Guest Panelists Bill Ratliff and Pete Laney discussed "Redistricting and Its Consequences - Looking Forward" for the Texas Politics Speaker Series on February 21, 2006.

Associate Dean Roberts: It is my great pleasure today to welcome our panelists, former Acting Lieutenant Governor and State Senator, Bill Ratliff, former Speaker of the House and current State Representative from Hale Center, Pete Laney. Neither of these lions of the legislature requires a true introduction to an audience like this, but there are a few things worth mentioning, of course.

After graduating from UT with an engineering degree, which we'll forgive you for in the College of Liberal Arts, Bill Ratliff entered public service in 1988 when he was first elected as State Senator from the venerable Senate District 1, Mount Pleasant.

During his distinguished legislative career, Bill Ratliff was named one of the state's best legislators, ten best legislators five times by Texas Monthly magazine, and he built a well earned reputation for tackling critical issues from public education to the state budget.

In 1992, Lieutenant Governor Bob Bullock named Ratliff chair of the Senate Education Committee, which is near and dear to our hearts, of course, and for the next four years he was the state's leader in crafting public education legislation, helping to institute higher standards and greater accountability in public education.

From 1997 1998, Ratliff was Senate President Pro Tem. On December 28, 2000, Ratliff was elected Acting Lieutenant Governor by his fellow members of the Texas Senate to fill the vacancy created when Rick Perry became Governor after the selection of George Bush as president. It was the first time in Texas history that Senators exercised their constitutional duty to elect one of their own as Lieutenant Governor and President of the Senate.

Ratliff entered the race for Lieutenant Governor in 2002, but withdrew quietly and continued his service in the Senate, his last term in 2003, which included three rather contentious special sessions, before his announcement of his retirement in 2004.

Finally, and of particular interest and relevance to today's discussion, this past May Bill Ratliff was one of three recipients nationally of the JFK Profile in Courage award given in no small part for his role in the 2003 redistricting discussion in the state.

State Representative James E. Pete Laney is serving his 16th and last term in the Texas House of Representatives, following a record tying five terms as Speaker of the House. In December, he announced that he would not seek re-election to the House seat he has occupied for more than three decades.

A fourth generation Hale County farmer, Pete Laney was born in Plainview, Texas. He graduated from the Hale Center High School and earned his B.S. in agricultural economics from Texas Tech University, the Raiders.

Laney was first elected to the Texas House in 1972. He served as House Administration Chairman under Speaker Billy Clayton, served on a variety of other committees during his tenure in the House, including Criminal Jurisprudence, Ways and Means, Government Organizations, Elections, Environmental Affairs, and Agriculture Committees. Quite a storied record.

In 1993 he was elected for his first term as Speaker. During his tenure as the Speaker of the House, Laney was praised by Republicans and Democrats alike for his fair leadership and even-handed approach to solving problems.

Pete Laney has received numerous honors and awards for his public service. At Texas Tech he met and subsequently married his former the former Nelda McQuinn, and they have five children, I believe.

We have asked Governor Ratliff and Speaker Laney to share their thoughts about the consequences of the last round of redistricting with us today. Though challenges to the plan are scheduled to be heard before the Supreme Court this March, our focus today is on the consequences of changes of both the redistricting process and to the electoral arena shaped by that process.

And with that, I'll hand it over to Dr. Jim Henson, who produces the Texas Politics Project, to get things rolling. Thank you very much.

Dr. James Henson: Thanks, Brian.

I just want to extend a personal thanks to both of you gentlemen for coming. I know you both came quite a distance, and we're real excited to have you here on the UT campus.

As Associate Dean Roberts mentioned, we're here to talk about the consequences of redistricting. So, you know, our plan is for both our guests to make a few remarks, and then we'll talk about them and they'll talk about it a little bit among each other, and then we'll open it up for questions. So be thinking about questions, and I hope that you all take advantage of a rare opportunity to have such knowledgeable folks here with us on the campus.

So, again, thanks to both of you. And we flipped a coin and Governor Ratliff is going to start.

Mr. Ratliff: Well, thank you. I'm delighted to know that there are this many people interested in what most of us on the Hill really considered insider baseball. By and large, the public in general, when it hears redistricting, then they just kind of turn it off. But I am delighted to be here.

And before I talk about the consequences, most of which I think are going to be bad, and I suppose it's well known in this room, that I opposed the final redistricting plan and was sort of responsible for two of the special sessions, I guess you would say.

Before I do that, let me say to you, with all due respect to my colleague on my left, the Democrats sort of brought this on themselves. Gerrymandering didn't start with the Republican takeover of the Legislature.

If you look at congressional lines and go back to 1991 and look at Senator Johnson's district in Dallas County I've forgotten what somebody it looks like a Rorschach test, but it is probably, in the courts, at least, during the arguments, was probably THE example.

