Posted on 10/21/2004 7:14:50 AM PDT by Area Freeper
The US Supreme Court turned down a key element of a Republican strategy to tighten the party's control of the House of Representatives, possibly setting the stage for bitter litigation over the outcome of congressional elections on November 2.
AFP/File Photo
The court refused Monday to uphold a Republican-engineered redistricting scheme in the state of Texas that is likely to win the party up to six additional House seats and sent back for review an earlier US federal court ruling that had found it legal.
"The judgment is vacated and the cases are remanded to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas for further consideration," the court order stated without further comment.
The decision ended a long and dramatic political battle that featured police manhunts, escapes under cover of darkness and a high-profile Washington power broker acting primarily from behind the scenes.
Coming just two weeks before the US presidential election, the ruling will not be able to affect the November 2 vote.
But legal experts said it was likely to give rise to legal challenges to congressional election results in Texas, a state that sends to Washington a whopping 32 members of the House of Representatives.
"The effect is that the Democrats live to fight another day," said Gerald Hebert, one of the attorneys representing Democratic challengers of the redistricting scheme. "This gives me great optimism... Today's decision helps us get to the place we want to go."
The fight goes back to early 2003, when Texas Republicans, guided by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, redrew the state's electoral map, adding conservative strongholds to traditional Democratic districts and diluting the Democratic support base.
The scheme is now expected to yield the Republicans up to six additional congressional seats, significantly complicating Democratic hopes of retaking the House, where Republicans currently hold a 227-205 majority.
It has already forced Democratic Representative Jim Turner (news, bio, voting record) into retirement and is seriously threatening such party stalwarts as Martin Frost and Charles Stenholm, who between them have spent more than half a century on Capitol Hill.
Texas Democrats fought the plan tooth and nail, with elected officials at one point even fleeing the state to neighboring Oklahoma to deny Republicans a quorum in the state legislature. State troopers were ordered to bring them back as soon as they set foot on Texan soil.
In the end, the plan was pushed through but it triggered a slew of court challenges that have gone all the way up to the Supreme Court.
After the Supreme Court handed down its verdict, DeLay insisted the ruling was "highly technical". "It won't change the current election," he said.
But experts said it has injected a new legal component into the fight over the US Congress, which is shaping every bit as tight and heated as the presidential race.
Democrats claim they can retake both the House and Senate this year, thus halting the Republican agenda. Republicans dismiss these statements as campaign posturing.
But independent analysts say Democrats have a credible shot of recapturing at least the Senate, which Republicans control by just one vote.
Their candidates are running strong in Oklahoma, Colorado and Alaska -- all traditionally Republican states. They have a vulnerable candidate in South Carolina. But races in South Dakota, North Carolina and Florida are considered tossups that could go either way.
C'est les Francais pour vous!
The Supreme Court allowed the Democrats to run roughshod over the rights of the Republican minority for 50 years. Now the Republicans are in the majority, but the Supreme Court is trying to prevent them from exercising the control that comes with being the majority, and it is trying to force the will of the Democratic minority onto the American people.
The Supreme Court is out of control, and is engaged in the most egredious abuse of power in the history of this country.
I am beginning to get sick of judges and courts.
SCOTUS' appellate jurisdiction should be curtailed.
They are running amok.
Isn't this Gerrymandering, and isn't it bad when Democrats do the same exact thing?
Can someone with a legal mind please explain exactly what the Supreme Court actually ruled against in this plan - and please explain why the plan was problematic to begin with.
I thought that in the past that redistricting schemes were allowed if they were based on an attempt to gain partisan advantage and disallowed only if they were created for the purpose of hurting minorities.
Whaddaya expect from the FRENCH version of the Associated Press.
Here's a more reasoned view of it by a lawyer
SCOTUS decision today on Texas redistricting case is no big deal
http://www.beldar.org/beldarblog/2004/10/scotus_decision.html
Yes, The AP is spinning.
Yes and no - the reason for redrawing the districts is to more accurately represent the political leanings of the citizens of Texas - there are currently far more Republicans, but the lines are drawn (by Democrats in the past) so there are more Dems representing Texas than there are republicans; a clear imbalance of representation vs. party affiliation. Ploitics? Yes. Wrong? Only if you're a Dim and you want to maintain an unfair imbalance.
The Supreme Court did not rule against this plan. I am oversimplifying this so forgive me. The appeals court based its decision, upholding the redistricting plan, on what it deemed to be the current state of the law. In the interim, between the appeals court decision and the Supreme Court taking up that decision, the Supreme Court issued another ruling further clarifying the law. All the Supreme Court is saying is this: It would be a waste of our time to look at this until the lower courts reconsider it applying the new standards we annunciated.
This is something that happens quite often. Whether it has a bearing on the original decision is another matter. But, the Supreme Court DID NOT reject the Texas redistricting plan in any way shape or form.
I'm a lawyer, too. The fact is though that the courts routinely rejected these cases when the Democrats were in power. Now they are considering them becasue the Republicans are in power. It's bias, no matter how you cut it. This one case may or may not be significant, but the Courts should not be manipulating the result of the political process. It is, however, an inevitable result of activism in the judiciary, and that is why we're seeing it more than we used to.
In short, the redistricting applies as written to the current election, and will not necessarily be changed for 2006 and 2008.
Congressman Billybob
Which is not an equal solution. You cannot say that it is fine for white people to be disadvantaged for political purposes but not for black people. It is either wrong for all or right for all.
Maybe we should just fire all the legislatures and ask the courts to rule on everything. It would save time and money. No one would squabble anymore. Wouldn't that be nice? Peace and harmony. Busy yourself with perversion and addiciton and don't worry about the country. The judges will see to everything. Why didn't the Founders think of this?
Funny isn't it. The Legal establishment slams Texas plan but leaves untouched California which has a much much worse system designed by Democrats. Why the heck aren't California Republican's sueing?
Yeah, 'Rats are behind, but 'running strong' in the GOp-incumbent states, but the states where the incumbent 'Rats are behind are 'tossups.'
Here's hoping that Sen D'Aschole is tossed - right out of office.........
I thought redistricting was a state issue.
Who pulled their chains?
And, by the way, what can be done to rein in the out-of-control Surpemes? Souter, Ginsberg, Stevens, Breyer, O'Connor and Kennedy have demonstrated they are unfit for the offices they hold.
If the Repubs controlled Congress by enough seats, these superannuated goons would be impeached and packed off to the Senior Citizens' homes where they belong.
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