Let's talk about a Texas Democrat setting an example....

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Well, howdy there, Internet people. It's Belle again. So today, we're going to talk about a Texas congressperson setting the example. As Republicans in Texas push to gerrymander their state to hang on to the past, one Texas Democrat is moving things toward the future.

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Democratic Congressman Lloyd Doggett, who has been in Texas politics since the 1970s and has been a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas since 1995, has announced that if gerrymandered maps withstand legal challenges, he will not run for re-election. We can't comment on any personal reasons the representative may have for stepping aside. He's 78 years old.

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What we can tell you is that this is a smart move politically. With Doggett bowing out, it avoids a situation where Democrats in Austin have to fight it out in a primary. This would be especially damaging, not just because of the normal reasons. The primary would be between Doggett and Representative Greg Kassar. He's 36, much newer to politics, and has a more populist framing.

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A primary between these two would have been vicious, because it would have likely been seen as a surrogate battle between establishment Democrats and upstart Democrats. Instead of dividing, Doggett chose to bow out, unite, and pass the torch. Doggett said in a statement, Now, my personal opinion is that Kassar stood a really good chance of winning in the new gerrymandered district.

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This is one of the districts that Republicans built believing they would hold on to the Latino voters they picked up. Now that Trump's immigration policies are not what was advertised during the election, and that he's ordered the vetting of all current visa holders, their support is probably not as secure as it once was.

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That, combined with an economic downturn that seems more likely by the day, might have made the district winnable. But my personal beliefs about political strategy aside, the move by the older establishment Democrat to step aside and give room for the younger politician to move up is something we'll probably see more of, and we should probably see even more of it than we will.