By: Todd J. Gillman
Dallas Morning News

Redistricting is on the horizon, and as savvy political insiders are acutely aware, the most effective method to pad a party’s congressional ranks is by controlling the way district boundaries are drawn every 10 years. That’s why Tom DeLay , Gov Rick Perry and their allies fought so hard to force a rare mid-decade remap in Texas – the one that forced out a half-dozen senior Democratic incumbents.

The lever is the Legislature. Democrats have been fighting to regain control of the Texas House ahead of the next remap but top GOP strategists declared today that the fight is over, and they won.

Even worse for Democrats, the Republican State Leadership Committee, a soft money-backed outfit created to maximize state-level gains, is predicting that Republicans will retake a half-dozen state legislative chambers across the country, and probably 11 others.

“The fact is, we could end up adding more, given the dynamic on the ground,” said RSLC chairman Ed Gillespie, the former George W. Bush adviser and national GOP chairman. He and vice chairman Tom Reynolds , former head of the party’s House campaign arm (Dallas Rep. Pete Sessions is that committee’s current chairman) released a status report this morning on their Redistricting Majority Project (or REDMAP).

As for the Texas House, that was one of four chambers across the country that Democrats had hoped to win back this November, and REDMAP strategists say the Democrats’ no longer have that within reach.

REDMAP executive director Chris Jankowski ticked off four chambers viewed at risk earlier this year – the state Houses in Texas and Tennessee, and the Senates in Michigan and Kentucky. “We are firmly convinced… that those four state chambers that are Republican controlled — that were the only four that could arguably have been said to be in play this spring — are safe Republican,” he said on a conference call with reporters.

Unless Texas Democrats can retake the House — or oust Gov. Rick Perry — they’re likely to enjoy minimal spoils in redistricting. Texas will gain three or four U.S. House seats starting in 2012, thanks to population growth. Republicans currently hold a 20-12 edge in the delegation, and two incumbent Democrats are in tough reelection fights.

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