and hear about how the economy is improving, we just have to be patient. Why? Because to do otherwise would be to admit our own errors.

The same members of Congress donned little American flag buttons and stood behind the President at the White House as good little Americans and provided blanket support for his actions.

Congress voted on the tax cut when any schoolkid with a calculator knew it would be economically disasterous.

We’ve forgotten the names of all the Americans detained without legal counsel in this country because of the war on terror.

Americans gave Bush a 78% approval rating of his handling of the War on Terror.

The same Americans believe, 2 to 1, that Saddam Hussein was behind the Twin Towers act, thought there’s never been one iota of proof.

We rewarded our leaders for lying to us, we lied to each other, we lied to ourselves. We screwed up. Not just Bush. Not just Rumsfeld. Not just Ashcroft. We screwed up, and we’re not going to admit it.

When I visited smalltown Kentucky this last weekend, there wasn’t a store billboard that didn’t say “Support our Troops. Support our President”. There wasn’t a home that didn’t have a yellow ribbon, right next to that big American Flag. These are not stupid people who don’t know how to read, but these are people who believe, “My Country. Right or Wrong.”

And that’s who Bush, Rumsfeld, and Ashcroft play to and that’s who the rest of us dismiss. We have a huge fight on our hands to prevent four more years of that Man in the White House.

Political Weblogging Writing

Like to Like

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date September 4, 2003

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

The new group weblog Open Source Politics had its first week, and one can’t help but applaud the quality of much of the writing that’s come out of this effort. Of course, I know two of the people contributing, Mike Golby and Loren Webster, and have enjoyed their writing for some time so this isn’t surprising.

As much as I applaud any effort that gets Mike and Loren the readership they both deserve, I’m still not fond of these group weblogs. Rather than expose important issues to a new audience, the decidedly liberal nature of this weblog will either attract those who are liberal in the first place and likely to agree; or attract those from the opposite viewpoint, looking for cannon fodder. I think those who are more neutral are going to be pushed away by the tone and focus of the weblog.

I can see wanting to move political commentary from your weblog if you want to focus on writing or poetry or linguistics or some other specialized topic. However, if you’re hoping to influence people who haven’t made up their minds on specific issues, wouldn’t a more effective approach be to focus on writing or poetry or linguistics or technology, with an occasional sneaky aside into politics?

Speaking of politics, yesterday was the first of the Democratic candidates debate and though I know that people wanted fireworks, I thought all of the candidates were very responsible in focusing on Bush rather than each other. No candidate is perfect, but there were some good points raised. As for my political leanings, it’s no surprise I’m voting Democrat, but which specific candidate is between me and the button. I make no apologies that my focus is on removing Bush from office, rather than promoting any one of the Dems. I can say I don’t support Lieberman because of his hawkish outlook, and I don’t care for Gephardt because I think he sold us out when he stood behind Bush in the invasion of Iraq. Other than that, I’ll support whoever has the best chance to defeat Bush.

In line with recent discussion about politics and religion, the Pew Forum just released survey results relating religion and politics and voting in this country. Extremely interesting reading.

For instance, from what I can see from these results I would more likely to be voted president if I were Muslim than aetheist. In this country, we’re willing to concede a shared heritage from Abraham – reluctantly – but the non-religous, and one has to assume the polytheist and animist and other outsiders, need not apply.

In fact, unless there’s a drastic change in culture and attitudes about religion, it will be a cold day in hell before an aetheist is voted President in the United States.

Political

Gonna learn? Learn from the best

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date August 20, 2003

There’s lots of discussion about the nasty doings among the technologists, but let’s face it – we’re rank amateurs compared to the political parties in this country.

While the media is dazzled by the carnival atmosphere surrounding the recall in California, in Texas a group of Democrats are fighting a far more difficult battle to prevent the Republican party from creating King George, the First.

I just received the following from moveon.org:

Below is the letter from State Senator Rodney Ellis.
___________________
August 18, 2003

Dear friends,

I am writing to you from a hotel room in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where I and 10 of my colleagues in the Texas Senate have been forced to reside for the past 20 days. If we return to our homes, families, friends, and constituents, the Governor of Texas will have us arrested.

I know, it sounds more like a banana republic than the dignified democracy on which we have long prided ourselves. We are effectively exiled from the state due to our unalterable opposition to a Republican effort – pushed by Tom Delay and Karl Rove, and led by Texas Governor Rick Perry – that would rewrite the map of Texas Congressional districts in order to elect at least 5 more Republicans to Congress.

You may not have heard much about the current breakdown in Texas politics. The Republican power play in California has obscured the Republican power play in Texas that has forced my colleagues and me to leave the state.

Recognizing that public pressure is the only thing that can break the current stalemate, our friends at MoveOn have offered to support our efforts by sharing this email with you. In it, you will find:

* Background information on how the situation in Texas developed;
* Analysis of what’s at stake for Democrats and the democratic process; and
* How you can help by contacting Texas politicians, signing our petition, contributing funds, and forwarding this email!

