A Cross of Political Infamy

I have been to the cross, and I have felt the passion.

Not Mel Gibson's movie, "The Passion," where viewers get to see a Jesus character beaten to a bloody pulp and then graphically crucified. No, there's nothing at all holy or redeeming about the cross I have witnessed. It's a political cross marking the spot in Austin, Texas, where the GOP's diabolical hatchet man, Tom DeLay, beat our state's representative democracy to a pulp.

This simple wooden cross, nailed to a telephone pole, is four feet high, painted white, and hand-lettered. The crosspiece says: DEMOCRACY. The centerpiece says: RIP/Killed by Tom DeLay on This Spot.

Tom, of course, is the nutball Republican majority leader of the U. S. House who stormed into the Texas State capitol last year and used the GOP's total control of state government to ram through a grossly-partisan, contorted piece of raw gerrymandering that autocratically redraws our state's congressional districts and potentially wrests half a dozen seats from the hands of Democrats -- a shift that will alter the balance of power in Washington.

Austin, Texas has long had its own, coherent congressional district -- logical for a state capitol and a community of shared interests. DeLay's power grab, however, fractures our city into three shards of incoherent districts that are dominated by populations far from our borders.

Stand in Central Austin at 38th and Ronson Streets, where the telephone pole cross was erected and you are at the epicenter of the fracture. Step in one direction, and you're in a district controlled by San Antonio's Republican suburbs. Step in another direction, and you're in a district running 300 miles away to the Rio Grande Valley. Step again, and you're in a district controlled by Houston's Republican suburbs.

DeLay's nefarious plan means that a majority of Austinites now have congressional districts without representation. There once was a revolution over that anti-democratic principle.

Jim Hightower is the best-selling author of 'Thieves In High Places: They've Stolen Our Country And It's Time To Take It Back,' on sale now from Viking Press.