AP via USA Today:
Posted 2/27/2006
Justices set for DeLay redistricting cases
By Joan Biskupic and Jim Drinkard, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — The story of how Texas' congressional map was redrawn in
2003 to favor Republicans is wrapped in partisan politics, personal vendettas
and claims of racial bias. It's also a saga that led U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay to
step down as House majority leader.
Tom DeLay leaves the Texas Speaker's offices after working on an agreement
over congressional redistricting.
AP 2003 photo
And now, the legal battle over Texas redistricting has landed at the U.S. Supreme
Court, which on Wednesday will hear a set of cases that could help determine
how far legislatures across the nation can go in reshaping voting districts
to favor the party in power. The justices will hear arguments on whether Texas'
Republican-led Legislature violated the U.S. Constitution and federal voting
rights law by unfairly splitting up traditionally Democratic voting districts.
At issue is a map that the Texas Legislature drew up a year after Republicans
achieved a majority in the statehouse in 2002. Normally, redistricting is done
once a decade, after the U.S. Census. A Texas map was drawn by a federal court
in 2001, but Texas Republicans, capitalizing on their just-won majority, passed
a revised map in 2003 to help the GOP win more congressional seats.
The plan worked. Before the new map was used in the 2004 elections, Democrats
held a majority of Texas' 32 congressional seats, 17-15. Afterward, Republicans
held 21 seats.
The Supreme Court traditionally has given legislators wide latitude to draw
maps to a party's advantage, believing such political business is the proper
domain of elected officials. But the Democratic challengers argue that a mid-decade
map drawn solely for partisan gain violates principles of constitutional equality
and rights of political association.
Advocates for minority voters, including the Latino veterans' group GI Forum,
argue separately that Texas lawmakers impermissibly broke up concentrations
of Latino and black voters for partisan goals.
Supreme Court justices have been narrowly divided on voting rights cases through
the years, whether the disputes involved allegations of racism or unfair partisanship.
In a 2004 ruling, the court signaled that it soon might stop reviewing partisan
gerrymanders altogether.
"The court is at a crossroads ... where it's being asked to intervene pretty
aggressively in the political process," says Richard L. Hasen, a professor
at Loyola Law School, Los Angeles. "It has to make some fundamental decisions
on how much to intervene in state races."
The two basic issues
The four consolidated cases before the justices raise several issues, but they
boil down to whether the Constitution bars mid-decade redistricting for political
gain, and how judges should assess whether a state has wrongly diluted the influence
of minorities in that effort.
"The state of Texas enacted a new congressional districting plan in 2003
for one and only one reason: to engineer the replacement of Democratic members
of Congress with Republicans," says Paul Smith, a Washington lawyer who
will argue Wednesday on behalf of a group of Texas Democrats. He says there
was no lawful need to change the 2001 boundaries.
"The use of governmental power solely to help or hurt a particular political
party's or group's voters, based on ... their speech or beliefs, cannot be squared
with the First Amendment and the guarantee of equal protection," he says.
Texas officials counter that state Democrats are simply clinging to the remnants
of their old dominance in the state. "Texas' current congressional map
is the natural result of four decades of Texas political history, during which
the voting preferences of Texas voters have shifted decidedly," says state
Solicitor General Ted Cruz.
Texas, like much of the South, had been realigning toward the Republicans for
years before the controversial map was drawn. But Democrats, in part because
of a map drawn by their party in 1991, held most of the state's U.S. House seats
through the 1990s.
After the 2000 Census, Texas gained two congressional seats, for a total of
32, and a new round of redistricting began. The Legislature, then with a Democrat-controlled
House and a Republican-controlled Senate, was unable to agree on a map. A three-judge
federal court adopted a redistricting plan that largely followed the 1991 map.
That frustrated DeLay, one of Texas' most visible politicians and then the majority
leader of the U.S. House. He was irked that Republicans were capturing a majority
of the state's popular vote in congressional races but still had fewer House
seats than Democrats.
Victory came at a cost
DeLay set about to help Republicans take control of the Legislature and the
redistricting process.
He established a political action committee, Texans for a Republican Majority
PAC, to raise money for Republican legislative candidates. The effort was successful,
as the Republicans captured the full Texas Legislature in 2002. Then DeLay and
his allies pushed through the new district map.
"It was an extremely clever but very partisan gerrymander" that diluted
Democratic districts while creating greater opportunities for Republicans, says
Richard Murray, a University of Houston political scientist.
Among the six Democrats who were forced out during the 2004 elections were veteran
U.S. Rep. Martin Frost of Dallas, a longtime DeLay nemesis, and Rep. Nick Lampson
of Beaumont — who now is trying to stage a comeback by running against
DeLay.
The state GOP victory came at a cost to DeLay, who was indicted in 2005 on a
campaign finance charge, forcing him to leave his post as the No. 2 Republican
in the House. The indictment alleges that he directed illegal corporate contributions
to legislative candidates by moving the money through the national Republican
Party. DeLay denies the charge.
The GOP plan also is being challenged by minority groups, including the League
of United Latin American Citizens. They claim the Legislature boosted GOP candidates
at the expense of Latino and African-American political strength, which the
groups say violated federal law designed to help those who historically have
faced bias.
The groups say the state squeezed what could have been seven heavily Latino
districts into six districts, and also dismantled a district in which Latinos
had strong influence.
The cases are League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry, 05-204; Travis
County v. Perry, 05-254; Jackson v. Perry, 05-276; GI Forum of Texas v. Perry,
05-439.
GOP GAINS SEATS Texas' disputed redistricting map of 2003 resulted in Republicans
gaining six seats in Congress:
Before the 2004 elections
Democrats 17
Republicans 15
After the 2004 elections
Democrats 11
Republicans 21
Fates of Democratic House incumbents in 2004
Martin Frost and Charlie Stenholm, 26-year House veterans, lost to Republican
incumbents after districts were redrawn.
Nick Lampson and Max Sandlin, four-term representatives, unseated.
Ralph Hall, 24-year veteran, switched to the Republican Party before the election.
Jim Turner retired after eight years in the House
Sources: USA TODAY research and U.S. House of Representatives