Running Scared: Chet Edwards
Chet Edwards was on Fox News lamenting the Supreme Court’s decision upholding most of Texas’ redistricting plan. The districts of Texas were redrawn after the 1992 election which greatly favored the Democrats. After the 2000 election and after the Republican Party won a majority of statewide offices in the state, they tried to redraw the districts which would favor Republicans. The Democrats both filibustered the plan and left the state in an attempt to thwart redistricting efforts. With no plan in place the courts stepped in and redrew the lines which again favored Democrats even though a majority of Republicans had been elected. That is why all of this mid-term redrawing had occurred, but that did not stop Chet Edwards from trying to make an issue of the Supreme Court decision.
“I respect the court’s decision,” Edwards said of the Supreme Court’s ruling that a state has the right to redistrict anytime it wants, even it if is more than once in a decade. The decision effectively dismissed charges that the redistricting was unconstitutional gerrymandering.
“I’m not sure anyone is the winner in the Texas redistricting. It has cost taxpayers millions. It has created terrible divisiveness in the state … and uncertainty to this day,” Edwards told FOXNews.com on the day of the ruling, June 28. (snip)
Chet Edwards is the only Democrat left in the Texas redistricting effort. He won re-election in 2004 in a close race. This time Chet is facing not only a veteran, but a Marine corps veteran who served in Iraq. For many years Chet has run on being a conservative, but has consistently voted as a liberal. This liberal record will not hold up under scrutiny in one of the most conservative districts in Texas having voted for George Bush over John Kerry 70% to 30%. One reason Edwards votes so liberal on so many issues could be because he is beholding to a great number of PACs. On the other had, Edwards opponent, Van Anderson, is a fairly wealthy businessman.
So far, Taylor has raised more than $1.1 million, almost $500,000 of it his own money, to Edwards’ $1.6 million, of which half comes from political action committees. The tally makes this, so far, the most expensive House race in Texas.
But money is not an issue in this race, the redistricting is. Chet Edwards does not like running in a Republican district and is willing to do anything to prevent this from happening again. According to Patrick Barkman, a highly partisan local citizen of Cleburne who writes for the Cleburne Times-Review…
To prevent this kind of insanity from spreading, U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, is proposing a law that would ban mid-decade redistricting. That’s a good start, but the House Democratic Leadership should also pledge that, if they win a majority, they will use Congress’ power under Article I, Section 4 of the Constitution to mandate that congressional district lines be drawn by non-partisan panels without regard to protecting incumbents.
And the Dallas Morning News says the same thing: Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, quickly demanded a legislative ban [on so called mid-term redistricting]. He proposes limiting the redrawing of legislative districts to once a decade. What this proposal does not address is what happens when the courts overstep their authority and redraw districts on their own which was one reason why Republicans sought to redress this issue.
All of this looks like Chet Edwards is running scared. He is afraid his records will be displayed for the whole district to see. Chet would have had a better chance in his old district which was more liberal. A liberal voting record will not help Mr. Liberal in TX-District-17. On the other hand, a former Marine Captain turned businessman like Van Taylor should do very well.
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