Redistricting: Whichever map passes its home chamber first is likely to become the vehicle for future action. So speed means something.

Yesterday I did a post entitled "Based on Tom DeLay's words, the General Assembly should go with the House (Franklin) version that was not drawn by the G-7" that was short and to the point, quoting from House Majority Leader Delay:

“If you have a small group of people in a back room drawing lines, what you’ll end up with is an incumbent protection system instead of a system that truly represents the will of the people.”

According to today's Baxter & Galloway's PI, this is becoming the story of what is happening in Georgia, [and these are my words are not from the PI], and the "small group of people in a back room" are the G-7, the seven Republican members of Georgia's delegation.

The PI opines that "[w]hichever map passes its home chamber first is likely to become the vehicle for future action."

Based on what has happened in the state House, the first such map is likely to be the Senate map, the one agreed to and being pushed by the G-7.

Whatever happened to all of that talk that the legislature and not the incumbents in Washington -- many of whom would not be in office now or at the end of their current terms if they followed the Contract With America that set term limits during the Republican takeover of the U.S. House of Representative in 1994 to six terms?

Based on the GOP's Contract With America, Nathan Deal, John Linder and Jack Kingston, all elected in 1992, would be out of office now, and Charlie Norwood, elected in 1994, would be in his last term.

You may ask: But Sid, you said the House was going to be voting on its map first.

Well, it was; the House reapportionment committee chaired by Rep. Frankin was to vote Wednesday on its version of a new map of congressional districts. But then the Washington influence -- that is, the G-7 -- began asserting itself.

But then the Czar -- House Speaker Glenn Richardson -- decreed that no vote will occur until he gives the green light, and he apparently is putting the brakes on the House having its map voted on first.

Did someone say "the more things change the more they stay the same?"

Thanks Rep. Franklin for your efforts, but it appears that the GOP leadership is more interested in having "a small group of people in a back room drawing lines [so that what we] end up with is an incumbent protection system instead of a system that truly represents the will of the people."