:o)
Posted on 09/19/2011 3:11:50 PM PDT by smoothsailing
David Wasserman
September 19, 2011
The Obama administration is issuing its first civil rights challenge to a redistricting plan against Texas, the state that will gain the most congressional seats from the once-a-decade redrawing of the nation's political map.
It marks the first challenge by the Justice Department to a redistricting plan this year and it has major political implications: The fight could determine which party stands a better shot of winning four new Texas House seats, and it potentially represents the opening round of a political fight between the president and the Lone Star State governor who is vying to unseat him, Republican Rick Perry.
Attorneys for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division on Tuesday said they will fight the Republican-drawn Texas congressional and state House maps in a preclearance trial before the U. S. District Court for the District of Columbia, arguing that it violates Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.
Latino groups, along with Texas Democrats, had alleged that the Perry-signed congressional map granted Latinos no new net opportunities to elect the candidate of their choice even though Latinos accounted for a majority of the population growth that is earning Texas four new House seats. Texas Republicans, led by Attorney General Greg Abbott, foresaw that the Justice Department would deny them preclearance and are currently going to trial against the DOJ in the DC District Court to seek approval for the map.
The Justice Department is expected to lay out its specific objections to the maps and stipulations for fixes tomorrow. So far, the Justice Department has been relatively lenient in clearing state redistricting plans, disappointing some Democrats earlier this summer by approving a Republican-drawn map in Louisiana that denied African-Americans a second majority seat. However, given the Latino surge and high stakes in Texas, Democrats were not surprised that DOJ lawyers found the Texas plan to be discriminatory to Latinos in its intent and effect. Had the Texas plan been okayed, said Democratic redistricting attorney Gerald Hebert, “I would think that there’s nobody home at the Justice Department.”
Given Texas Republicans’ legal strategy to bypass the DOJ, the Civil Rights Division’s stance shouldn’t come as a surprise to the GOP either. But according to one GOP redistricting expert who requested anonymity in order to speak more candidly about the process, the fight over the Texas map is now entering the “kind of worst possible world.” The expert predicts the Justice Department's position and large number of interveners in the case could add up to an extended discovery phase and a long and costly trial at the DC District Court, which could prompt a federal court in San Antonio to “draw a de novo plan using the current plan as a benchmark.”
The Republican map already has taken plenty of hits in this month’s separate trial before a three-judge federal panel in San Antonio. Latino groups ranging from the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund to the League of United Latin American Citizens expressed optimism at last Friday’s conclusion of the trial that the judges would rule some of the most blatant elements of the map to be unlawful and discriminatory. “Judges were asking why no new Latino seats were drawn in North Texas,” says Hebert, who participated in the trial.
Another ominous sign for Republicans: the GOP’s defense of the map in San Antonio veered off track when one of their own expert witnesses, Rice University professor John Alford, testified that the congressional map created no new net Latino opportunities.
The San Antonio federal court faces a time crunch: they would prefer to wait to issue their own ruling until the DC District Court rules on preclearance, but Texas’s candidate filing period for the March 2012 primary is supposed to open in November. While the federal court could theoretically delay the date of the state’s primary, it’s unclear how far they would be willing to push back the state’s calendar to give the GOP’s map a chance. “If I were in Democrats’ shoes,” says the GOP expert, “I’d draw [the DC District Court trial] out as long as possible.”
A de novo (from scratch) plan would indeed amount to a disastrous outcome for Texas Republicans, whose line-drawing handiwork would never see the light of day if federal judges impose their own map for 2012. The GOP-approved congressional map created 26 safe seats for Republicans and 10 safe seats for Democrats. Insiders on both sides of the partisan divide a court-drawn map could cost Republicans the West Texas 23rd CD and Dallas-area 33rd CD at a minimum and put as many as three additional GOP seats in limbo.
Is it a coincidence that the DOJ has picked its first redistricting fight over a Perry-signed map that Latino groups allege is discriminatory? Could the GOP have guaranteed more of what it wanted by playing it safe and ceding one of the four new seats as a Latino opportunity district? Those questions, says the GOP expert, may be “imponderables.”
Send her to my house—I’d be happy to give her a donation for anyone running against Doggsh*t!
That was the first thing I asked her. Where do I send a donation? I’ll scan and email you the info tomorrow. She is one of the North Shore Republican volunteers, and I will be staying in touch with them.
This one is even more Hispanic than before—I think he’ll have to change his name to Eugenio Verde to have a chance. : )
I was talking to a woman yesterday who is from Ecuador (I knew her husband is a native of Puerto Rico, so I asked her where she was from). She looks like she is entirely of Spanish ancestry--if she has any Indian ancestry it can't be very much.
Rabble rouser. ;)
You mean no new districts spread out over several counties carefully drawn to guarantee a desired result.
Pretty insulting to Hispanics isn't it, to assume they only want to vote a certain way ?
What an inspired tagline! ;-)
Black Democrats what a couple of extra seats ~ and if that means Hispanics get nothing that's fine with them.
They ought to work with the Republicans there like they did in Virginia to draw district lines that divided the third community in two. It wasn't over seats, but the Democrats and Republicans worked together to preserve safe black seats and eliminate any opportunity for Korean Republicans or Korean Democrats to ever win a county chairman position.
Just never going to happen.
The guys in Justice Department went along with the idea.
I don't see it as just Perry.
Obama appears to have it in for Texas and Texans.
Helluva President, huh?
Riddle typically runs as a libertarian. Michael Williams is also running for this seat. I think Doggett is switching to CD 35 instead because CD 25 is now a Republican majority district.
Wull...shucks! Thanks! :)
:o)
Exactly where I got it! :) Thanks!
Love this photo....seems to say...”Make my day, Zero!”
I have a feeling that Perry will win this one, too. He has
the constitution on his side.
Of course, zero and his minions could care less for it.
I’d like to see Texas Tell the Federal Judges to take their map and their opinion of the Texas State districts and shove it where the sun don’t shine.
No Federal official anywhere has any right telling ANY state how to draw its congressional districts. The Federal Constitution does not cede to the Federal Government the power to draw their own districts it leaves that with the States.
Its time Federal Employees learn their place.
“Hint - Palin can’t win the general election, or even the primary. She quit her governship 1/2 way through her first term. She signed the law that led to her quitting her governorship.
She can’t win, IMO. Barry’s best bet is to go against someone he can paint as a quitter.”
While its true that she signed the law that led to the abusive situation in which the good of her state required her to resign. It is also true that she did in fact GIVE UP power for the good of her state.
I can’t think of any better or more important attribute for a politician, particularly a politician we send to Washington D.C.
I’m not one urging Palin to run, i think shes best staying out cause i don’t think she can win either the primary or the General. But I do resent your characterization of her resigning from the governors office as a Negative. That is by far among the most positive and noble thing any politician can do.
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