Any Way You Slice It

Opponents to the Texas redistricting plan told the U.S. Supreme Court the map was blatantly political and that it disenfranchised minority voters. In the election that followed the redrawing, the Texas delegation went from 17 Democrats and 15 Republicans to 21 Republicans and 11 Democrats.

Based on what the court rules, the current congressional districts could be upheld or several districts could be removed. We should point out that the removal of these districts would occur after voters elect candidates for them in next week's primaries. A decision is expected this summer, but we already know that the court will uphold the redistricting. Next up: Roe v. Wade?

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By zachary in News on March 3, 2006 1:17 PM 0 Comments

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Zach

The court's consideration of the case comes as DeLay faces charges in Texas that he laundered corporate money and directed it to state campaigns in 2002 as part of a successful effort to boost the number of Republicans in Texas' Legislature. The Republican gains spurred the Legislature to redraw the congressional map to aid GOP candidates' prospects.

In doing so, state lawmakers discarded a congressional map that had been drawn after the 2000 Census and endorsed by federal judges. With DeLay's backing, the new plan carved up the districts of six Democratic incumbents and overhauled two districts that had been dominated by minorities- one by African-Americans, the other by Hispanics.

I should have included this information, but I assumed a person who championed the causes of the republicans would have shied away from entering this fray....unless of course you were not aware of this information. Cheers!

odam

i could be wrong, but i believe the problem is that the redistricting is suppose to go on every 10 years. this plan was drawn up years ahead of that deadline. hence the politicking of it. sure, it is sour grapes to some degree, but the rules are the rules. i could be wrong, but i think that is what the real story was here, mr. scrooge. if that is indeed your real name

Bah Humbug

Where were all of you with all your huffing and puffing about Congressional Districts when the Dems where doing the gerrymandering?

Not a peep out of you then.

Before the redistricting, Republicans had the majority of the popular vote, but a minority of Congressmen.

Now Republicans have around 60 percent of the vote and 66 percent of the Congressmen.

Disfranchise minority voters? Hardly. This is a correction of years of Democrat gerrymandering.

And I don't believe there is any law or statute saying you can't redistrict between deciannual censuses.

What is "blantantly political" is the opposition to the redistricting.