The Republican redistricting effort shatters the tradition of performing redistricting only once a decade immediately after the Census – making redistricting a perpetual partisan process. It elevates partisan politics above minority voting rights, in contravention of the federal Voting Rights Act. It intends to decimate the Democratic party in Texas, and lock in a Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. And Republican efforts to force a vote on this issue by changing the rules of legislative procedure threaten to undermine the rule of law in Texas.

We do not take lightly our decision to leave the state. It was the only means left to us under the rules of procedure in Texas to block this injustice. We are fighting for our principles and beliefs, and we can win this fight with your support.

Sincerely,

Rodney Ellis
Texas State Senator (Houston)

Background

During the 2001 session of the Texas Legislature, the legislature was unable to pass a Congressional redistricting plan as it is required to do following the decennial Census. A three judge federal panel was forced to draw the plan. Neither Governor Rick Perry or then Attorney General John Cornyn, both Republicans, objected to the plan, which was reviewed and approved by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The 2002 Congressional elections, the first held under the new redistricting plan, resulted in a Congressional delegation from Texas consisting of 17 Democrats and 15 Republicans. However, five of the 17 Democrats prevailed only because they were able to win the support of Republican and independent voters. All statewide Republican candidates carried these five districts. Most experts agree that the current plan has 20 strong or leaning Republican districts and 12 Democratic districts.

Meanwhile, the 2001 redistricting of Texas legislative seats (which was enacted by the Republican-controlled Legislative Redistricting Board, after the legislature again gridlocked in its efforts) resulted in wide Republican majorities in both the Texas House and Texas Senate. Now Tom Delay has made it his priority to force the Republican-controlled Legislature to enact a new redistricting plan to increase the number of Republican-leaning Congressional districts. Republicans believe they can manipulate the districts to elect as many as 22 Republicans out of the 32 member Texas Congressional delegation. They achieve this by packing minority voters into as few districts as possible and breaking apart rural districts so that the impact of independent voters will be reduced and suburban Republican voters will dominate.

During the regular session of the Texas Legislature, Democratic members of the Texas House of Representatives exercised an unprecedented parliamentary move to prevent the House from passing Tom Delay’s redistricting plan. While Democrats are in the minority of the House of Representatives, the state constitution requires that at least 2/3 of the House be present for the House to pass a bill. Because it was clear that the Republicans would entertain no debate and brook no compromise in their effort to rewrite the rules by which members of Congress are elected, the Democrats were forced to break the quorum to prevent the bill from passing. Because the Republican Speaker of the House and Governor called on state law enforcement officials to physically compel the Democrats to return, the lawmakers removed themselves to a Holiday Inn in Ardmore, Oklahoma – outside the reach of state troops(1). In there effort to apprehend the Democrats, Tom Delay officially sought the help of the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Transportation and the Department of Justice.

The House Democrats (nicknamed the “Killer D’s”, based on an earlier episode in Texas history in which a group of Democratic state senators called the “Killer Bees” broke the quorum in the Senate over a similarly political stalemate) succeeded in stopping Delay’s redistricting plan during the regular session, returning to Texas after the legislative deadline had expired for the House to pass legislation. However, because the Texas Legislature meets in regular session only every two years, the state constitution gives the Governor the power to call a 30-day special legislative session at any time between regular sessions. Despite statewide protests from Texas citizens who oppose Tom Delay’s redistricting plan, the Governor has called two special sessions(2) already this summer to attempt to force the legislature to enact a new plan.

The first called session expired in a deadlock, as 12 of 31 Texas Senators(3) opposed the plan. Under Senate rules and tradition, a 2/3 vote is required to consider any bill on the floor of the Senate, giving 11 Senators the power to block a vote(4). The Republican Governor and Lieutenant Governor then determined they would do away with the 2/3 rule, and called another special session, forcing 11 Democratic Senators to break the quorum and leave the state.(5) These Senators have spent the past 22 days in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The Governor has indicated he will continue calling special sessions until the Republican redistricting plan is enacted, despite the fact that the Republican-controlled Texas Supreme Court recently rejected the Governor’s writ of mandamus filing to compel the Senators to return to the Senate. Meanwhile, eleven Democratic state senators are exiled from their state, unable to be with their families, friends, and constituents, for fear of being arrested as part of a partisan power play by Republicans. In the most recent indignity, Republican Senators voted to fine the absent Democrats up to $5,000 per day, and to revoke parking and other privileges for their staffs as long as the Senators are away.

What’s at stake

At stake, on the surface, is whether Tom Delay will succeed in exploiting Republican control of the Texas Legislature to add to the Republican majority in the United States Congress. But deeper issues are also at stake.

