FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                  JON ROLAND 512_374_9585
   
NON_PARTISAN REDISTRICTING GAINS  SUPPORT   

Austin, Texas, July 1, 2003 — At its quarterly meeting June  29, the State Executive Committee of the Libertarian Party of Texas unanimously  endorsed the Proposal for Non_partisan Redistricting, and joined the Coalition  for Non_partisan Redistricting.   

The proposal would replace the prevailing practice of the Texas  Legislature of approving a particular congressional district map. Such maps are  usually drawn in a way that favors the candidates of the majority party.  Instead, the Legislature would adopt an act that would provide the  specifications for the operation of a computer program that would randomly draw  the actual map. Whatever the computer program would draw would be the map.  There would be no human intervention in the process. The particular boundaries  would be unpredictable, giving all parties and factions a fair opportunity to  be represented. The partisan rivalry produced by consideration of a particular  map would be avoided.   

Computer software to do this has already been developed by staff of the  Texas Legislative Council, which provides computer support for the Texas  Legislature. The program, called Target, can be given the specifications that  congressional districts have equal population, that only counties with a  population greater than a certain number can be split among districts, and that  the districts be compact, contiguous, and simply connected. The program can  then draw the district boundaries within a few hours.   

At present, redistricting maps are drawn using another program developed  by the Texas Legislative Council, called RedAppl, that allows the user to  manually draw districts, by adding and subtracting territory from each district  with a mouse pointer. As each district is redrawn, the statistics on  population, ethnicity, voting history, and other factors are shown. This  enables the user to draw districts designed to give one party or faction an  advantage in an election, and to win a greater proportion of seats in Congress  than their proportion of support in the general population of the State.   

Jon Roland, leader of the Coalition, said, "The traditional collegiality  of the Texas Legislature had been important for good government. It enables the  Legislature to fairly consider good ideas from any citizen or group — not  just the proposals approved by the leaders of the dominant political party. We  need to break the current impasse between the two parties, each of which is  demanding a congressional district map that unduly favors its own partisans,  and adopt a method of producing district maps that will solve the problem once  and for all. This proposal would remove this source of contention that produces  bitter feelings and wastes the taxpayer's money."   

The proposal is at  http://www.constitution.org/reform/us/tx/redistrict/cnpr_proposal.htm .    

The Texas Legislative Council site is  http://www.tlc.state.tx.us/