U.S. Supreme Court to hold hearing on Texas redistricting

Web Posted: 02/28/2006 06:07 PM CST

Gary Martin
Express-News Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court will hold an extraordinary hearing Wednesday to determine whether Texas Republicans violated the Constitution in redrawing congressional district boundaries that critics say diluted minority voting stength.

In a two-hour session, the justices will hear arguments by Democratic and minority groups who maintain the districts were reconfigured solely for political gain – a charge rejected by Republicans.

“It's the first case in which the redistricting was for a political gerrymander. It wasn't a byproduct. It was the goal,” said Rolando Rios, a lawyer with the League of United Latin American Citizens.

LULAC – joined by Travis County, the GI Forum of Texas and Democratic voters and lawmakers – challenged the redistricting plan that helped Republicans cement their majority in the House of Representatives.

A lower federal court has endorsed the GOP map, twice.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said he expects the high court will “agree with the unanimous judgment of the three-judge federal panel that the Texas redistricting plan is wholly constitutional.”

The Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments in the Texas case and another from Colorado.

In both cases, Republican lawmakers redrew district boundaries that were created by the courts after the state legislatures failed to devise their own.

The Texas remap, pushed by then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land, resulted in a 12-seat swing in the makeup of the state's congressional delegation.

Democrats held a 17-15 edge before redistricting. Republicans hold a 21-11 advantage now.

The extra seats helped Republicans cement their narrow majority in the House, where they hold a 231-201 advantage over Democrats, with one independent and two vacancies.

Democrats and minority groups say the GOP map diluted voting strength of blacks and Hispanics by using outdated Census data.

Specifically, LULAC claims that Republicans, trying to protect a vulnerable Rep. Henry Bonilla, R-San Antonio, lopped off half of heavily Hispanic Webb County from the 23rd Congressional District and replaced it with the more conservative ranching counties of Kerr, Kendall and Bandera.

Democrats said African-American voting strength was diluted by redistricting in the 24th Congressional District. Rep. Martin Frost, D-Dallas, a 13-term congressman, lost his seat after the lines were redrawn.

The redistricting produced a bare-knuckled political brawl in the Texas Legislature, where groups of Democrats twice fled the state to prevent a quorum and temporarily thwart the remap effort.

The impetus for redistricting came from DeLay, who later was indicted by an Austin grand jury on charges of money laundering in connection with an effort to elect GOP majorities in the statehouse.

The indictments forced DeLay to step down as House majority leader while he fights the charges.

Against that backdrop, the high court will hear arguments from Democrats challenging the mid-decade drawing of congressional lines, and Texas officials who say the new map more fairly reflects the voting preferences of Texans.

Supreme Court experts expect the justices to focus on the narrow issue of constitutionality of the political map in Texas.

“The key issue that the court will focus on in the case is whether political gerrymandering is constitutional,” said Michael Ariens at St. Mary's University School of Law.

Ed Foley, at the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University, agreed.

“I think the court has been struggling with the issue of improper districting for some time,” Foley said. “What the Texas case does is give the court a chance to issue a narrow ruling that gives some guidance of the law.”

The Supreme Court issued a split ruling in a 2004 Pennsylvania case involving redistricting and challenges to political gerrymandering.

“The court itself is unclear on what direction it is going to take in these redistricting cases,” Ariens said. “Texas may clarify the confusion.”

Another issue in the Texas case is whether minority voting rights were diluted by using old Census data to draw new congressional lines.

Hispanic groups say 100,000 Latinos were taken out of the 23rd Congressional District to protect Bonilla, who narrowly defeated Henry Cuellar in the 2002 general election.

“This is about the integrity of the Democratic process,” said Nina Perales, a Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund lawyer.

“No state has the right to manipulate congressional districts to deny any American the right to pick the candidate of their choice,” she said.

Those arguments failed to sway a lower court.

“The issues of redistricting using the 2000 Census doesn't seem likely to me to be successful,” Ariens said. “The political gerrymandering is going to be the primary issue.”

In the Pennsylvania case, Justice Anthony Kennedy “signaled that he has serious concerns about partisan gerrymandering,” Foley said.

All eyes will be on Kennedy, who is expected to be the swing vote in the Texas case, Foley said.

Texas Republicans predict the Supreme Court will uphold the state's redistricting map, arguing that the redrawing of political lines were a response to decades of gerrymandering by Democrats who once controlled the state Legislature.

But opponents argue that if the Texas redistricting map is upheld, state Legislatures would be free to redraw political lines at any time for partisan gain.

Experts were less willing to offer up a prediction, saying a narrow ruling by the Supreme Court could break either way.

Others do not rule out a landmark decision that could impact how future political lines are drawn.

“The tea leaves I'm reading,” said Ariens, “maybe they are intending to use this case as some kind of statement.”

gmartin@express-news.net