Free Republic

The much discussed idea of removing the Legislature from the process of political map drawing is again the subject of some intense discussions at the Capitol. On Thursday, Governor Schwarzenegger met privately with a group of strong supporters of redistricting, including former Senate GOP Leader Jim Brulte, former Democratic Assemblymember Fred Keeley, and Proposition 77 author/recall proponent Ted Costa. A senior advisor to the governor said in the meeting, Schwarzenegger pledged to spend much of next week trying to win passage of the current redistricting proposal, SCA 3 by Sen. Alan Lowenthal (D-Long Beach). State elections officials have suggested that...

The principle of democracy is that electors get to choose their representatives. The principle of gerrymandering is that representatives get to choose their electors. This can lead to some absurd distortions. It is designed to do so. Let us look at a few examples. First, let us dispose of one. A few weeks ago the Supreme Court rejected an appeal by Texas Democrats against a mid-decade redistricting in that state. The argument was partly that redistricting should not take place mid-decade, that it ‘disenfranchised’ minority voters, but mostly that it cost the Democrats six seats they felt entitled to hold....

SACRAMENTO The Senate's leader said Thursday it would be a "huge mistake" for lawmakers to rush this month to place linked measures on the November ballot that would alter their term limits and remove their power to draw their own districts. President Pro Tem Don Perata said a redistricting change could wait for a ballot in 2008 and that voters would distrust any attempt by lawmakers to modify term limits. He also said he was wary of tying passage of one proposal to the other. "Term limits, if it is done by the Legislature, will be tremendously scrutinized," the Oakland...

AUSTIN, Texas - An attorney for the state argued in court on Thursday that its proposed congressional map would make districts more compact ...

EVERY few years, California lawmakers take aim at term limits, which have swept out the Sacramento fossils who held office for decades, ushering in fresh faces and more minorities. Legislators hate term limits. They want to cling to six-figure jobs, full staffs, fat per diem expense accounts and personal prestige that few lawmakers could ever earn in private life. Journalists who cover politics hate term limits. They must cozy up to a new bunch of lawmakers every time the old bunch is forced out. They have to develop new sources and — horrors! — update their Rolodexes. Both the pols...

A bipartisan collection of lawmakers interviewed Friday voiced measured support for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's suggestion that they surrender the power to draw voting districts in return for the possibility of staying in their jobs longer. Lawmakers also said there was enough time, when they return from summer break next month, to pass such a package and put it before voters on the November ballot. (snip) Schwarzenegger is eager to revive one of the proposals that voters defeated in last year's special election — a plan that strips lawmakers of the power to carve political districts. The governor instead would entrust...

SACRAMENTO — Hoping to resurrect an idea voters rejected in last year's special election, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger plans to offer lawmakers a deal: He'll support an easing of term limits if they'll agree to change the way California draws voting districts. Schwarzenegger said in an interview Thursday he does not believe term limits have improved Sacramento's political culture. Allowing legislators to stay in office longer would be worthwhile, he said, if it induced them to put a proposal on the ballot that would strip them of the power to carve political boundaries. The governor reasons that lawmakers may not want...

Last July 1, Sandra Day O'Connor announced her decision to vacate the seat from which she frequently operated as the swing vote on a Supreme Court divided 5-4 on important cases. Anthony Kennedy's past pronouncements suggested he would relish that role. Last Wednesday he played it in cases concerning Texas redistricting. The cases involved several questions, the most interesting - because it has come to the court before and we now know it will again, and because it revealed a recurring and worrisome kind of judging - was this: Was the redistricting by the Republican-controlled Legislature such a partisan gerrymander...

AUSTIN - A federal court Thursday gave parties in the Texas redistricting lawsuit until July 14 to submit proposals on how to redraw congressional districts in South Texas in response to a U.S. Supreme Court decision that one district violates minority voting rights. The three-judge panel's order signaled that the court plans to take charge of revamping the state's congressional districts before this year's elections rather than let the Legislature do the job. Gov. Rick Perry declined to say whether he would call the Legislature into special session to change the congressional districts. "It's always been my preference that the...

