Posted on 12/21/2003 7:43:53 AM PST by Theodore R.
Attorney asks why Justice Department approved map associated press
An attorney representing Texas congressional Democrats in a federal redistricting trial has asked the U.S. Department of Justice to explain how it arrived at its decision to uphold a Republican redistricting plan.
Attorney Gerry Hebert sent a letter to the Justice Department on Saturday saying he has heard from people within the agency that Civil Rights Division lawyers investigating the Texas map had recommended it not be allowed. But he said political appointees at the department overruled them.
A Justice Department spokes woman on Saturday declined to comment and could not confirm that the agency had received the letter.
The Justice Department on Friday cleared the Republican-backed map of violating the Voting Rights Act. The federal trial in the case is continuing in Austin, and a three-judge panel is expected to rule after closing arguments Tuesday.
Democrats and minority groups challenged the map in court, saying it violates the Voting Rights Act by diluting the voting strength of minorities. Republicans say the map is only intended to more accurately reflect voting trends in Texas, where the GOP holds all statewide elected offices and controls the Legislature.
Democrats lead the delegation 17-15, but the new map could mean as many as seven more seats for the GOP.
Hebert, who worked for the agency's Civil Rights Division for more than 20 years, said in an interview Saturday that it's extremely rare for a recommendation to be rejected.
"It is often a rubber stamp," he said. Hebert in his letter said a gag order is in place on Justice Department employees who dealt with the case.
"I believe these restrictions were imposed to hide from public scrutiny the decision that political appointees made early on that pre-clearance would be granted to the proposed map, regardless of the recommendation from the Voting Section," he wrote.
Hebert said six staff attorneys and a paralegal within the Civil Rights Division's Voting Section — none of them political appointees — worked on the case.
To find that the map violated the Voting Rights Act, they had to find that the map "as a whole is going to make black and Hispanic voters worse off than they were before," he said.
If minorities were at the same level or if their situation improved, the recommendation would have been to approve the map, he said.
"What my information is, is that the letter that was sent (by staff attorneys) recommended an objection and that the political appointees were not persuaded by that and so went ahead and sent the letter (approving the map)," he said.
The redistricting plan was passed by the Legislature after a year of partisan fighting and three special sessions. Democrats staged two out-of-state boycotts to thwart the redistricting effort before it was finally approved in October.
When considering redistricting and minorities in Texas, it is instructive to look at the dispute between weasels Eddie Bernice Johnson and Martin Frost (both dems) and how the dems fiddled with redistricting and moving minority voters when the dems controlled the legislature.
Why, I'm shocked! Shocked, I tell you!
This NEVER happened in the previous administration.
</ sarcasm, like you really had to be told that>
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