High court looks at GOP redistricting in Texas

updated 7:26 p.m. ET Feb. 27, 2006

WASHINGTON - In less than three years, a Republican-imposed redistricting of Texas’ congressional districts strengthened the GOP grip on Congress, hastened former Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s fall from power and triggered a partisan clash over the voting rights of blacks and Hispanics.

Now the Supreme Court will consider whether it was constitutional as well as controversial.

In legal terms, the dispute turns largely on this: Whether the Republican maneuver in 2003 crossed the line between “excessive partisanship — which is unconstitutional — and permissible partisanship — which is not unconstitutional,” according to Guy-Uriel E. Charles, a law professor who summarized the case in an American Bar Association publication.

In political terms, “It’s conceivable that this case could swing control of the House of Representatives in November,” said Mark Braden, a Republican lawyer with broad experience in redistricting disputes.

Republicans reaped a gain of six seats in Congress from Texas in 2004, when the new district lines were used. The state’s delegation, which had consisted of 21 Democrats and 11 Republicans, became 17-15, advantage Republicans.

The case, scheduled for argument on Wednesday, marks the first time Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito will grapple with redistricting issues since their confirmations. At the same time, Justice Anthony Kennedy will be a particular focus of interest.

Kennedy a swing vote
Kennedy cast the swing vote in a 5-4 decision in 2004 that upheld Republican redistricting in Pennsylvania. But unlike other justices who made up a majority, he suggested some future claim against gerrymandering might have merit. “The assumption is that Justice Kennedy sees something in this case that he finds troubling,” Charles said in an interview.

The state of Texas contends the redistricting passes constitutional scrutiny, citing the ruling in the Pennsylvania case. A lower court agreed, and the losing side — the League of United Latin American Citizens and others — appealed to the Supreme Court.

Democrats claim hope in the fact that the justices agreed earlier this winter to hear arguments quickly. “If the court didn’t think this (Texas) was materially different from the Pennsylvania case, they wouldn’t have taken it up,” says Matt Angle, a spokesman for the Lone Star Project, a Democratic group seeking to invalidate the law and run this fall’s elections using the old districts.

Critics of the Republican reapportionment plan also allege the new district lines violate the Voting Rights Act, which is designed to protect the rights of blacks and Hispanics. In addition, they argue that the Constitution prohibits mid-decade redistricting, and that Republicans ignored updated census data, violating the Constitution’s requirement on one person, one vote.

Angle said the GOP-drawn apportionment “reduced the number of effective minority districts from 11 to 9....They take the cynical view that a minority district is defined by the color of the skin of the person elected. But that’s not what the law says. The law says a minority district is determined by the color of the voters.”

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