There was another district somewhere in North Carolina, and the two of them are used as perfect examples of the most ridiculous gerrymandering in the United States. So it really didn't begin with the Republicans.

I will say that I think that there are about four real tragedies resulting from the redistricting battle, and each one of those, I think, is going to result in consequences down the road for Texas which I don't think are going to be good.

The first tragedy, in my opinion, is the hypocrisy of my party, the Republican party. For decades, decades, the Republicans had been complaining about gerrymandering, about the fact that, in the latter few years, the fact that while Texas was voting about 55 percent Republican, the congressional delegation was about two thirds Democrat.

And that was proof positive to the Republican hierarchy that gerrymandering was responsible for that, and therefore, we had to fix it. They were forced to fix that problem.

Well, they did. The problem is that I had hoped that when the Republicans came to power that my party would be better than that, and that you would sit down and draw a map that was about 55 percent Republican, because that's the rationale that we used to criticize the old map.

No, we didn't do that. As a matter of fact, there was an 18 14 plan before the Senate at one point, 18 Republicans, 14 Democrats, which was a little more than 55 percent. And the Republicans are the ones that defeated that one, and I was in the chair trying to pass this bill, and the Republicans defeated that because it wasn't partisan enough.

So I was disappointed to see that we didn't handle it any better. We just simply all of the forces were still there. They just switched sides. And now, I think, we adopted, what is it, a 19 13 now, 19 13, or 20 12, whatever it is.

So, so far as I'm concerned, when it flips again, and it will, Texas will flip again in the future, it may be ten years, the Democrats have every reason to do exactly the same thing, to go back and say, We're in control now, therefore, we will get more than our appointed share, which is what the Republicans did.

I think the second tragedy is the resulting partisan polarization in the Legislature, and I think the most prominent example of that really wasn't the exodus to Oklahoma or to Albuquerque. Those were strategic decisions made to try to defeat a bill. The partisanship that hurts me the most was the fact that I believed so strongly in the tradition of the Senate where it required two thirds vote to bring any bill to the floor.

Now the reason that I believed so strongly in that is that I believe that that is one of the major reasons that the Texas Legislature had always been a bipartisan body, because in the Senate, you cannot be in those days you could not be strictly partisan and pass anything, because nobody had a two thirds vote. So you had to reach across the aisle and bring the other party with you.

In the first two special sessions, that two thirds vote tradition was held up. In the third special session, the Lieutenant Governor decided it is within his power to break at least 30 years of tradition and to not have what we call a blocker bill and we can go into that if you want to, how that works so that a majority, a simple majority of the Senate, could pass this plan.

I think it was a tragedy. I think it will have long term detrimental effects on the Legislature, on what we thought was a national reputation as being a bipartisan body.

The third maybe it's not a tragedy, most of you all may not even consider it a bad thing, the redistricting plan that was finally approved, and the main reason that I voted against the plan, was the fact that in order to get more Republican seats, the lines were changed so that rural parts of Texas were added to heavily Republican suburbs of Texas and new districts built where you could elect a Republican. But to do that, you had to put a controlling number of folks in the Republican suburbs.

What that means is my part of Texas, northeast Texas, that always had two or three congressmen who represented rural interests, small towns, rural issues, my part of Texas will always be represented by somebody from either Plano or Garland or somewhere in the northeast segment of Dallas County.

There is no more rural representation in East Texas, or there hardly is, and that's a tragedy. At least to those of us that live in rural Texas it's a tragedy, because rural Texas is disappearing anyway and when it is without a voice, it may hasten the disappearance.

Finally, I think it was a serious mistake, and I hope that the Supreme Court agrees with me, to allow midterm redistricting. It is just insanity that in a state where maybe it's close to a balance where the House and Senate change every couple or three years that every time you get a one vote margin, you go back and redistrict again. I don't believe that's what the Constitution I don't believe that was what was the intent of the Constitution.

The Constitution says that redistricting will occur, or shall occur in the first session after the census. The Texas courts and the lower courts have said, Well, it doesn't say that you can't do it otherwise. I think it is clearly the intent, was clearly the intent, they didn't say you could either I think it was clearly the intent of the founders and those in my party who are so intent on strictly interpreting the Constitution, according to original intent, I think, would have to admit the original intent, that was not the case. So I think that's another unfortunate result of the legislation.

And I've gone longer than my 15 minutes, probably. I said I wasn't going to do that.

Dr. James Henson: You're doing just fine. Thank you.

Speaker Laney.

Mr. Laney: Well, first of all, Governor Ratliff, I wasn't in charge in '91, and I wouldn't have messed with East Texas, because that is rural Texas.

And I'll just make a few comments about some of the things that Governor Ratliff said, and then we'll I'd rather let you all ask the questions and find out what's on you all's mind.

