All Redistricting All The Time

Houstonians must be very proud of Congressman Chris Bell's latest efforts to use his federal office to improve Houston.

Oh wait, he's let a personal squabble with Tom DeLay get in the way of actually doing his job:

With Republicans in control of the Legislature, DeLay began pushing a redistricting plan aimed at increasing the chances of electing up to seven Republicans to seats currently held by Texas Democrats.

Back in Washington, one member of Congress who took DeLay's plan personally was Houston Rep. Chris Bell, a freshman Democrat. Once he saw how the Republican redistricting plan would shift his Houston-area district several hundred miles away to South Texas, Bell stopped working with DeLay on a guided bus project as an alternative to a rail system for Houston.

"I think for the first time a lot of people got to see in a very close-up manner how Tom DeLay operates and how far he's willing to go," Bell said. "And all of a sudden it wasn't just inside baseball or some political action committee all happening under the radar. It was very high profile and people could see what he was up to."

Oh. So you stop working with the man on an entirely unrelated project that would benefit those who live in your House district?

Maybe the conniving slimeball (Bell, not DeLay) should have run off to take a vacation in Ardmore, OK with the rest of the whiners.

I hadn't considered that the DeLay redistricting plan would actually get rid of Mr. Bell. I may actually have to support it on purely personal grounds. :)

(06-24-03 Update) Oops, Kuffner pointed out to me that I had a bad link to the Chron article above. Now it should point to an article that DOES mention Mr. Bell. Sorry!

[Posted at 21:51 CST on 06/23/03] [Link]