Free Republic

A federal court gave final approval Thursday to the redrawn Virginia House of Delegates map that a court-appointed expert created to resolve the state’s long-running racial gerrymandering case. In a 2-1 opinion, judges for the Richmond-based Eastern District of Virginia ordered the state to adopt the map created by University of California-Irvine political science professor Bernard Grofman. The map could boost Democrats’ chances of taking control of the House later this year by tilting six GOP-held districts toward Democrats and imperiling the re-election campaigns of two top Republicans. Republicans had called Grofman’s map “legally indefensible,” saying it “attempts to give...

WASHINGTON - A key Supreme Court justice said Wednesday that Texas Republicans appeared to hurt minority voters when they redrew congressional boundaries that helped the GOP entrench its power in Congress. But despite Justice Anthony M. Kennedy's misgivings, it did not appear there was broad support on the high court to throw out the entire map promoted by former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas to help Republicans win six more seats. Justices also did not seem ready to bar states from drawing their boundaries more than once a decade. The court took up four appeals that raised complicated...