DeLay's Gerrymander Passes Supremes' Scrutiny
In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court issued a ruling today upholding most of the Tom DeLay-engineered Texas redistricting. DeLay, you'll recall, broke with precedent by prompting the Texas legislature to draw up new districts in Texas once Republicans had the majority. The Supremes said it mostly passed muster:
At issue was the shifting of 100,000 Hispanics out of a district represented by a Republican incumbent and into a new, oddly shaped district. Foes of the plan had argued that that was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander under the Voting Rights Act, which protects minority voting rights.
The Justices threw out part of the redistricting which they said failed to protect the rights of Latinos.
Although boundaries had been redrawn in accord with the US Constitution in 2000, DeLay promted the newly GOP legislature to redraw them three years later. As a result, Republicans picked up six seats in the 2004 election. DeLay, now under indictment for fraud and money laundering, left office this year.
[Justice Anthony] Kennedy's decision did not specify how quickly the lines must be redrawn, but he said that more than one district would be affected.
"The districts in south and west Texas will have to be redrawn to remedy the violation in District 23, and we have no cause to pass on the legitimacy of a district that must be changed," he wrote.
Discuss.
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connect with blueoregon
9:15 a.m.
Jun 28, '06
For those of you keeping score, in the past ten days, the Supremes have ruled:
- that the Clean Water Act couldn't protect wetlands from land developers (5-4);
- that Vermont couldn't regulate campaign contributions in its own elections (6-3);
- and that gerrymanders engineered by US legislators for the express purpose of picking up seats in Congres are kosher (5-4).
Nice start to the new Court, eh? I have no idea how the newly radical 5-man majority will rule on social issues, but when it comes to power versus citizen, this bloc has clearly picked sides.Get the kids inside, folks, they ain't safe no more.
9:18 a.m.
Jun 28, '06
Here's my Oregon-related question:
The Supremes have ruled that a legislature can do a mid-decade redistricting if it is designed to "fix" a court-created redistricting map. In Oregon, we don't send it to a court. We send it to the Secretary of State when the legislature can't agree.
Do our resident legal experts think that this ruling would allow the legislature to "fix" a map created by the SoS mid-decade?
Is there Oregon law that would prevent such a thing?
9:52 a.m.
Jun 28, '06
I'd still like a resident legal expert to chime in here, but intuitively, the distinction would seem to be "elected representative" vs. "judicial branch."
While I'm glad to see the politically motivated -- and Voting Rights violating -- gerrymandered district struck down, I don't see compact districts as the most important thing in the world. In the 1990's, the NAACP and others drew some pretty oddly shaped districts to accomplish the worthwhile goal of creating minority-majority districts to provide some badly needed representation for historically disenfranchised communities. I think that's a more important goal than what a district looks like on a map, but the courts threw these out a long time ago.
Jun 28, '06
Kari:
(1) The Secretary of State only has authority over redistricting for the State Legislature, and only if the Legislature fails to enact its own plan by July 1st of the year following the national census. This process is governed by the Oregon Constitution (Article IV, Section 6(3)(a)) -- not the U.S. Constitution -- so today's Supreme Court's decision has little if any relevance here.
(2) As for Congressional reapportionment (the issue in today's Supreme Court ruling): when the Legislature cannot enact a redistricting plan (due to deadlock), then a federal court must order a scheme which brings the state into compliance with the U.S. Constitution's "one person, one vote" requirement. That's what happened in 2001 in Texas and in Oregon. So, in answer to your question, yes, the Legislature probably could redraw Oregon's Congressional districts today. (If by some miraculous event, Republicans took control of both chambers of the Legislature and the Governor's office, they might do just that.) But I don't think it is clear from today's decision whether a Legislature can change its mind once it has successfully passed a reapportionment plan. In other words, the Legislature can rewrite the plan that was ordered by a court since the power is vested in the Legislature to begin with, but it remains to be seen whether the Legislature could rewrite its own plan in the middle of the decennial cycle.
11:34 a.m.
Jun 28, '06
I agree with Misha. My reading of commentary on the decision on the election law blog is that the Court was skeptical of claims that mid-decade redistricting was unconstitutional, even if solely for the purposes of gaining partisan advantages.
Mid decade redistricting was the norm, by the way, in the late 19th century, so it is not with historical precedent.
I'm not sure I agree with Jeff's interpretation. We haven't seen yet whether the Court will overturn a law passed by Congress or a state legislature--say one that bans mid decade redistricting illegal or explicitly protects wetlands.
What also bothers me about this case is the Court's continuing refusal to consider high quality (really the highest quality) social science research on issues such as gerrymandering, partisan bias, or in other contexts, employment discrimination. This is a highly individualistic Court (led in the past by Scalia and Thomas; we'll see where Roberts and Alito fall), unwilling to accept a rights violation unless a specific individual can point to a specific case.
11:50 a.m.
Jun 28, '06
I'm not sure I agree with Jeff's interpretation. We haven't seen yet whether the Court will overturn a law passed by Congress or a state legislature--say one that bans mid decade redistricting illegal or explicitly protects wetlands.
Well, I'm not sure I agree with my interpretation, either. On this decision there were six--six!--opinions. It's premature to identify a "bloc," but my spidey senses are really giving me fits. Coupla big cases on the docket, so we'll see.
Jun 28, '06
Misha is right.
And as I recall, if the legislature can't get the redistricting done and it falls to the Sec. of State, often/ always it ends up going to a state court which rules on whether the Sec. of State followed the rules. As I recall, top among those rules are that population must be equal + or - a certain percent, and communities of interest/geographic boundaries should be observed.
From what I read of the coverage, while they did rule today mostly in favor of the Texas redistricting, they did say Bonilla's district must be changed due to the effect on Latino voters. So I don't think this is the slam-dunk victory it might appear on the surface, or that the House Republicans who stalled voting to renew the Voting Rights Act because of the issue of bilingual ballots will be thrilled that Latino voters were given consideration here.
Jun 28, '06
There's no muster to pass. It's precisely what might be expected from a bunch of forsworn hacks that dismantled an election when there numbers were even fewer.
Jul 1, '06
CB: While I'm glad to see the politically motivated -- and Voting Rights violating -- gerrymandered district struck down, I don't see compact districts as the most important thing in the world.
I do, because they are far more likely to be less political while still maintaining (through their compactness) some common outlooks within them, such as a rural district, an urban district, a manufacturing district, and so on. Not all people will agree within them despite shared environment or geography, but these are supposed to be geographic entities after all.
In the 1990's, the NAACP and others drew some pretty oddly shaped districts to accomplish the worthwhile goal of creating minority-majority districts to provide some badly needed representation for historically disenfranchised communities.
Worthwhile goal? Why is it that many people still think that someone's skin color or ethnicity determines their politics? Nothing can be more racist. This is what's wrong with such gerrymandering.
In the south, the negative result has been that while some black representatives have been elected, other districts have been so drained (bled white, so to speak) that the few in them can be totally ignored. I can't believe that the USSC has bought into this nonsense. We don't or are not supposed to have representation of groups in Congress, but of geographic entities. The breakdown of the populations within them should be considered irrelevant.
I think that's a more important goal than what a district looks like on a map
See above.
Bob Tiernan
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