Freedom Folks: Artfully Drawn Districts

Tom DeLay has been in the news again recently regarding the redrawing of political districts in Texas. I'll be honest -- I haven't been following that closely, so I'm not up on all the facts.

But seeing a blurb about it made me wonder what my congressional district looks like, and why.

Lookie what I found:

Pretty interesting shape, wouldn't you say? Looks like it was done by a small child or a drunk adult on an Etch-o-Sketch. Then you look at some figures for my district, and it starts to make a bit more sense:

Let's see...according to the census data from 5 years ago, 33% of the people in my district were born in Mexico. 36% were born in Latin America. Don't forget, we're not just talking about descent here. We're talking over a third or the people in my district, as of 5 years ago, were born in a Latin American country.

I can certainly see why my representative in Congress, Luis Gutierrez, won re-election in 2004 with such stunning numbers, given his desire to punish anyone who breaks our laws to enter the country by offering them U.S. citizenship.

Yep. It always makes me a little suspicious when I come upon a piece of abstract art, only to find out that it's an artfully drawn political district. Especially when it's mine.