* If the Republicans succeed in redrawing the Texas Congressional lines to guarantee the election of five to seven more Republicans, it will ensure that Republicans hold the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives for the entire decade and will likely result in Tom Delay becoming Speaker of the House.(6)
* The Republican advantage would be gained by removing many African American and Hispanic voters from their current Congressional districts and “packing” them into a few districts that already have Democratic majorities. The voting power of these minority voters would be dramatically diluted by the Republican plan, in contravention of the federal Voting Rights Act. If the Republicans succeed, over 1.4 million African American and Hispanic voters will be harmed. It would be the largest disenfranchisement of minority voters since the Voting Rights Act was passed.
* Redistricting exists for the purpose of reapportioning voters among political districts to account for population shifts. The purpose of this reapportionment is to ensure a roughly equal number of voters in each district, to preserve the principle of “one man, one vote.”(7) For this reason, redistricting has always been conducted immediately following the U.S. Census’ decennial population reports. Tom Delay now proposes a new redistricting plan two years after the Census report simply because Republicans gained control over the Texas Legislature in 2002 and now have the power to enact a much more Republican-friendly plan than the one drawn by the federal courts two years ago. This is an unprecedented approach to redistricting, one that subordinates its original purpose of ensuring the principle of “one man, one vote” to the purpose of perpetual partisan politics. Redistricting, in this model, would never be a settled matter, and districts would constantly be in flux depending on the balance of political power in the Legislature.
* The Texas Legislature has traditionally been defined by a spirit of bipartisanship and cooperation. This issue has polarized the legislature in a way that threatens to destroy that tradition. The Republicans have effectively exiled their Democratic counterparts in a power play that makes our state look more like a banana republic than a dignified democracy. The arbitrary decision to discard the 2/3 rule in the Senate sets a precedent that undermines that body’s tradition of consensus and cooperation. The deployment of state law enforcement officials to apprehend boycotting legislators erodes the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches of government, and diminishes legislators’ ability to represent their constituents as they see fit. The unilateral Republican effort to penalize Democratic Senators and their staffs

What is needed

The Democratic Senators currently in Albuquerque have two critical needs. The first is to generate increased public awareness of the situation. By all reason, every day the Senators are out of the state this story should get bigger. Instead, news media have gradually lost interest in the story. The California recall has dominated the attention of the national media, and the Texas media has largely lost interest in the story – out of sight, out of mind. Without public attention to this story, the Republicans have all the leverage – if it does not cost them politically, it costs them nothing(8) to continue calling special sessions until the Texas 11 are forced to come home.

The second critical need is funding. The cost of hotels, meeting rooms, staff support, and public relations efforts is mounting. In addition, the Senators must defend themselves legally against Republican efforts to compel their return, while also filing legal claims against the Republican power play. The Senators are actively raising money for the Texas Senate Democratic Caucus Fund to offset these costs and prepare themselves for a stay of indefinite duration in Albuquerque.

Notes

1. A recent Department of Justice investigation chronicled Republican state officials’ illegal attempts to use federal resources – including anti-terrorism resources from the Department of Homeland Security – to compel the Democratic lawmakers’ return. See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51520-2003Aug12.html for a news report on the Justice Department investigation, or http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/special/03-08a/final.pdf for a copy of the complete Justice Department report.
2. At a cost to taxpayers of over $1.5 million per session.
3. House Republicans passed a redistricting bill in the special session despite an outpouring of public opposition in hearings across the state. All 12 Democratic state senators opposed the plan, along with Republican state senator (and former Lieutenant Governor) Bill Ratliff.
4. The “2/3 rule” requires the Senate to reach broader consensus on difficult issues than a simple majority vote. It is a combination of official Senate rules and tradition. The rules of the Senate require a 2/3 vote to suspend the “regular order of business” to consider a bill that is not the first bill on the Senate calendar. By tradition, the Senate has always placed a “blocker bill” at the top of the Senate calendar, so that every bill requires a suspension of the regular order of business to be considered. The process requires compromise and consensus to achieve a 2/3 majority on each bill. One Texas insider has said that the 2/3 rule is “what separates us from animals.”
5. In fact, the Governor and Lt. Governor attempted to “surprise” the Senators by calling the second special one day early and “trap” them in the Senate Chamber. The Senators were able to escape the Capitol with literally minutes to spare.
6. Republican party activist Grover Norquist, head of the Washington D.C.-based Americans for Tax Reform, was quoted as follows in the August 17 Fort Worth Star Telegram: “Republicans will hold the House for the next decade through 2012 if Texas redistricts. It depresses the hell out of the Democrats and makes it doubly impossible to take the House and probably depresses their fund raising. Anything that helps strengthen the Republican leadership helps DeLay become speaker someday if he wants it.”
7. Established in the landmark case Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186 (1962)
8. Notwithstanding the millions of dollars it is costing taxpayers.