I need help

[Horse with no Name]

Still chasing down information.
My thoughts are that Miers was brought to the Dallas City Council by Mary Poss (http://www.newsmeat.com/fec/bystate_detail.php?city=DAL... ) solely for the purpose of "assisting" in the redistricting fight. In question was the 14-1 vs. 10-4-1.
This had to do with minority voting rights and redistricting.
I need to get some more facts on the two issues, but of particular interest is that one of councilman that was for the 10-4-1, abruptly "changed" his mind during the voting.
His name was Tandy.
Proponents for 14-1 were Al Lipscomb, Miers, Diane Ragsdale, and Jim Buerger.
One question that I would like to find the answer for is was the redistricting of Dallas during the early 90's used as case law when Delay gerrymandered Texas?
If it was, was Miers SOLE purpose on the Dallas City Council merely to set precedent law for that upcoming fight?

Can someone explain to me the ramifications of who won and who lost on the 14-1 v. 10-4-1?

[crispini]

1. Hi,

Just got your PM. I'll toss the relevant articles out on the blog when I get a chance, maybe a little later.

So 14-1 is apparently what we have in Dallas today, each council district represented by 1 councilmember, no "at large" members. Is that right? and 10-4-1 includes 4 at-large members?

Now, Al Lipscomb I have heard of, because he ran for city council again this last year. He is African-American, from South Dallas, and he lost to the incumbent, Fantroy. He is one of the more flamboyant Dallas politico types. He still is a very controversial figure. He was actually tried for bribery at the time but I believe he was not convicted. Here's a DOJ press release about it.

http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/txn/PressRel02/lipscomb_state2_pr.html

I guess my point here is that if there IS something fishy here, keep an eye on Lipscomb too.

[Horse with no Name]

2. Read this today that insinuated Lipscomb and Fantroy are both suspect

http://www.dallasobserver.com/Issues/2005-09-15/news/schutze.html

>>>>snip
This question--can you be a civil rights leader if you take payoffs from rich white guys--was a central element in the trial five years ago in which a federal jury found former council member Al Lipscomb guilty of 65 counts of bribery and corruption. A parade of white business leaders testified they had always provided black community leaders with "gifts." And revered black Dallas spiritual and political leaders were called by the defense to assure a mighty skeptical-looking jury in Amarillo that civil rights leaders had always taken under-the-table payoffs from white people.
>>>>snip
Lipscomb's conviction was overturned by an appeals court because the court thought the trial judge had been wrong to take the trial to Amarillo. I always thought the appeals court was right on that score. But I covered the Lipscomb trial for the Dallas Observer. And I remember that the jurors, however white and ultra-conservative they may have been, sat up and paid close attention to one key point federal prosecutors very skillfully presented: that after Al Lipscomb started taking cash from the white owner of a cab company, he made a 180 in his position on taxicab issues and started voting against the interests of the people of color who tended to be small entrepreneurial cab operators in Dallas.
>>>>snip
African-American council members Don Hill and James Fantroy had opposed additional projects of this kind for southern Dallas. They were hearing pleas from stable and striving neighborhoods that southern Dallas was already burdened with all the subsidized housing it could handle.

But they changed their minds. They began giving a thumbs-up to certain projects. The question the FBI is trying to sort out is whether the security guard and cement contracts the developers gave to the councilmen and their friends amounted to a tit-for-tat.

Excuse me here mods...but I need to show this too--remember one of the things I pointed out was about a 1988 civil rights lawsuit?

>>>snip
I had lunch last week with Roy Williams and Marvin Crenshaw, plaintiffs in Williams vs. City of Dallas, the 1988 federal civil rights case that produced the current system of city government in Dallas. They say black representatives on the council now have little connection to or even knowledge of the struggles of the past.

This entire mess is all linked together.

[Horse with no Name]

3. Exactly on the 10-4-1 v. 14-1

Apparently minority representation took a hit in this case.
I am not up on Dallas politics anymore since I rarely go to Dallas--but wasn't there an issue that someone in North Dallas would be representing the citizens of Oak Cliff?
I also believe in one of the articles that I sent you that showed where Annette Strauss was swiftboated--only we didn't know what it was then.
Forced to admit she lied?? Shortly thereafter, she changed her vote on 14-1 along with Tandy.
Unsure about that without reading entire articles.


On edit:
The lawsuit that I wanted to find out about was Buchmeyer v. McBryde. Anyone?