Redistricting Tom
DeLay
EDITORIAL, NYTimes on
the Web, December 14, 2005
The Supreme Court agreed this week to
review Texas' 2003 Congressional redistricting, which added five Republicans to
the state's delegation. The plan, engineered by the former House majority
leader Tom DeLay, is rightly being challenged as partisan and discriminatory
against minority voters. It is encouraging that the court has decided to
step in.
Mr. DeLay's 2003 redrawing of Texas' Congressional district lines threw aside
the longstanding tradition that new lines are drawn only every 10 years, after
the census. The purpose of this heavy-handed line-drawing was purely to
increase the number of Republican districts. It worked. The number
of Republicans in the delegation went to 21 from 16, helping to entrench Mr.
DeLay as majority leader.
The Supreme Court expressed reluctance last year, in a case challenging
Pennsylvania's Congressional district boundaries, to second-guess partisan
redistricting. But Justice Anthony Kennedy, who provided the crucial fifth
vote against allowing the case to proceed, wrote separately to say that the
court might act differently in a future redistricting case if "workable
standards" could be found. The extraordinarily bare-knuckled Texas
redistricting provides another chance to develop such standards. The vote
of Chief Justice John Roberts, whose views on partisan redistricting are not
known, could also be pivotal.
The Texas case also raises unusually strong claims that the voting strength of
minority voters was illegally diluted. According to a recently uncovered
memo, the eight career Justice Department employees assigned to review the plan
in 2003 unanimously concluded that it violated the Voting Rights Act. But
political appointees at Justice overruled their objections and approved it
anyway.
This case's impact is likely to be felt far beyond Texas. If Texas'
district lines are upheld, legislators in other states will have a green light
to ignore voters, and the Voting Rights Act, and draw lines for partisan
advantage. The founding fathers intended the House of Representatives to
be the body of government closest to the people. But the House has become
increasingly insulated from the voters because of gerrymandering that protects
incumbents, reserves seats for particular parties and makes contested elections
a rarity.
The Supreme Court now has a chance to reverse this trend and uphold the right to
cast ballots where they can make a difference.
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