But like Governor Ratliff, the process means a whole lot to me, because the process is what made our state great. And the House had some processes to go through with the Senate, but the Senate has always been, and I hate to say this, being a House member, but the Senate always was a place that at some point reason would prevail, and it would give us an opportunity to do

Mr. Ratliff: Maybe the wrong reason.

Mr. Laney: Well, yes. But it and redistricting was changed because of the abolishing of the two thirds rule for redistricting. His comment about midterm redistricting, it really wasn't even midterm. I mean, it was called midterm and that's what it's characterized as, but it was the next session after our redistricting session that we did.

And to show you how involved people are, for those of you that haven't had an opportunity to read a fellow by the name of Jim Ellis' memos that may be under a little scrutiny down the street here, but during the redistricting ban, one of his memos to after Jim Ellis' memo to Tom DeLay after he left Austin on January 14, 2003, that DeLay left Ellis in charge, it said, one of the memos said, In the final redistricting plan, maximize the likelihood of Republican success and the Democrats' defeat whenever practical, unless it was clear that such a maximization was outlawed by existing law.

Another memo said, The final plan is as partisan as the law allows. The U.S. Supreme Court will tell us just how partisan the law allows, I guess, and so I think that's what we'll see that the Supreme Court and I, like Governor Ratliff, hopes that the Supreme Court does see that the Constitution says that you do it once a decade.

Because it will be a total disaster, because if you set a precedent of changing every time there is a change, and let me assure you, when it gets real partisan like it's getting now, it's going to change nearly every two or three years or three or four years, the makeup of one body is, or maybe both of them, and even some of the statewides.

And you look at other states that have got so partisan that other the team on the outside, all they have to do is be ag'inners and bring out the bad things about what's happening. And so you've got a situation that the more partisan it gets, the more it lends itself to change every time, and you'll be changing redistricting three or four times a decade.

I mean, you're even though you keep it tied up in the courts, it will still happen, I mean, the turmoil and the discontent among members. And what all of this has brought about is, is Governor Ratliff and I, although we're in different parties, we don't agree on everything. If he agreed with me on everything, he'd be perfect.

But we know we're not. And you've got a situation that allowed he and I to work together when he was Governor and when he was the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and working with my chairman of my Corporations Committee, we worked out our problems. We worked out the situation.

We didn't say, Well, this is good for the Democrats, or, This is good for the Republicans, it's good for Texas, and it's good for the process, and it's good for the economic climate, or it's good for whatever reason we used, it was what was good for the process and good for Texas.

The involvement that as Governor Ratliff mentioned earlier, the more partisan the situation gets, the more that is not a possibility. It gets to be a gotcha world. And we can talk about a lot of things about the will of the House not being provided an opportunity to dictate things now and the things that have happened in redistricting because of the change in the House redistricting basically, the House of Representatives redistricting, and to a lesser extent the Senate redistricting, that was done by the legislative redistricting committee, is what caused the things to happen in congressional redistricting.

So you've got two scenarios here that caused the ultimate outcome. So I'd like to just stop there and spend the rest of the time trying to answer any questions that you might have, and Governor Ratliff and I will do our best to tell you something. We're neither one of he's not in office anymore and I'm not running again, so you're probably going to hear it.

Dr. James Henson: Well, thank you, Speaker Laney. Before we open it up, I want to just ask you, you both sort of had a negative kind of view of how this happened and the changes that have taken place.

In the event the court upholds the plan, is there any way to put the genie back in the bottle? In other words, is there a way to kind of go back to the kinds of arrangements that you thought worked, both politically and in terms of how the institution is?

Mr. Laney: Well, I think even if they say, It's already done this time and just don't do it anymore, it's not just Texas that this is this is Pennsylvania, it's Colorado, it's all the other states, and the turmoil it would create in other states are the same as it will in Texas. I mean, we don't care as much about the other states, but, you know, they can say, Go back and fix it, or, Don't ever do it again, and that's the least palatable to some of us, but that's a necessity.

Mr. Ratliff: I'm not sure you'll ever put the genie back in the bottle with regard to what I consider that sacrosanct issue of the two thirds rule.

And the reason is this. There will always be the perception, at least, hanging over the members of the Senate's head that if there is an issue that the Lieutenant Governor considers important enough, or the Governor considers important enough to call a special session, and they want it bad enough, that the precedence is already there, and it will be much easier next time to say, Well, this is important, too. We're going to have to do this.

So I think once you let that genie out, even if you don't do it again, the threat is there. And so the members of the Senate are much less likely to exercise that less likely to exercise that right, and much more likely to much less likely to walk across the aisle and make those coalitions that they had to make before, because they know, Well, we might have the opportunity to do this without a two thirds rule.

Dr. James Henson: Once you've used the weapon, it's just too tempting.

