'Just stupid!' Morning Joe warns 'idiotic' Texas scheme will blow up in GOP's face
MSNBC's Joe Scarborough hammered Texas Republicans for trying to deprive Democratic voters of congressional representation — and warned the plan could wind up backfiring.
Democratic legislators have taken refuge out of state to deprive Republicans of a quorum to ram through their unusual mid-decade congressional redistricting plan at President Donald Trump's behest, as the state's GOP House Speaker Dustin Burrows claimed voters wanted districts that heavily favored Republicans.
"They've left the state, abandoned their posts and turned their backs on the constituents they swore to represent," Burrows said. "They shirk their responsibilities under the direction and pressure of out-of-state politicians and activists who don't know the first thing about what's right for Texas. To be absolutely clear, leaving the state does not stop this house from doing its work. It only delays it, and every day this chamber is unable to act, the cost grows."
The "Morning Joe" host mocked the speaker's argument as overly dramatic and inaccurate.
"Oh my goodness, it's almost like Lincoln talking to Congress at the beginning of the Civil War – the stakes are so high," Scarborough said. "Oh, wait, no, they're not willing to do what's right for the people of Texas to take the vote away from anybody in Texas who's basically a Democrat by gerrymandering the districts, like, so out of whack that even if Democrats managed to get a 50-50 vote total in state legislative races, Republicans would win overwhelmingly."
"That guy and the rest of the Texas legislature and [Gov.] Greg Abbott want to rig the system," Scarborough added. "They want to make sure that Republicans are overrepresented on Election Day, they want to rig the process, and so they're acting so indignant about it."
Scarborough warned the move could set off a wave of reciprocal redistricting in states where Democrats hold a legislative majority.
"The short-sightedness of it is this, if Texas achieves what they want to achieve, then California will go back and then they will draw up even more rigged lines that will help Democrats, New York State will do it, and who who knows, maybe then Florida decides, I mean, it really is – it's an idiotic thing to do," he said.
"They used to do it every 10 years, and now I don't know if the president told them to do this or somebody else told them to do it, but it's just stupid, and worse than that, it's just not right. I mean, gerrymandering is just, it is so anti-democratic, and yet both sides have been doing it for a long time, and it's time for us to stop it, and this is not going to accomplish anything."
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