SACRAMENTO -- California legislators began a five-week summer recess Thursday without voting on a constitutional amendment that would take away their powers to draw their districts, reducing the measure's chances of making the November ballot. "I think it's a long shot...," said Sen. Alan Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, the amendment's author. "It's very late in the process." Lowenthal said he couldn't line up enough votes to get the amendment out of the Senate on Thursday, but would bring it up when lawmakers return in August after trying to remove some of the opposition. "The overarching issue that fundamentally trumps all issues...

"The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." It's time I clear up a major misconception over what the fifteenth amendment really is all about. When we speak of the fifteenth amendment we usually do so under the assumption that the amendment is an outright constitutional mandate granting citizens the right to vote. The fifteenth amendment is not a constitutional right to vote. This is because the right of suffrage was left with the...

The decision by the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday reaffirms the validity of the Voting Rights Act as a shield against racial gerrymandering that dilutes the political standing of minorities. This is a reassuring message, albeit by a bare 5-4 margin, at a time when some members of Congress are balking at a renewal of the act. More troubling was the court's endorsement, in a 7-2 vote, of a mid-decade redistricting plan in Texas that potentially opens the floodgates to partisan redrawing of congressional districts.

WASHINGTON - By handing Texas Republicans a major victory in their contentious congressional redistricting case, the U.S. Supreme Court may have lowered some of the last obstacles to bare-knuckled political fights in statehouses across the nation, though predictions of political chaos may be premature, experts said Wednesday. In a complex, multi-faceted decision the high court largely upheld a 2003 redistricting plan crafted by the Republican controlled Legislature, though justices invalidated a GOP-held South Texas district.

by Mark Finkelstein June 28, 2006 Over the last couple days, I've received four emails from one liberal reader of these columns, repeatedly asking me why conservatives are so 'angry and mean-spirited'. I tried explaining that while anger is common to the human condition, in no way do conservatives have a monopoly on the emotion. To the contrary, I cited a recent study revealing that, even when controlling for relevant variables, Republicans tend to be happier than Democrats. Since I was unable to prove the proposition to the reader's satisfaction, I very much hope he was watching this evening's Hardball....

WASHINGTON, June 28 — The Supreme Court today upheld the basic outlines of a Republican Congressional redistricting plan in Texas, refusing to toss out a sharply contested political map engineered by the former House majority leader, Tom DeLay. The court handed a smaller victory to the Democratic plaintiffs in the case, ruling that one Congressional district in southwestern Texas had been drawn in a way that violated the rights of Hispanic voters there. But the court rejected the larger premise — that Texas Republicans had unconstitutionally reorganized the political map to solidify their majority in Congress. The decision means that...

A fractured Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that states are free to redraw congressional districts at a time of their choosing, largely blessing Tom DeLay's bitterly contested handiwork in Texas and the gains it gave national Republicans. With Justice Anthony M. Kennedy playing the role of majority maker, the court ruled the 2003 Texas plan violated the rights of Hispanics in the area around Laredo and ordered a lower court to review that part of the case. But the justices imposed no timetable, and it was not clear whether Democrats would be able to win any changes in the Republican-drafted plan...

Pelosi Responds to Supreme Court Decision on Texas Redistricting Washington, D.C. – House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi released the following statement today in response to the United States Supreme Court’s decision that the 2004 redistricting in Texas violated the Voting Rights Act: “Today’s ruling by the Supreme Court striking down portions of the gerrymandered Texas congressional map supports what Democrats have long said: Republicans are willing to curtail the rights of minorities for partisan gain. “Congress must take immediate action to correct this redistricting scheme that illegally denied minority voters their rights. We should pass Democratic legislation to conduct non-partisan...