You know, we were talking a little bit before we sat down about the very active primary season that's sort of upon us right now. Do you think redistricting contributed to the intensity of the primaries and the fact that, you know, there's so much competition within the primaries now?

Mr. Ratliff: I'm not sure.

Mr. Laney: Well, the reason being let's go back to redistricting. Now, here's a map of my legislative district pre redistricting. [Holds up map.] It's the blue part, and my house is right in the middle of it. Now, we did that in '91, Governor Ratliff, and it's

Mr. Ratliff: That looks good.

Mr. Laney: a pretty nice district.

Dr. James Henson: Very sweet work.

Mr. Laney: Very sweet work. Now, here's my district now. So yes, I think the intensity of the people in this district for those of you that are not familiar with all the state of Texas, this is north of Lubbock, this is north of Abilene, and this is southeast of Midland, and this is south of San Angelo. Kind of looks like a swastika. Whether that had anything to do with it or not, I don't know.

But probably the reason there is intense debate in these districts is because of redistricting, because some of the things now, maybe your urban districts are not quite that, but all the rural issues as Governor Ratliff said, the people in West Texas are like the people in East Texas, they lost a congress they completely lost a congressman, it's not even in a suburb, it didn't even go to the suburbs.

It just disappeared and went somewhere else, partly because of the population but mainly because of the using all the suburbs of Fort Worth and some of the suburbs of Dallas and some of the suburbs of San Antone to create another district, another congressional district.

So it took a congressman completely out of West Texas, and then some of the other ones have a tendency to have more population in the metropolitan areas than they do. So yes, I think that that kind of incensed the electorate to get involved, which, you know, no one you know, there's usually not a mass bunch of people ask you to run. You know, two or three can ask you to run and that's a mandate, and 10,000 couldn't keep you from it, so but once you've made your mind up.

But I think that has a the redistricting the recognition of what happened during redistricting did not or did resonate with the electorate, I think.

Dr. James Henson: I think we should open it up. I'm sensing some interest out there.

Questions in the audience?

Man 1: Would an ostensibly non-partisan redistricting body such as the one proposed by Senator Jeff Wentworth (R-San Antonio, Austin) improve the process of drawing new districts?

Mr. Ratliff: Jeff was shopping that around for a number of years in the Senate, and for probably two or three years I tried to explain to Jeff that in my opinion, as old Senator Carl Parker used to be fond of saying, You can't take politics out of politics.

And what I tried Jeff's proposal was you have four Republicans and four Democrats appointed by the parties, I assume, or by the members of the legislature, who come together and they must compromise because they're four and four.

My question to him was, With the pressures they're going to have the same pressures as the members of the legislature do, and from the parties maybe even more. With those pressures, if they don't compromise, what's the opt out, what's the do they flip a coin, how do they determine what they're going to do?

And no matter where he went his last proposal that I saw said it would go to the Supreme Court, and I said, Jeff, do you really think the Democrats are going to agree, with nine Republicans on the Supreme Court, that, well, we'll take it to the Supreme Court.

We I couldn't come up with a tie breaker. There might be one, but I just never could figure out how and the alternative is to say, well, you have to appoint non-partisan people. Where do you find those, one, and if you could, do you really want people who know nothing about politics, have never been involved in it, to start drawing lines?

So I just never could figure out how to get it done. There may be there may be a better way. I would love to think that there was.

Dr. James Henson: Mr. Speaker, non-partisan redistricting?

Mr. Laney: Well, I don't think it's possible to do redistricting non-partisanly. And I think that 1974 might be an example of maybe not a real good one, but a little bit of an example. We created a commission to study redoing the constitution.

They brought that the constitutional commission brought it to the legislature, and I'm not sure it resembled and then it didn't pass. And then when it finally did pass the next session of the legislature in 1975, basically what the constitutional commission came up with, it was voted down by the people two to one.

So when you we didn't take the politics out of that, and I think it's a real well, first of all, how if the parties selected the people, you have the most partisan people on the board to begin, and if somebody else did, whether it be the Governor or a selection process of some other way, there's no way that you're going to keep the politics out of that selection process. So, you know, in an ideal world, Senator Wentworth had a plausible idea.

Mr. Ratliff: I will say that in the last parts of the second special session, I voted for his plan just out of desperation. You know, it's kind of like Kinky says, It couldn't be any worse.

Mr. Laney: The if you go back to when I mentioned Jim Ellis' memos a while ago, Senator Wentworth and Governor Ratliff were two people that he mentioned in his memos readily that we're going to have problems with in the Senate.

Dr. James Henson: Well, I'm sure Senator Wentworth will be like thrilled to also be mentioned in the same breath as Kinky Friedman. We're breaking new ground here.

Other questions?

Man 2: What kinds of institutional reforms could be made to improve the current redistricting process?

