Oh boy, Lamar Smith E-mails .....Lamar needs to Resign

[Nbadan]

'RIVETING CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE'

For readers who have followed voting rights issues for a long time, you'll want to check this out.

Feds: Rick Perry-Signed Texas Redistricting Plan Reduces Voting Power Of 479,704 Hispanics
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/10/feds_...


The Justice Department thinks it has the sort of evidence of racially discriminatory redistricting that you would only dream up for a law school exam: actual emails from Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) discussing ways to dilute the Hispanic vote in Texas when they redrew congressional districts this year.

The member of Congress in question is Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) — who as it so happens chairs the House Judiciary Committee, which has primary oversight over DOJ. Smith’s emails are cited as an example of officials plotting to protect their electoral interests while taking race into account.

......................

While the existence of contemporaneous statements of direct racial intent related to current redistricting efforts may be rare, the email exchanges between United States Congressional representatives and staff, and State officials involved in devising the State’s plans, provide riveting circumstantial evidence bearing witness to the process discussed above, where data as to race and ethnicity rather than partisan data drove the line drawing for the proposed Congressional plan, and where the State sought to exclude minority representatives from the redistricting process. DOJ lawyers said in reference to emails to and from Smith.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/70375462/DOJ-s-Texas-Redistri...



Here’s the kicker: Gov. Rick Perry signed that discriminatory redistricting plan into law in Texas. So this is a story with national political implications on multiple levels.

Read More →
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2011/10/riveting_...
http://www.scribd.com/doc/70375462/DOJ-s-Texas-Redistri...

[CosmicCowboy]

And NBADan is the only one that cares. As Obama liked to say when he controlled the House and Senate, elections have consequences. It's been that way in Texas forever. The party in power gets to make the new congressional districts every 10 years after the census comes out.

[Winehole23]

When was the last redistricting?

[boutons_deux]

redestricting is census-based, so basically every 10 years, but TX Repugs, JimmyRicky, and esp criminal Tom DeLay managed to gerrymander TX sometime between 2000 and 2010.

[Winehole23]

It was 2003. Just pointing out the midstream possibility.

[FromWayDowntown]

And NBADan is the only one that cares. As Obama liked to say when he controlled the House and Senate, elections have consequences. It's been that way in Texas forever. The party in power gets to make the new congressional districts every 10 years after the census comes out.

All true, but I'm also quite sure that overt racial discrimination (and affirmatively taking steps to dilute the vote of an ethnic/racial group specifically because of its demographics would seem to fit that description) is not a tool available to the party in power.

To be clear: I haven't read the documents cited here, so I have no idea if that claim is actually provable in this circumstance; I'm just saying that winning elections doesn't give political parties the right to engage in de jure racial discrimination. Power, for all of its trappings, does have its necessary limits.

[boutons_deux]

Immigration group warns Romney on Smith endorsement

WASHINGTON – A leading immigrant advocacy group warned Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney on Thursday that his endorsement by Rep. Lamar Smith, author of several immigration bills, could later haunt his White House aspirations in a general election.

Smith, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, endorsed Romney over his home state Gov. Rick Perry, earlier this week.

“The Obama campaign must be watching with glee,” said Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice, a group that advocates comprehensive immigration reform and citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

“For a candidate whose best ‘vote for me’ argument to Republicans is that he is electable in a potential general election match-up, Romney’s recent endorsements seem instead calculated to alienate Latinos and shrink the number of potential battleground states in the process,” Sharry said.

Romney has attacked Perry in televised debates over the Texas governor’s positions on immigration measures.
Perry signed a bill that allows children of illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition, and he has opposed a mandatory statewide E-Verify program that would require businesses to check a new employee’s immigration status against government data bases after the person is hired.

Romney said he supports a national mandatory E-Verify system, which Smith has proposed, as well as eliminating tuition breaks for children of illegal immigrants.

http://blog.chron.com/rickperry/2011/10/immigration-group-warns-romney-on-smith-endorsement/

[RandomGuy]

I have little doubt that the next re-districting will be even more blatant in its attempts to nullify or reduce hispanic sufferage.

Voter ID campaigns are thinly veiled solutions to the real problem of Hispanics voting for Democrats.

Does anyone really doubt this is what Republicans are doing?

Honestly, as a Democrat, I can only watch these rather ham-handed and alienating attempts to fuck over the fastest growing demographic in the country with some schadenfreude, because people will remember this.

All it does is drive hispanics more firmly into the Democratic camp.

[CosmicCowboy]

Why do democrats always assume that Mexican Americans are for illegal immigration?

