File photo shows state Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, debating in favor of his version of a congressional redistricting map, left, during the Senate session on Tuesday night, Sept. 23, 2003, in Austin, Texas. His version was voted down.

For those of us watching the proceedings of Gov. Greg Abbott’s called special sessions of the Legislature – most Texans, I suspect, have better things to do – three truths are glaring self-evident:

One, a governor who can be as coldly calculating as any politician in the country would not have called a special session to reconfigure the state’s congressional seats in his party’s favor if Donald Trump wasn’t president. Like our pup Jesse, who scrambles to the kitchen whenever she hears the refrigerator door open, GOP lawmakers would not have scurried back to Austin to serve the White House autocrat they dare not cross.

Two, Abbott might still have called a special session to address the people’s business, the most urgent being disaster-preparedness in the wake of the horrendous tragedy along the Guadalupe River over the July 4 weekend. Mid-decade redistricting in service to Trump’s midterm-election anxieties does not qualify as a legitimate reason for lawmakers to get in their vehicles and drive back to Austin from Canadian or Del Rio or Mineola in the dog days of summer (or any time, for that matter).

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Three, wholly unnecessary redistricting is all about power – power to the politicians, not power to the people. “Why are we here?” state Rep. Todd Hunter asked rhetorically. The Corpus Christi Republican answered his own question. “Because congressional redistricting is allowed,” he said, barely concealing his disdain for Democrats who questioned his party’s motives. “Because the Supreme Court allows it. The law allows it.”

State Rep. John Bucy III, D-Austin, saw things a bit differently: “House Bill 4 [the redistricting bill] is not about representation. It is not about fairness. It is a desperate mid-decade power grab, engineered in Washington, executed in Austin and paid for by the Texans we are supposed to represent.”

Speaking of wasting tax dollars, we Texans also paid for state troopers keeping around-the-clock tails on Democratic legislators who, in a desperate effort to........

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