Texas map ruling spurs gerrymandering By Holly Yeager in Washington Published: June 28 2006 20:28 | Last updated: June 28 2006 20:28 A US Supreme Court ruling on Wednesday that left in place most of a controversial map for Texas congressional districts is expected to encourage partisans in other states to press forward with their own gerrymandering plans. Tom DeLay, the former majority leader of the House of Representatives, was a driving force behind the map, which helped Texas Republicans add six seats to their congressional delegation two years ago. In its ruling on the Texas case, the court said...

US state lawmakers can redraw electoral maps to favour their own parties at any time, the Supreme Court has ruled. By a vote of 7-2, the country's highest court rejected claims by Democrats that Texas Republicans had behaved wrongly by changing boundaries in 2003. Districts must be redrawn every 10 years to reflect population changes, but Republicans redrew the map a second time in a decade after taking power. In a related ruling, the court said redistricting must not harm minorities. Hispanic voters had said the 2003 redistricting did not protect them as required by the Voting Rights Act, and...

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court today upheld most of Texas' Republican-friendly U.S. House election district map. The court said one district in Southwest Texas was unconstitutional because its design violated minority voting rights. Reshaping the district would force a change in at least some neighborhing districts. But the high court ruling preserved other districts, in the Houston area and elsewhere, that were created by the Texas Legislature in 2003. The 2003 map was engineered by former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land, as part of a strategy to cement Republican control of the U.S. House of Representatives. He...

The Supreme Court, splintering widely, on Wednesday found an insufficient claim of partisan gerrymandering in the Texas congressional redistricting. It also rejected a challenge to mid-decade congressional redistricting. It did not rule on whether all partisan gerrymander claims are beyond judicial review. The Court is split on that issue, and the division remains. It found the new District 24 invalid under the federal Voting Rights Act. In a 5-3 ruling, the Court decided that prison officials may deny newspapers, magazines and photographs to their most dangerous inmates. The plurality opinion by Justice Stephen G. Breyer upheld such a ban. Justice...

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned part of a Texas congressional map engineered by former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. Challengers — Democrats and minority groups — had asked the court to declare the redrawn districts unconstitutional. Republicans said the new map better reflects the voting patterns of the state and deny minority voting rights were violated.

Court nixes part of Texas political map By GINA HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer 13 minutes ago WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld most of the Republican-boosting Texas congressional map engineered by former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay but threw out part, saying some of the new boundaries failed to protect minority voting rights. ADVERTISEMENT The fractured decision was a small victory for Democratic and minority groups who accused Republicans of an unconstitutional power grab in drawing boundaries that booted four Democratic incumbents from office. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060628/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_texas_redistricting Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the majority, said Hispanics do not have...

GOV. Arnold Schwarzenegger's "Year of Reform" came and went without any discernible change to the status quo in 2005. The state Legislature remains unduly polarized, captive to special interests and unwilling to take on many of the most complex and daunting problems facing California. Schwarzenegger's "reform" effort morphed into a piecemeal package of worthy (independent redistricting), seriously flawed (a rigid budget formula) and transparently politically motivated (restrictions on union fundraising) measures that were all shot down by voters in November. There were two overriding messages from the electorate. One was disenchantment with Schwarzenegger and his "I-am-king'' bravado of the moment....

Census Bureau projections show state population growth outpaced by Florida.New York faces the prospect of losing two seats in the House of Representatives after the 2010 census, according to projections to be released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. New York's population is projected to grow during the next five years, but at a rate far slower than states in the South and West, the Census Bureau reports. Florida is expected to pass New York as the third most populous state, behind California and Texas. "We're still a big state, but it does hurt us, no doubt," said Robert Spitzer,...

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Wednesday heard oral arguments on Texas' controversial 2003 redistricting plan, putting a spotlight on constitutional issues that have sometimes been overshadowed by the political drama surrounding House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's role in the case. Conceived as part of DeLay's strategy to give the Texas GOP extra seats in the House and thus cement Republican control, the plan was enacted over the dramatic protests of Texas Democratic lawmakers who at one point fled the state to avoid voting on it. The state indictment that forced DeLay to quit as majority leader alleges illegalities in...