[coyotes_geek]

republicans = democrats = love to gerrymander when they're in control

[FuzzyLumpkins]

The winner take all single member district system is one of the biggest problems with this country today. That our representation becomes a sideshow in party politics is inexcusable.

We were the first modern democracy and while we got many things right the framers put in Article V for a very good reason. they knew it would needed to be changed.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Why do democrats always assume that Mexican Americans are for illegal immigration?

Because the polls bear that out.

[CosmicCowboy]

Because the polls bear that out.

Uhhhh.....you might want to fact check that claim buckwheat.

[Cry Havoc]

Because the polls bull that out.

ftfy

[ChuckD]

Why do democrats always assume that Mexican Americans are for illegal immigration?

Why does the GOP continue to scratch their collective heads over failure to make inroads into the Hispanic vote when shit EXACTLY like this is the reason?

Oh, and obviously the Dems are not the ONLY ones that see Hispanics as a Democratic block. Seems like the GOP does, too. Shit like this is the reason they are that Dem block, not illegal immigration.

[Wild Cobra]

Why do democrats always assume that Mexican Americans are for illegal immigration?
Probably for the same reason they don't see their own racism.

[RandomGuy]

republicans = democrats = love to gerrymander when they're in control

Yup.

That is why the system needs to be changed with very strict controls on how it is done to avoid favoring of one party or another.

This kind of redistricting forces candidates to tack much farther to their political side in order to win the more homogenous districts. It kills opportunities for moderates to win elections.

Probably one of *the* more pressing needs for ultimate reform in this country.

[boutons_deux]

"reform in this country"

Corruption and self-inflicted paralysis/obstruction of/by the political class will abort all reform. The kind of abortion that Repugs love. The political class will "conserve" its plutocratic powers, privileges, wealth, the status quo indefinitely.

[RandomGuy]

"reform in this country"

Corruption and self-inflicted paralysis/obstruction of/by the political class will abort all reform. The kind of abortion that Repugs love. The political class will "conserve" its plutocratic powers, privileges, wealth, the status quo indefinitely.

I am not yet quite this cynical. Let's all hope you are wrong about this.

[Borat Sagyidev]

And NBADan is the only one that cares. As Obama liked to say when he controlled the House and Senate, elections have consequences. It's been that way in Texas forever. The party in power gets to make the new congressional districts every 10 years after the census comes out.

Yea, that's typically true, but given the context of this it just makes you an Apologetic racist.


My Unit in Afghanistan was 20% black and 40-50% Hispanic. I'm pretty sure if I talk to them, they won't like their vote being diluted based on race. You guys are ignoring the writing on the wall.


http://somosrepublicans.com/2011/10/latino-gop-leader-leaves-republican-party-after-herman-cain-advocates-death-of-latin-immigrants-and-rnc-failure-to-lead-in-moderating-anti-latino-rhetoric/

Latino GOP Leader Leaves Republican Party After Herman Cain Advocates Death of Latin Immigrants and RNC Failure to Lead in Moderating Anti-Latino Rhetoric


The Republican Party lost a long life Republican, Lauro Garza, who is a Texas Latino GOP leader due to the continued betrayal of the Republican Party. The Republican National Committee lacks the spine to moderate the extremism coming from 2012 Presidential elections. However, note how these same GOP Presidential elections will not touch the “Church of Latter Day Saints / Mormon” issue. Obviously marching orders were given to not attack members of the LDS Church, HOWEVER, marching orders should have been given a long time ago to do away with referring to Latino / Hispanic immigrants as roaches, rats, cows, shooting them like feral hogs, and now we see Herman Cain advocating the death of Latino immigrants.
FOR THE CRITICS: Lauro is a long life Republican, staunch advocate of 2nd amendment rights and hunts religiously. He is one of the most pro life activists ever known to man in Tejano history. He is a conservative and like him, I believe the Republican Party ought to be disciplined for allowing jokes and extreme anti-Latino rhetoric to take place. 2012 will be a cleansing period for the Republican Party, and we hope that Republican Senate Candidates who live in high Hispanic populated states will take a tone different than the tone Herman Cain has taken.
Below is a wealth of podcast and radio program information (http://www.blogtalkradio.com/conservative-latino/2011/01/19/0002-2011-conservative-latino-talk-radio) that proves how he fought for pro life and other Republican values:

[boutons_deux]

"Let's all hope you are wrong about this."

IT'S OVA.

reform candidates won't get nominated, never mind elected, in sufficient (if any) qty to reform.

And the extreme right-wing politicized activist SCOTUS will continue its anti-democratic, anti-Human-American rampage for decades.