Mr. Ratliff: Well, I would have said had I not gone through this last experience, I would have said, If you keep the two-thirds rule, and maybe even put a two-thirds rule on the House, you're going to have to compromise.

Having said that, we found out that that didn't happen, and the courts drew the plan. And or in the case of the House and Senate, the Texas House and Senate, the redistricting the what do you call it, redistricting board finally had to draw the plan, and I wasn't I didn't vote for it either.

I suppose that my preference would be that if you can put the two-thirds in, you give the legislature another shot at doing it on a bipartisan basis. If you tried two or three times, maybe they would finally get the hint that if you don't do it, the court will.

Of course in this last round, one of the reasons the Republicans in the Senate wouldn't agree to the Wentworth plan, which was the 18-14, I believe, was that they felt that the redistricting board would be more favorable to them on the House and Senate, and they felt that the Republican courts would be more favorable to them on the Congressional; therefore, why compromise.

Mr. Laney: And I think Senator Sibley said that, I mean, he said that, Why should we do that; we've got four members of the redistricting board that are Republicans. Why let a House and that was unprecedented for one body not to allow the other body's redistricting plan to go through unscathed.

But Senator Sibley said and I'm quoting something he said, so I'm not putting words in his mouth. He said that and you had to you've got the redistricting board made up of the Land Commissioner and the Attorney General and the Comptroller and then it was Governor Ratliff and myself three people that had absolutely no interest in the legislative process, except during their budget time, were making decisions on what one of them's now running as an independent for Governor, and one's a United States Senator, another one is real happy where he is, and he wasn't there then, the well, he's not Lieutenant Governor, so the land commissioner so you've got that politics that was involved in coming to the judgment that a commission wouldn't be as good for them.

Woman 1: Why haven't there been more efforts to pass constitutional changes that would limit the frequency of redistricting?

Mr. Laney: Well, I don't think it would have received any kind of hearing, like some of the other bills did.

Mr. Ratliff: But you wouldn't have anybody for it. The Republicans wouldn't for it because they'd have to admit it wasn't a good idea, if they're going to you've got to get two thirds vote in both houses before you can put it on the ballot.

Well, the Republicans would have to sort of admit that it wasn't a good idea, therefore we need to fix it, which they're not going to do, or the Democrats are going to say, Well, why would we vote for it, the next time this happens we're going to be undoing what they've done.

So neither one of them would actually see a great big positive in doing it. It ought to be done, but it was a little bit like rewriting the whole the constitution that Junell and I tried a few years ago. I'm not even sure our wives were in favor of it.

Mr. Laney: One of them was. But it was out of sympathy, I think. [laughs]

Woman 2: Will suburban areas continue to gain in political influence in Texas in the future? If so, will cities and rural areas find more and more common interests?

Mr. Ratliff: Probably, unless somehow in the Voting Rights Act we can get rural people declared a minority so that we get a little attention as well. Of course, if all the rural people would stand together and raise a little Cain, they probably could effect it next time, but that's hard to say.

The problem is that most people out there in the hinterlands consider it, as I say, insider baseball. They don't they really don't understand, until it happens to them, until somebody in East Texas wakes up and realizes they have to drive to Dallas to see their Congressman rather than go to Tyler, which is where they should go, or to Jacksonville, or wherever.

What was the second half of it?

Dr. James Henson: And so now does it mean that politically the cities in the rural areas

Mr. Ratliff: Oh, the inner cities yes, well, I think that those commonalities there are places where they have an affinity, they have the same agenda. I think by and large they don't see it.

Mr. Laney: I think they've had that commonality all along because it's education, it's healthcare, and it's transportation; not necessarily in that order. But now those things, those major things, end up taking a back seat to some of the other issue peripheral issues that divide inner city and rural.

But basically we have the same problems, and until we have a mind set in this day and time, instead of building a $100 billion fly away over I-35 and 20, to increase the traffic flow in urban areas, is take some of that money to the rural areas to enhance people to come to the rural areas and drive in the rural areas rather than keep impacting the urban areas.

But I think redistricting has manifested itself into a mind set that you're going to have to move to the suburbs to access the system.

Mr. Ratliff: And I do believe I grew up in West Texas, and I live in East Texas, and the commonality there is, it's kind of the old theory of, you know, the government ought to deliver the mail and protect the shores and leave me the hell alone. And that's still alive and well in rural Texas.

Now when it comes to individual programs, they don't have that, you know. I used to get tickled at Senator Bill Sims who was the most conservative member of the legislature, bar none, until it came to mohair subsidies.

Mr. Laney: Those were very important.

Mr. Ratliff: Those were important.

Mr. Laney: And I think you're going to see that in Congress this time on the farm bill. The farm bill's coming up for renewal and the rural areas have lost lots of representation, and the president's not real fond of agriculture subsidies, and so you'll we'll have a battle.

Dr. James Henson: Tough days for mohair.

