'Healthful' way to work toward bipartisanship
OPINIONS OF OTHER NEWSPAPERS

The surest way to get the Democratic Congress and Republican White House working together so the nation doesn't spend the next two years locked in sound-bite bickering is for both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue to deal first with those issues that have bipartisan support.

(You think that is a painfully obvious starting place? Well, tell that to Washington.)

One of these bipartisan openings is in health care, traditionally one of the more divisive issues between the parties.

But these days, Democrats and Republicans alike understand that patients want more information about health costs, that technology can help us fight disease, and that doctors can do their jobs better once they know more about the patients they're treating.

This is part of the consumer care revolution sweeping medicine and health policy. And you hear Washington talking about it, from Democratic Sens. Hillary Clinton and Ted Kennedy to President Bush and GOP Rep. Michael Burgess.

Mrs. Clinton has worked with Mr. Kennedy and others on legislation to put medical records online so doctors can retrieve them instantly when treating a patient.

An emergency room doctor, for example, could access an ER patient's case history, including what medicines to avoid.

Congress may have to fork over some money to help create the databases and privacy issues need attention, but those aren't deal killers.

Mr. Burgess, a Flower Mound OB-GYN, introduced legislation this year to enable patients to see how much a medical procedure costs. Imagine that.

Patients could know the price tags of their tests.

The Burgess bill would build on a similar consumerdriven decision by the president when he signed an executive order directing Medicare and Medicaid to provide greater transparency regarding costs and services.

Health care is a win-win for Washington: Both sides could get accustomed to working constructively under the new power divide while also tackling a critical consumer concern.

Lawmakers must remember they serve full public

"Redistricting" in Texas conjures ugly images of bruising battles -- and that's just from 2003.

Endless special sessions sucking up time, energy and good will, plus millions of dollars in public funds.

Dozens of Democrats hightailing it to Oklahoma to hold up a vote on a new map of congressional districts.

Years of litigation resulting in a federal court-ordered redrawing of districts three months before the November elections.

But redistricting also could mean Republicans and Democrats working together to fashion a bipartisan method of apportioning congressional districts, one that better serves voters and eliminates the worst of the rancor. In fact, that happened in the Texas Senate in 2005 without much fanfare.

In 2007, both chambers of the Legislature should take up that worthwhile and necessary work again and get it finished.

As Texas has seen vividly, manipulation of congressional districts has become a blood sport whose key goal is accumulation of as many seats as the political party in power can muster. Legislators can abdicate their redistricting responsibilities to the federal courts and then gripe about the maps that the judges approve.

Republicans complained mightily that Democrats gerrymandered after the 1990 and 2000 Censuses -- and then bulldozed their own gerrymander into place as soon as possible, even if that meant after a census-driven plan already was in place.

A bipartisan congressional redistricting commission could eliminate much of that focus on parties rather than voters, as well as the temptation to redistrict every few years instead of once a decade, as traditionally has been done.

The Texas Senate took just two months to approve a commission bill sponsored by Republicans Jeff Wentworth and John Carona along with Democrats Ken Armbrister, Rodney Ellis and John Whitmire in 2005. But the bill never got a House committee hearing.

State Rep. Allan Ritter, DNederland, has proposed amending the state constitution to limit congressional redistricting to once a decade.

State Rep. Mark Strama, D-Austin, has proposed a seven-member redistricting commission that would include two retired federal judges and be barred from considering any information about incumbents, candidates' residences or areas' past voting records in drawing boundaries.

These are starting points for a healthy discussion about improving Texas' dysfunctional congressional redistricting scheme.

The Republican-dominated Legislature might be thinking about self-preservation as members look at the electoral upheaval in states where disillusioned voters helped Democrats upend GOP incumbents.

But lawmakers from both parties should remember that they more fully serve the public interest in good government by devising a system focused on drawing districts that are compact and contiguous and have common interests.

-- Fort Worth Star-

Telegram