The Supreme Court, showing few signs of reaching for a new consensus on the role it would allow partisanship to play in drawing new election districts, pored over the Republican-drawn congressional districts for Texas for two hours Wednesday. No one seemed near to gathering a majority for any new constitutional standard for judging party ambitions, and everyone who spoke up focused largely on the specifics of a plan crafted at the urging of Rep. Tom DeLay and national Republican party operatives that has produced decisive GOP gains. Because a number of the Justices -- including, notably, the potential swing voter,...

United States Supreme Court justices today appeared skeptical of Texas Democrats' argument that Republicans' 2003 redrawing of the state's congressional districts on a political basis was unconstitutional. "Legislatures redraw the maps all the time for political purposes," said Justice Antonin Scalia. "It is impossible and undesirable to take the partisanship out of the political process," said Justice David Souter. "Even in districting." The court today held a rare, two-hour afternoon session, hearing arguments on whether Texas' congressional lines were unconstitutionally redrawn. Based on what the court rules, Texas' current congressional districts could be upheld — or several congressional districts could...

Texas Republicans were guilty of a naked political power grab when they re-drew congressional boundaries, the Supreme Court was told Wednesday in a case that could have a major impact on elections. Justices are considering whether the Republican-friendly map promoted by former Majority Leader Tom DeLay is unconstitutional. The 2003 boundaries approved by the GOP-controlled state Legislature helped the Republican Party pick up six seats in Congress, but it also led to serious woes for DeLay. He was charged in state court with money laundering in connection with fundraising for legislative candidates. He gave up his leadership post and is...

WASHINGTON - Three years ago, Rep. Tom DeLay and his fellow Republicans in Texas used their political muscle to draw new congressional districts. By changing the political map, they ousted six Democrats and gave the GOP a bigger margin in the U.S. House of Representatives. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear arguments about the power play in four combined cases that could dramatically change the rules for political redistricting. The court's decision, expected in the next few months, could give one party an important advantage in this year's election and have far-reaching implications on how legislative maps are drawn...

ON MARCH 1, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case involving the Texas congressional redistricting plan engineered in 2003 by former House majority leader Tom DeLay. Appellants charge both that the Texas map was partisan districting run amok and that it violated the right of minority voters, under the Voting Rights Act, to elect the candidates of their choice. On the first matter, court precedents are sparse; the High Court has been understandably reluctant to tackle partisan gerrymandering, with the result that no constitutional standards (beyond one person, one vote) govern the process. But on the second matter,...

Voters may have rejected Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's scheme to redraw the state's 173 legislative and congressional districts in mid-decade, but the bipartisan gerrymander of those districts in 2001 remains a stain on democracy - and one that worsens the Legislature's chronic inability to function. The aim of the gerrymander was to fix the party ownership of every district, thus eliminating competition for seats, and it has been 98 percent successful in the two election cycles since. None of the 53 congressional districts has changed partisan hands and voters have ignored the gerrymander in just three of the 120 legislative districts....

A comprehensive study just out today theorizes that as many as 14 congressional races and 17 state Assembly races might truly be competitive if the power to draw political maps is removed from the hands of the Legislature. The study comes from the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley. But while the authors say competition may be increased, more frequent turnover of lawmakers who hold those jobs may not. You can read the report here. "The ability to achieve a high level of potentially competitive seats," says the report, "is greatly limited" by factors that include the huge power...

Can't link to Lafayette's own Gannett rag (and arguably the worst newspaper on the planet), the Daily Advertiser, but what this basically boils down to is that one of the few House seats the Democrats had a shot at next year has been taken out of play, further slimming their chances of taking over that chamber. John, the 7th's former congressman, was the only candidate who stood a chance of upsetting the district's current GOP congressman, Charles Boustany. Tough luck, Dems.

