Abstract
"New States, of convenient size, not exceeding four in number, in addition to said State of Texas, and having sufficient population, may hereafter, by the consent of said State, be formed out of the territory thereof, which shall be entitled to admission under the provisions of the federal constitution." - Joint Resolution for Annexing Texas to the United States 1 I. Introduction Texas Republicans have been thinking waaaaay too small. In 2003, for the first time since Reconstruction, Texas Republicans controlled both houses of the state legislature. Encouraged by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and perhaps Presidential adviser Karl Rove as well, Texas Republicans decided in the spring of 2003 to take up a new congressional redistricting plan that they hoped would "better reflect" the state's increasingly Republican voting patterns. 2 The then-existing congressional map had been drawn up by a three-judge federal panel in 2001, after the state legislature could not agree to a new one. 3 In a famous and comic Texas-sized drama (or fiasco, depending on one's point of view or one's politics) stretching throughout the four seasons of 2003, 4 the state's Republican Governor, Rick Perry, along with the Republican majorities in both houses of the state legislature, finally succeeded in outlasting more than 50 State House Democrats and 11 State Senate Democrats who had fled, respectively, to Ardmore, Oklahoma in the spring 5 and Albuquerque, New Mexico in the summer, 6 to deprive their respective houses of the necessary ...