The big news in politics isn’t just about the impending Presidential election these days as the Lone Star State is front and center in a new controversy. The issue at hand is whether the re-organizing of Texas Congressional districts is legal and whether or not it gives Republicans a leg up in winning congressional seats. The plan, originally pushed by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), has Democratic and minorities leaders up in arms as they say it will unfairly shift the balance of power in Texas even more to the GOP. With 32 seats in Texas, the split is 16 a piece for Democrats and Republicans, however pundits say the new restructuring will help the GOP take upwards of 22 seats and have a dominate majority.

The fact that Tom DeLay finds himself in the center of this controversy is not surprising at it seems for one reason or another the Texas Republican has been on a mission to give even more power to the GOP. They control the House, they control the Congress, they own the White House, but he wants more. All of which is fine, the desire for power may be an unpleasant trait but it is wholly permissible, that is so long as it is done in a legal manner. Based on DeLay’s recent actions, the whole legal part is getting kind of fuzzy.

To say that the Republicans are sneakier than the Democrats when it comes to political maneuvers is not true, they are both equally sneaky. It just seems that the Democrats are little smarter in their actions, trying to do things under the radar and without obvious connections. Such is not the case for Republicans. We all know that something fishy happened in Florida in 2000 regarding the Presidential election. How many votes weren’t counted and who made sure that didn’t happen is open for debate, what’s not debatable is that all of this happened in a state where the President’s brother is the Governor and the person responsible for tallying the votes was a known and avowed Bush supporter. Now we have the issue in Texas, the President’s home state where he used to be Governor. Additionally, the same plan for restructuring districts is being considered in Pennsylvania, only of the biggest battleground states in the current election and one that seems to be heading Kerry and the Democrats way. It all just fits too perfectly to be legit don’t you think? It is questions like that, which make people not trust the political process. More so, that question aren’t being asked by the well informed, but the common people, and therein lays the politicians biggest problems.

Party big wigs from both sides of the aisle can always hold their own against their own kind, they can laugh off accusations as being partisan politics and claim they are the ones who are telling the truth. However, when the average person on the street starts reading all of these stories, and they start asking questions, that is where trouble starts. In the short years I’ve been following politics it seems that the ideal voter in the eyes of most politicians is the uninformed and uninterested one. The people who don’t ask questions, who accept the sound bites, who follow the company line no questions asked. Only when people start voicing their own opinions, their own concerns are when the politicians start to get nervous. It’s why they do so much in secrecy, to avoid the prying eyes and nagging questions. Only now, the more sneaky stuff they do, the more questions are being raised, and they don’t have the answers for them. Democrats and Republicans alike fear nothing more than being called upon to answer for their actions. Of course all Senate hearings are open for the public, C-SPAN does a great job in its coverage. Sadly, most people don’t watch C-SPAN cause it is extremely dull. But when these stories start spilling over, to mainstream newspapers, to the Today Show and Live with Regis & Kelly, that’s when they start worrying. That is what is happening right now. The 2000 election scandal opened a lot of peoples eyes and while many of them went right back to sleepwalking, events like the Texas district reshuffle wake them up once again, which means bad things for both parties, more so it seems for the Republicans.