The Texas Congressional Redistricting Battle: Rep. Jasmine Crockett Ain't Goin' Nowhere

 Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett is the Democratic politician whom Texas Republicans love to hate. Who can blame them? 

Crockett called President Trump "a piece of shit" and a "wannabe Hitler." She compared Republicans to neo-Nazis and accused the U.S. Supreme Court of bribery.

Crockett's public speeches occasionally skirt the edge of racism. Indeed, Texas Republic Governor Greg Abbott believes she's crossed that line, recently observing, “It would not be a day that ends in the letter Y if Jasmine Crockett didn’t say something racist.” 

Crockett represents the Texas 30th congressional district, where she is wildly popular. District 30 encompasses the South Dallas metropolitan area, where Crockett garnered 85 percent of the vote in the 2024 election.

The Republican-dominated Texas Legislature recently revised the state's  Congressional district boundaries. One might think they would redraw Crockett's district so that she would lose the next election.

But that's not what the Texas Legislature did. District 30's boundaries were adjusted so Crockett's residence is outside the district, but the district is still overwhelmingly Democratic.

 And Crockett is not legally obligated to live inside District 30. She can reside anywhere in Texas and represent her loyal Dallas constituents in Congress. 

So what's going on? As the Texas Tribune explained:  

Republicans have proposed to pack more Democratic voters into districts in the state’s blue urban centers, giving Democrats even bigger margins in districts they already control, such as those represented by Crockett . . . 

In other words, Texas Republicans' scheme to create more Republican-leaning congressional districts may make Representative Jasmine Crockett unbeatable in her congressional district.

Potty-mouthed Crockett is in her forties and serving her second term in Congress. If Republicans think she is insufferable now, what do they think she'll be like when she is in her fifties and in her tenth term?

 

In the Age of Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, The Center Cannot Hold

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold ...

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

William Butler Yeats (1919)

"The Second Coming," Yeats's famous apocalyptic poem, has been cited in every era since he wrote it more than a hundred years ago. Now, however, things are really falling apart.

As reported in Barron's, our federal government's budget deficit is $1.3 trillion, driven higher by rising interest costs on our national debt--now more than $36 trillion. Interest rates on U.S. bonds are creeping higher, as foreign investors grow wary about financing America's spending spree.

Politically, the center cannot hold, or as Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett might phrase Yeats's observation, "The fuckin' center cannot fuckin' hold."

Progressive Democrats, full of "passionate intensity," are behaving like lunatics. Senator Cory Booker, the Sparticus of the U.S. Senate, has accomplished very little over his political career. Earlier this month, however, he broke the record for the longest Senate filibuster speech, achieving absolutely nothing other than demonstrating the strength of his bladder.

Democrats displayed more "passionate intensity" at a rally in Washington last February, organized to protest Elon Musk's cost-cutting activities. Massachusetts Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley called Musk a "Nazi nepo baby," and Congresswoman LaMonica McIver of New Jersey called for shutting down the U.S. Senate. "We are at war," McIver cried out. Congresswomen Maxine Waters and Jasmine Crockett were present as well, spewing profanity.

Our nation has lost all semblance of an orderly two-party political system. Progressive Democrats see themselves as guerrilla fighters, indulging in violent rhetoric and launching a blizzard of lawsuits in friendly federal courts. Critics view this malicious litigation as lawfare; indeed, it is a quasi-military form of sabotage against the nation's justice system. And many federal judges are complicit.

Will things calm down? Will our political process revert to a culture of civility and decorum? Will the nation get its fiscal house in order?

I don't think so. Unless our government addresses its fiscal crisis very soon, interest rates will rise precipitously, the housing market will collapse, and inflation will accelerate the destruction of the middle class. All that will happen shortly.

Is America slouching toward Bethlehem as Yeats envisioned? No, but we're definitely slouching somewhere, and the place we are slouching toward is dark and scary.

The center cannot hold.