Mr. Laney: Well, mohair's always gone, I think. I think they've already taken care of mohair. It's those cotton farmers they're after now. [laughter]

Man 3: How did redistricting of state legislative districts affect subsequent Congressional redistricting?

Mr. Ratliff: And the only way that the Republicans came into enough of a margin in the House and Senate to be able to push through the congressional redistricting was by the fact that they redrew the lines and had a and then the 90 or in the 2000 elections

Mr. Laney: 2002.

Mr. Ratliff: 2002 elections picked up enough seats that they could safely control the congressional redistricting process. So it was just a matter of numbers. They redrew the Texas legislative districts in a manner that they would gain enough votes that then they have the they could even lose some of their members from local concerns and still pass this the DeLay plan.

Mr. Laney: And it was very evident with DeLay's interest in the legislative redistricting. He was when Governor Ratliff and I were on the commission on the committee on the redistricting board, he was very visible and involved in our redistricting at the time, based on the fact that they were doing things for his benefit, or for the congressional benefit for redistricting of Congress.

And it worked because Texas was the only state in the nation that picked up Republican seats in Congress, that had any kind of positive pick-up of I think it was six seats, wasn't it, that Texas picked up

Mr. Ratliff: Yes, it was clearly about a four-year plan.

Mr. Laney: Yes.

Mr. Ratliff: The first two years was get control, get more than enough control in both houses of legislature so that then in the next two years they could redraw the congressional lines and pick up those extra seats.

Dr. Theriault: When did you resign yourselves to the fact that redistricting was going to be taken up again in 2003?

Mr. Laney: Oh, I think it was going to happen, I think that was on their mind from the very beginning. It had there was a lot of discussion saying, Oh, I don't think that's going to happen, by some of the leadership. But they knew all the time that they were going to do it.

It was all of you've got to go back and look at some of these e-mails and memos that have been exposed lately that and the terminology that was used about why it was important to do legislative redistricting first, and I think it was it may not have been on the public's mind, but it sure was on a few consultant's minds.

Mr. Ratliff: I really don't know whether Lieutenant Governor Dewhurst I think I was in many of the rooms, and I think he was pretty genuine when he was saying he didn't want to do it at that time, because he'd just been elected, he really didn't know how bloody awful a redistricting battle was, but he had heard that it was pretty bad.

And I think, frankly, he would have loved to have had that cup pass from his lips, but the powers that be I think knew that it was going to happen.

Woman 3: What impact will redisticting have on continuing efforts to address the problems of public school finance?

Mr. Ratliff: Well, I think, unfortunately, many of those people who the additional Republicans that were added during redistricting are ones who will follow the lead of may I could say blindly follow the lead in some cases of the Republican leadership in not wanting to provide more funding for public schools.

I mean, that's essentially what the battle is, do we provide more funding, or do we squeeze more blood out of the turnip that we have. And I think that's where the problem has been now for the last three or four years, and it made it more difficult, I think.

Woman 2: Does redistricting impact efforts to consolidate rural disricts?

Mr. Ratliff: Oh, I personally don't think consolidating has any legs at all. That's not going to happen. Consolidation is the third rail of Texas education politics

Mr. Laney: Behind basketball and football.

Mr. Ratliff: That's right. There's always talk of it, but when it gets serious the fall out from forced consolidation would be so horrendous that the legislature won't touch it, in my opinion.

Dr. James Henson: Mr. Speaker, you want to add anything to that?

Mr. Laney: Well, although a lot has been mentioned, it's only been mentioned by the individuals that have a suburban school that their constituency would not necessarily be impacted.

I don't know of anything that causes more heartburn for individual members of the legislature than irate people, that you even discuss because of the school consolidation, whether it be a school that's got five people left, you know. If it's their idea to consolidate, that's one thing, but if it's your idea to consolidate, it's bad.

Woman 3: Do recent Democratic successes in districts with Republican majorities suggest the possibility of more rounds of mid-decade redistricting?

Mr. Laney: I think that there's been a mis-perception that the districts are Republican districts.

I've been elected for the last two terms well, actually the last 10 terms, from a district that "is a 65 60-65 percent Republican district, as a Democrat, which tells me that it is not a Republican district. It tells me that there's a certain number of Republican they're going to vote for Republican.

And there's a certain number going to vote for the Democrats, regardless, and that may be about the same percentage, about 25 percent a piece. And then there's about 50 percent that are going to think for themselves and pick out which candidate redistricting may have an effect on that in that you have changed the dynamics of pure Republican to elect a someone that in a primary that can't get elected in the general election.

The same thing happened to the Democrats many years ago. We got where we selected people that were really, really good Democrats, but they couldn't get elected in the fall. So I think that's happening, and we'll it's reflected in maybe some of the races around the state this time.

