Houston Democrats

As a result of this ruling, the current congressional districts will remain in place at least through the 2006 elections unless the Supreme Court steps in and rules that redistricting was illegal. Generally, federal courts do not halt elections while a redistricting case is under consideration.

Texas Attorney General Gregg Abbott had the following to say about the ruling:

We are pleased. As the federal panel today concluded once again, the Texas redistricting plan is entirely consistent with federal law and the United States Constitution. That should end the matter, and it is time to move on.

I may be wrong, but I thought that redistricting could only occur once every ten years after the census was conducted, not midway through like that which occured in Texas. Yet, again Republicans showed their disdain for rules. Apparently, those were only meant for Democrats.

Gerald Hebert is one of the lawyers who is representing Democrats that challenge the plan. He said that a new appeal to the US Supreme Court will occur by October.

The three-judge panel comprised of Judge Patrick Higginbotham of the US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, US District Judge Lee Rosenthal of Houston, and US District Judge John Ward. Higgingbotham and Rosenthal are both Republican appointees, while Ward is a Democratic appointee. They agreed that no standard exists for measuring how partisan the Texas plan is.

What?!?! I think the Texas plan sets the standard for partisan divisions. I live in a district that runs from Northwest Houston clear to Austin, nearly 200 miles away. That's just ridiculous. My district looks more like a spaghetti noodle than a congressional district.

Here's the majority ruling by Judge Higginbotham and Judge Rosenthal:

We conclude that claims of excessive partisanship before us suffer from a lack of any measure of substantial fairness.

Last year a similar panel of federal judges rejected the redistricting lawsuit. The ruling was appealed to the US Supreme Court denied it a hearing, instead referring it back to Texas for further review.

The Supreme Court requested that the jduges set methods to determine whether a redistricting map was drawn to favor one political party, so unfair that it violated the constitution.

Take a look at this:

The Republican congressional plan was passed by the Legislature in 2003 during an acrimonious debate that lasted through a regular legislative session and three special sessions.

Democrats and minority groups challenged the plan before the three-judge panel, claiming it was excessively politically gerrymandered and violated the voting rights of minorities. They lost on a 2-1 opinion and appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Democrats held a 17-15 majority in the state's congressional delegation before the redistricting debate began. After the 2004 elections, Republicans held a 21-11 majority.

Favoring one political party, nah, no way, absolutely not! So the fact that Republicans gained six seats isn't favoritism.

Gerry Herbert an attorney for the Democrats stated:

It sets the precedent that anything goes in redistricting and there are no rules when it comes to playing politics.

The three-judge panel on mid-decade redistricting:

But the court split on the issue of whether a state can redraw district boundaries between censuses when a legal plan exists. Lawyers for the city of Austin and a group of university professors had argued mid-decade redistricting would violate the principle of one-person, one-vote because populations shift.

Higginbotham and Rosenthal said redistricting exists in the "legal fiction" that a census remains constant for a decade. They said it is unclear what the effect would be of requiring a Legislature to adopt new population data before doing a mid-decade redistricting.

"It is difficult to discern how (the) proposed rule actually protects or furthers the one-person, one-vote principle, as opposed to the one-person, one-vote fiction," they wrote.

Ward said he would adopt the population data standard as a means of halting mid-decade redistricting, but he said the issue was outside the scope of the Supreme Court's order to reconsider the case.

I just loved the fact that Republicans blamed the shape of the districts on some computer model they were using. I bet Tom DeLay had a hand in getting one of his cronies to design that computer program to make ribbons out of Texas Congressional districts.

We clearly need a definitive set of rules for drawing districts in Texas. Here are some ideas I have:

• Districts can only be redrawn after the census every ten years.
• Define a clear ratio for the length and width of a district that cannot be exceeded, so we can't have districts running from the Texas border with Mexico to Austin, or Houston to Austin.

• Create a panel of six people (or another even number).
• Panel members should not have a direct interest in the shape of districts. Panel members could comprise of retired judges from different regions of Texas.
• Half of the members would be chosen by Republicans and half by Democrats.
• A majority should agree on the plan.

I am unsure as to how to deal with the case of a tie. Possibly there could be one committee member agreed upon by Republicans and Democrats that would be involved only in the case of a tie.

I would be interested in hearing other people's thoughts on what rules should be used to prevent redistricting abuse. My ideas are just ideas, and I'm certainly no expert in this kind of thing, but I think there certainly could be a more fair method of redrawing districts than leaving it up to politicians in the Lege who severely abuse their power. It is a major conflict of interest for those who stand to benefit the most from redistricting to be responsible for drawing the districts. Essentially the situation as it currently stands is like a criminal presiding over his trial. It just doesn't make sense, and opens the floodgates for partisan gain and gerrymandering.

Here are two articles on the issue from the Washington Post and the Houston Chronicle.