There are two significant effects of elections that last long beyond the election terms themselves. One of them we tend to recognize and focus on a lot: The power of the POTUS to appoint Supreme Court justices.
The other, we don't focus on as much, maybe because it only comes up for action once every ten years: Post-census congressional redistricting.
Today I am using my daily diary allotment to pimp tom 47's diary from earlier this week about how the upcoming redistricting battle in Texas will uniquely affect all of us for at least years, and more likely decades, to come. Texas will gain several new congressional seats based on the recent census, and the population make-up of the state provides opportunities for the re-districting to go either very well for us or very badly.
I urge everyone to read the diary (it's long and information-laden, but worth the read) and to keep this issue in mind -- whether in regard to Texas or your own state -- in your action and donations. Also, it's too late to tip or rec the original diary, but please go give Tom some love on any comments that are still alive.
As stated by tom 47:
the composition of the Texas state House is critical not only to Texas, but to the country. We can not abide another four years of Rick Perry and his oil-housing-banking cronies running the state. Texas stands to have 3 or possibly 4 more representatives in the US House after re-districting, and that's why the state representative races are critical, and why the governorship race matters to having coattails to more and better Democrats. We must try to control the Texas House (and Senate, though it's a longer shot). And of course the Governorship. If not, we all lose, not just in Texas, but in the country.
NOW, who would you like to conduct said re-districting in Texas (with the effects it will have on the US House balance)? Should it be the Texas House GOP, such as was done last time (and re-re-re-done, I should say) by Tom DeLay and Texas House Speaker Tom Craddick? Or do we take back the Texas State House and exert real power over adding these 3 or 4 seats to the Texas Congressional delegation? And who would we like to occupy these added seats in Texas?