Mr. Ratliff: One of the phenomenon in redistricting is that the power that the group that gets to draw the lines inevitably over reaches, and to over reach you have to you try to cut a district a little too fine. You say, Well, if we instead of getting 70 percent, let's drop that to 60 percent, take those other ones and go in another district.

And when you cut it too fine, and then an issue like public education finance comes along where, as Pete says, only about 30-35 percent of those people are passionate on either side. The great middle out there is the ones that actually elects these people, you see them make the decision, and when there's a passionate issue comes along, that district doesn't it doesn't meet its the drafter's expectations.

I represent Pete represented a Republican district, I represented a Democrat district in the Senate for 15 years. Just you know, it was kind of a lightening strikes thing in 1989 that put me there, and the Democrat, the yellow dog Democrats decided that the sky didn't fall so, you know, let me stay.

Mr. Laney: Well, and, you know, it's a good example is public school vouchers private school vouchers. I was although they had a Republican governor, a Republican Lieutenant Governor, a Republican Senate, I was according to Dr. Leininger, I was the whole problem. Well, I hadn't been the problem for four years now, and they still haven't got vouchers.

So and I've never met the man, but he sure has spent a lot of money trying to defeat me. But that's a good example of that group in the middle that are going to say, Hey, let's we'll look at what's right.

Man 4: What explains the timing of the more aggressive approach to redistricting in 2003?

Mr. Laney: Oh, no, I think they started trying to make this move in a long time ago in '94, '96, '98, they had eight in '98 and all the different cliches that went along with a redistricting I mean, with a election cycle, trying to get a majority looking forward to redistricting. I think redistricting was their final goal, but they started in, actually in '94, in the '94 election.

Mr. Ratliff: Yes, but the springboard that allowed them I mean, they had been trying to do it for some time, the springboard that allowed them to do it was George W. Bush. He had coat tails I don't know that Texas has ever seen coat tails like that.

If you remember, if you all are old enough to remember, every candidate, every Republican candidate had a picture of them with George W. Bush in their brochure and on their television. I mean, it was solid gold, and that's what allowed the strategy to work.

Man 4: Do you think that if Mr. Gore had won that maybe none of this would have happened?

Mr. Laney: No necessarily. George W. was every bit as popular and maybe more popular as governor than as president.

Dr. James Henson: Yes, he'd still be gold here.

Mr. Ratliff: Yes.

Mr. Laney: Well, and probably more gold than after he got elected president. But you had a situation that, because of the people, Governor Ratliff and myself and Governor Bullock, and now Justice now Judge Rob Junell and all the others, they work together.

I mean, Bullock and Governor Bush and I had Governor Bullock, Governor Bush, and I had breakfast every Wednesday morning for six years. Governor Ratliff and I carried on that tradition, every Wednesday morning when we're both in town, or during a special during the session had breakfast every Wednesday morning to discuss the problem and try to work things out.

And it so I guess we if we had of been adversaries with the governor, and not let him be as visible as he was and had the influence he had with the Republican hierarchy, things might have not have changed so quickly. It probably would have, but it might not have been so quickly.

Dr. James Henson: I wonder if that breakfast is still going on now?

Mr. Laney: I'd hate to eat the food.

Man 5: What are the consequences of the polarization inside the two parties that seems to be driving moderates out of the legislature?

Mr. Ratliff: It's not exclusively Republicans. You had some Democrats who cooperated with the leadership who the Democrats went after for the same reason. But it's the same kind of infectious problem that results from the gradually increasing partisanship that we've seen over these I tell people in my district that I was privileged to serve in the Texas legislature in the Camelot days of the Texas legislature.

I really was, because five years before I got here there weren't any Republicans, so the Democrats fought with themselves. But two years after I left, the Democrats are on the sidelines and the Republicans are fighting with themselves.

Right in the middle we had Pete Laney, George Bush, Bob Bullock. I can honestly say that in all my years serving with that when the three of them were at the helm of the three entities, I never had a meeting with one of the three of them where the political fall out from a decision was even discussed. It was not a factor.

The discussion was, whether it was Bob Bullock or George Bush or Pete, and hopefully myself, the discussion was, what was the best idea, what was the best course for the State of Texas. And never even discussed was the partisan fallout.

Mr. Laney: I think we all went by the adage that if you'll take care of what's right, the politics take care of itself. And you do what you think is right for your district, you do what you think's right for Texas, it's amazing how you can explain it. If you're doing what's right, you can explain it.

Now you might not explain it to some people's satisfaction, but you can explain it.

Woman 4: Was there any significant opposition to the 2003 redistricting inside the Republican Party? Will public attention to the ethics problems that grew out of this period in Texas drive politics in a more positive direction?

Mr. Ratliff: I wish I could say it was going to drive it in a more positive way. I haven't seen it turn yet in the direction that I feared back when it was happening. It's a little hard to say whether there were others who sympathized with my concerns.

