Texas' 14th and 22nd congressional districts

2305 students have seen these already, but I'll add them so we can start talking about the re-districting process - including gerrymandering - on both 2305 and 2306.

Here's the map of the 14th Congressional district:



- Wikipedia: Texas's 14th congressional district.

And here's the 22nd Congressional District




- Wikipedia: Texas's 22nd congressional district.

If you scroll down to ACC - click here for District Viewer -  you'll see that the campus straddles both districts. We'll look at the people who hold each office, and factors about them, in the next week or two.

The 22nd Texas Congressional District

This is the district prior to being redrawn a few years back:




I can't locate a good copy of the current district, but we can see it by going to district viewer.

Click here for it.

I'm unaware of places where we can get info on the design of the district - and the degree to which it has been gerrymandered - if at all. But notice that the new district it neatly follows the Fort Bend county line to the west, but that certain parts of Fort Bend in the north are carved out. These happen to be areas with high percentages of African American residents. They are in the 9th District which is represented by Al Green - an African American Democrat. Pete Olson is an Anglo Republican.

The district also contains parts of northern Brazoria County a small piece of southern Harris County. I can't tell from this map, but a previous version of the district contained the Johnson Space Center, which explained Olson's concern with manned space flight.

It's on!

Even the most hard core Democrat must admit that Nick Lampson's victory in last year's race for the Texas 22nd congressional district was a fluke. Tom DeLay though he could manipulate the race by placing a chosen successor on the ballot (not so said the courts--an example of a judicial check on legislative power). So Lampson ran against fill in the blank, and won.

Good for him.

The problem is that he only barely won and small majority of the residents of the district call themselves Republican. No surprise then that Lampson is a target (#1 according to Karl Rove) and a large group of Republicans are lining up to challenge him. First of course they have to fight each other to become the party's nominee.

The Chron lists the following as likely candidates:

- Robert Talton
- Dean Hrbacek
- Pete Olson
- Charlie Howard
- John Zerwas
- Larry Taylor
- and of course: Shelley Sekula-Gibbs

Most are currently serving in the Texas Legislature and are obviously looking for career advancement. Olson doesn't have much of a web presence, but has worked for John Cornym and Phil Gramm so he is well connected.

The Chron tells us that Lampson is--very predictably--relying on his skills as a veteran pork producer to persuade the voters that they should keep him in office. Not a bad point if Democrats retain the majority in 2008. Early betting predicts they will, but who knows how things may turn?

I stumbled across this blog that covers the 22nd district from a Democrat's perspective. I'll hunt down more--join in the search if you can.