CONSPIRACY THEORIES are the last refuge of losers. So it’s not surprising that the fast-fading governor of California, Gray Davis, would trot out such a theory as he tries to avoid being tossed out of office. The recall vote on October 7, Davis said, “is part of an ongoing national effort to steal elections Republicans cannot win.” This is baloney. Nonetheless the claim of a Republican conspiracy has become a Democratic mantra. The alleged conspiracy has four episodes: the Clinton impeachment, the 2000 election, Texas reapportionment, and California. In each of these, Republicans are supposed to have turned to other means to overturn elections they’d lost. The implication is Republicans are seeking to thwart democracy and representative government.

That’s not the case in Texas, though, a state that’s become overwhelmingly Republican. Democrats don’t like the new political reality and are seeking to prevent Texas from sending a representative (and thus Republican) House delegation to Washington. Texas got two additional House seats in the 2000 census, but Democrats blocked the legislature from passing a redistricting plan. A federal court stepped in, leaving largely in place the Democratic redistricting scheme from 1991. In the “Almanac of American Politics,” Michael Barone called this plan the most clever gerrymander of the 1990s. Still, Republicans won the 2 new seats in 2002. But the Texas delegation remained Democratic, 17 to 15.