They were as in anything, there were all ranges of the zealots who thought, if you can get 25 seats so be it, to those who I don't know whether it was a concern on the ethics of doing it as much as it was on with the practicality of, you know, can we really you know, is this going to blow up in our face, can we really accomplish it, what will the court's say about it, will they strike it?

Most of the consideration was, What can we do that the court will uphold, and that probably consumed most of the strategy sessions.

Mr. Laney: Well, and I think that you had a lot of folks that had just now realized Governor Ratliff mentioned it a while ago, they kept some of the districts so thin they are just now realizing, because maybe there's not a George Bush on the ballot ahead of them to help, but they may be in trouble in their district because they voted for a redistricting bill that actually for their district was worse than maybe one of the Democrat bills.

And but it sounded good at the time, but they forgot that there was only 4,000 people or 3,000 people voted in the Republican primary in that district, which means there may not have been but 3,000 or 4,000 in the Democrat primary either, but that means that there's 15 or 20,000 people that either didn't care, or can be persuaded to go either way.

So it's they realize it after the fact, and we're told it'll be taken care of, and then forgot about.

Mr. Ratliff: Interestingly enough, the reason I said a while ago that the lure of cutting them a little too thin is irresistible. The Democrats did exactly

Mr. Laney: Oh, yes.

Mr. Ratliff: the same thing in 1991. They cut them there were losing a few seats so they wanted to cut them as close as they could, and they cut them too close, and that was one of the things that started the trend.

Man 6:What are the prospects for a more orderly redistricting process after the 2010 census?

Mr. Laney: I think that out of 150 people there's 148 good people. I don't know who those two other two are, but there will be somebody sitting in the chair that I think will learn from what has happened.

Now, like Governor Ratliff said, it might not be learning enough, but it will be I think the public's going to demand a little more of their elected official. I think there's a good indication of that in the polls that may or may not be accurate, that, you know, the positive nature of the legislative process.

And that'll speak when Governor Ratliff and I were trying to run things in a positive nature of legislature I mean, the polls that showed that had over 50 percent, maybe as high, as some of them, as high as 60 percent positive, which was unheard of. Now, the positive nature of the legislature and the polls are showing from 25 to 35 percent positive.

Well, that means that the public is interjecting themselves into what we're doing. Now whether that changes anything or not, but I think you'll see that change on a national level on some ethics legislation, which may or may not do anything but make good campaign rhetoric, but and you're going to probably see that in Texas too, and make it more make the system more transparent where that's, you know, I hate to say that that should happen, because it shouldn't have to happen.

But I think the electorate will dictate a more responsive redistricting more responsive it'll still be political, but there'll be a lot more people watching it in 2011.

Man 7: What do you think will happen to candidates running against the "two-third rule" in the Texas Senate?

Mr. Ratliff: As far as those that are advocating doing away with the two thirds rule, it's my sincere hope for the State of Texas that they're not successful. I hope what happens is what had happened what I saw happen routinely when I was in the Senate, you'd have a House member who would run for the Senate and be elected and come over.

And the first time we explained to him what the procedure was, almost universally their reaction was, What? Why would you give up the right for the majority to simply push through whatever they want? And some of them remain of that opinion for two or three years, but almost inevitably I think there's one there right now that continues to advocate for that.

Inevitably, though, most of them begin to understand and realize the value of the two thirds and what it means to the collegiality and the workability of that body. I hope that when these members, if they are elected, when they come to the Senate that they will also understand the value of it. It's my I think it would be a horrible thing for the State of Texas.

Mr. Laney: And I think most House members that have been around any length of time respect the fact that the Senate has that two thirds rule, because it gives you an opportunity to say, Hey, you know, there's no way that we're going to be able to do this without compromising a little bit because of the Senate's two thirds rule. And it helps us in our negotiations in the House for them to have the two thirds rule.

Dr. James Henson: One last thing. With the political season upon us, do you all are you going to miss it, Pete? Do you miss it?

Mr. Ratliff: Oh, at times, you know, like an old fire horse, you know. But not enough to try to come back.

Dr. James Henson: Mr. Speaker, how are you feeling?

Mr. Laney: I don't think that you can ever not miss something that you've been doing for nearly 34 years. I'm sure on the second Tuesday in January of 2007 that I will have some thoughts. But I had an opportunity for a young guy from a town of 2,000 people and that don't live in town to be able to come and serve in the best position that there is in state government anywhere, and that's being Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, is shows you what can what this state can afford somebody.

And I have no regrets, and I just have all admiration in the world for this process and just hope that it's not jeopardized at any point in time.

Dr. James Henson: Thank you very much, both of you, for coming. It's been a great afternoon. I've had a great time. I think everyone else has, too, and you have an open invitation to come back any other time.