I'm surprised nobody has started a separate thread yet to discuss the districting fight in Texas, which has led to Democratic legislators fleeing the state to prevent achievement of quorum for a vote. More information is available at CNN and elsewhere. On NPR, I heard some pretty interesting things about the new Republican districting plan being pushed by US Rep Dick Armey, such as that one district consists of two towns 300 miles apart connected only by a corridor two blocks wide in some places. Relatively liberal Austin gets split into four districts to dilute the vote. This all raises several related questions for me, and I hope I don't get shot for not sticking to a single one:

• Is the new redistricting plan unfair?
  
• Was the old one?
  
• Is it OK for redistricting plans to be unfair (to the winners go the spoils)?
  
• Would this problem go away with proportional representation, as proposed on my website?
  
• Is the Democratic response justifiable?

Edited out unauthorized link.

We do have this debate going already, Platypus. Danya started it yesterday Redistricting For Power?, Eliminating the competition.

I close this one & we can all resume the debate in Danya's thread.