Sounds like a a good tale of Texas politics and I figgered who better to hear tell the tale but Molly? It's from May 25, 2001
http://www.mollyivins.com/showArticle.asp?ArticleID=81Redistricting! You're Gonna Laugh!
We Promise!
BY MOLLY IVINS
Rep. Delwin Jones of Lubbock, who is approximately the age of the earth's crust, is once again chairman of the House Redistricting Committee, which is like reporting, "This just in: news still bad." Once every ten years, when the only elected representatives we've got re-draw the lines of the districts from which they are elected, statehouse reporters vainly try to interest the public in this sleeper, in all senses, of a subject. I'm going to tell you a funny redistricting story, so don't go to sleep.
"Dell-win" as he is pronounced in West Texas, was chairman of the House Redistricting Committee back in 1971 (he was a Democrat then: weren't they all?), when a motley crew of 30 liberals and Republicans rose in rebellion against a corrupt House speaker. The Speaker's henchmen christened them "the Dirty Thirty," and the redistricting bill was their chosen instrument of revenge. Even by the standards of the day, when "one cow-one vote" was the operative principle in the "rule-dominated" Lege (that's "rural" to you new Texans), the 1971 map was a classic of the gerrymandering art. There were districts that looked like giant chickens, districts that looked like coiled rattlers and districts that sprouted peculiar zits that popped out to include the home of one liberal incumbent in the district of another.
In the process of screwing all the Speaker's enemies, the redistricters inadvertently screwed a few of his friends as well, one of whom was Rep. Bill Finck, a cigar manufacturer from San Antonio. Brother Finck rose to protest the butchering of his district. "Lookahere, Dell-win," he began plaintively. "Look at what y'all have done to my dis-strict. You have drawn a great big, ol' ball at the one end, then it runs in a little-bitty ol' strip for 300 miles, and then there's a great big ol' ball at the other end. The damn thing looks like a pair of dumbbells." Finck's voice rose in pain. "Now the courts say the districts have to be com-pact and con-tiguous. Is this your idea a com-pact and con-tiguous?"
Dell-win pondered deeply at the front mike. At last he replied, "Whale, in a artistic sense, it is." Hope ya don't mind this ex-Okie intruding on your thread. :)