Supreme Court Tosses Out Judge-Drawn Texas Redistricting
by Justin Shubow
Posted January 20, 2012, 2:45 PM
CNN reports on an important Supreme Court decision regarding legislative redistricting:
The Supreme Court has tossed out the Texas redistricting map for congressional and legislative seats drawn up a federal court, giving a partial victory to GOP lawmakers.
In an unsigned opinion issued just 11 days after holding oral arguments, the justices said a revised map that differed greatly from the one created by the legislature used ambiguous standards.
"To the extent the [federal] District Court exceeded its mission to draw interim maps that do not violate the Constitution or the Voting Rights Act, and substituted its own concept of 'the collective public good' for the Texas Legislature's determination of which policies serve 'the interests of the citizens of Texas,' the [district] court erred," said the Supreme Court ruling Friday.
At issue are competing maps for the Texas state legislative and congressional districts – created first by Republican lawmakers that favored their political base, and later by a federal judicial panel to give minorities greater voting power.
The court-drawn map was imposed after Democrats and minority groups in Texas challenged the original plan approved by the GOP-led state legislature.
The political stakes are huge: Texas gains four new congressional seats based on the newly completed census, and this ruling could help determine whether Democrats can wrest control of the House of Representatives from the Republicans.
The legal stakes are just as important – creating standards courts must use when evaluating voting boundaries. This is the latest election-related dispute for the justices this year. Continuing, separate challenges to campaign spending laws and state voter identification laws will soon be presented to the court.