Cows Don’t Vote……Or so I’m told but this 40-year-old Supreme Court decision is back in the news. Judge Alito’s 1985 comments on Baker v. Carr 1962 and Wesburry v. Sanders 1963 have brought the discussion back. Prior to these decisions, some state congressional districts were drawn differently based on region not population, much like the Senate. This helped even out the population disparity in rural areas and kept them from being dominated by urban centers. This was also the era of Jim Crow and blacks were being gerrymandered out of their right to vote by segregationists in the south. The...

Tom DeLay, right or wrong By Salena Zito TRIBUNE-REVIEW Sunday, January 22, 2006 HOUSTON Hold a rearview mirror up to U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay and ask how he views his past. He'll likely wave you off and say he has his eyes on the windshield, concentrating on what's in front of him. It's DeLay's nature to move forward, whatever chaos swirls around him. Democrats hate DeLay because he beat them, often and hard -- and he enjoyed it. Democrats may be miles apart on issues but they're united when it comes to taking down a wounded Republican, especially this former...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A nearly 200-page report released Thursday that provided new details on the region's homeless population prompted Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to call the nation's second-largest city the nation's "capital of homelessness." The report by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority estimated that 82,291 people were homeless in Los Angeles County on any given night in 2005, with about 48,103 of the county's homeless living within Los Angeles' city limits. The estimates are important because they mark the first attempt to gather detailed data on the homeless. The figures will provide a benchmark to evaluate the effectiveness of...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Two months after voters rejected Proposition 77, supporters of the redistricting measure announced a new initiative campaign Wednesday to take the power to draw legislative and congressional districts away from lawmakers. "I think there is broad agreement across the political spectrum that our current political system is broken, and that one of the reasons it is broken is that we have politicians drawing their own political boundaries," said Derek Cressman, director of TheRestofUs.org, a political watchdog group. "Democrats, Republicans, independents - everyone agrees that is an inherently corrupt process and it must be changed." The new initiative...

POINTS OF VIEW "The effort to deliver a new congressional map was founded in the belief that a history of gerrymandering efforts by Democrats in Texas had resulted in an unfair representation of Texas voters." --Kevin Madden, spokesman for former House Majority Leader DeLay -snip- "I think it's gone overboard. We have such a manipulation of the democratic rules of the game by people determined to stay in power that it diminishes American democracy ... ." --Thomas Mann, Brookings Institution FACTS Seven states don't have to draw congressional districts because they qualify for only one seat in the House: Alaska,...

SCOTUS Agrees to Hear Cases Against Texas Redistricting 12.14.05 - Texas Cases Give High Court Chance to Set Limits on Redistricting12.12.05 - SUPREME COURT TO HEAR TEXAS REDISTRICTING CASES12.06.05 - Gerrymander Slander: Democrats Cry Foul on Texas Redistricting12.03.05 - Political Appointees Had The Final Say on Texas Redistricting12.03.05 - Democrats Seek Texas Redistricting Probe12.02.05 - U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales Defends Call on Texas Redistricting Plan 12.02.05 - DOJustice Staffers Critical of Texas Redistricting Plan10.27.05 - High Court May Take Up Texas Redistricting 12.12.05 - FLA COMMENTS: The SCOTUS agreement to rule on key questions as to the validity of...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court said on Monday that it would decide a challenge by Democrats, minority groups and others to the 2003 congressional redistricting plan in Texas engineered by Republican U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay. The high court agreed to review a ruling by a federal three-judge panel that upheld the bitterly contested map that had been approved by Republican political appointees at the U.S. Justice Department over the objections of career employees. DeLay, the former second-ranking Republican in the House of Representatives, strongly supported the plan. He was forced to relinquish his post in September when he was...

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court said Monday it would consider the constitutionality of a Texas congressional map engineered by Rep. Tom DeLay that helped Republicans gain seats in Congress. The 2003 boundaries helped Republicans win 21 of the state's 32 seats in Congress in the last election_ up from 15. They were approved amid a nasty battle between Republican leaders and Democrats and minority groups in Texas. The contentiousness also reached Washington, where the Justice Department approved the plan although staff lawyers concluded that it diluted minority voting rights. Because of historic discrimination against minority voters, Texas is required to...

On the question of minority voting rights, neither Republicans nor Democrats are covered in glory. In the latest chapter, House Democrats, led by California’s Nancy Pelosi, have gone ballistic over a leaked Department of Justice memorandum which concluded that the 2003 Texas congressional redistricting plan violated the Voting Rights Act. Pelosi has called for an independent inquiry into “the contemptible politicization of the Justice Department to rubberstamp Congressman Tom DeLay's illegal redistricting scheme” Illegal? Gee, we thought that when a federal three-judge panel decided after a lengthy trial that the plan was constitutional, that also meant it was “legal.”...

WASHINGTON — Justice Department lawyers objected to a Texas redistricting plan orchestrated by former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, but top agency officials brushed aside concerns about diluting minority voting strength and approved the plan anyway, according to an agency memo released Friday. The plan, designed to boost election chances of Republican candidates for the U.S. House, was approved by the Justice Department and the new districts were used in the 2002 elections. Of the state's 32 House seats, Republicans held 15 before the 2002 elections. Under the DeLay-backed plan, Republicans were elected to 22 of the state's seats in...

Justice Department lawyers concluded that the landmark Texas congressional redistricting plan spearheaded by Rep. Tom DeLay (R) violated the Voting Rights Act, according to a previously undisclosed memo obtained by The Washington Post. But senior officials overruled them and approved the plan. The memo, unanimously endorsed by six lawyers and two analysts in the department's voting section, said the redistricting plan illegally diluted black and Hispanic voting power in two congressional districts. It also said the plan eliminated several other districts in which minorities had a substantial, though not necessarily decisive, influence in elections. {snip} The Texas case provides another...

The question of how much longer a handful of states — most in the South, including Georgia — will be relegated to second-class status in our own country is pending before the U.S. Congress. At issue is extension of expiring provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 — specifically, Section 5, that 40 years later continues, without any basis whatsoever — to punish living Georgians for the sins of the dead. The irony, in fact, is that not only are most of the offenders dead, but their party has been ousted from power and many of those who govern...

WASHINGTON - Congressional incumbents and Capitol Hill alumni rallied 'round in the final week of the fight against California's redistricting overhaul. The well-placed Proposition 77 opponents came from many states, and with their checkbooks wide open. Amid California's most expensive election ever, the far-flung lawmakers helped pump up the forces defeating Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's agenda. "There are a number of members of Congress who don't want to face the voters," Tulare Republican Rep. Devin Nunes said Friday, "and Prop. 77 would have made that happen." At least 53 House members contributed to the anti-Proposition 77 effort between Halloween and Tuesday's...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Despite voters' rejection of Proposition 77, the Legislature's top leaders are promising to try to get a new plan on the ballot as early as next June that would strip lawmakers of the powerful job of drawing legislative and congressional districts. "I'm more than open to a redistricting effort which takes the power to draw boundaries from the Legislature and gives it to a truly independent group," Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles, said Wednesday. He wouldn't discuss details but said a fresh proposal would be unveiled shortly. Proposition 77, one of four initiatives on Tuesday's...

Exuding optimism to a skeptical electorate, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger jetted across California on Monday in a final attempt to promote his "year of reform" agenda, telling enthusiastic crowds that he had "the people power" on the eve of his special election. "We have great momentum," he said during a stop at a Del Webb retirement community in suburban Sacramento. "I'm never going to give up because I have the people power." Schwarzenegger's whirlwind day of campaigning followed a weekend in which he was dogged on a Southern California bus tour by opponents that included director Warren Beatty and tried to...