Take that, Tom
Jun. 28th, 2006 10:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chelidonLooks like the U.S. Supreme Court overturned at least some of the convoluted and arcane Texas congressional redistrictng scheme that was engineered by Tom DeLay, which was designed purely to increase the number of Republican elected representatives, I'll wait to celebrate until I read the details, and it becomes clearer whether this will take effect in time to impact the 2008 mid-term elections, but this could be a very good thing.
[EDIT: High court upholds most of Texas redistricting map (subhed: Decision represents small victory for Democrats)]
Not so good. Some tweaking based on minority voting issues, but they left the majority of the blatantly skewed redistricting alone. And that will now stand until someday, somehow, Texas elects a majority Democratic state government, who will then redistrict and skew it back again..hmmph
From AP: On a different issue, the court ruled that state legislators may draw new maps as often as they like _ not just once a decade as Texas Democrats claimed. That means Democratic and Republican state lawmakers can push through new maps anytime there is a power shift at a state capital.
The Constitution says states must adjust their congressional district lines every 10 years to account for population shifts. In Texas the boundaries were redrawn twice after the 2000 census, first by a court, then by state lawmakers in a second round promoted by DeLay after Republicans took control.
That was acceptable, justices said.
Bad decision. Now every single time there's a power shift between the GOP and Democrats in any state, you can be pretty much guaranteed that state's House will immediately redraw the whole congressional district map for the entire state -- not to make fair, logical districts, as the redistricting law intended, but solely to increase their party's representation at the national level by marginalizing and fragmenting members of the opposing party across multiple convoluted and illogically-drawn districts. And the other party will sue, and the legal battles will go on and on... Clearly this is not what the Founding Fathers intended.
[EDIT: High court upholds most of Texas redistricting map (subhed: Decision represents small victory for Democrats)]
Not so good. Some tweaking based on minority voting issues, but they left the majority of the blatantly skewed redistricting alone. And that will now stand until someday, somehow, Texas elects a majority Democratic state government, who will then redistrict and skew it back again..hmmph
From AP: On a different issue, the court ruled that state legislators may draw new maps as often as they like _ not just once a decade as Texas Democrats claimed. That means Democratic and Republican state lawmakers can push through new maps anytime there is a power shift at a state capital.
The Constitution says states must adjust their congressional district lines every 10 years to account for population shifts. In Texas the boundaries were redrawn twice after the 2000 census, first by a court, then by state lawmakers in a second round promoted by DeLay after Republicans took control.
That was acceptable, justices said.
Bad decision. Now every single time there's a power shift between the GOP and Democrats in any state, you can be pretty much guaranteed that state's House will immediately redraw the whole congressional district map for the entire state -- not to make fair, logical districts, as the redistricting law intended, but solely to increase their party's representation at the national level by marginalizing and fragmenting members of the opposing party across multiple convoluted and illogically-drawn districts. And the other party will sue, and the legal battles will go on and on... Clearly this is not what the Founding Fathers intended.
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no subject
Date: 2006-06-28 02:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-28 02:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-28 03:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-29 02:46 pm (UTC)*sigh*
Should be home most all day if you or C want to call. My partner is sick so no construction today, its catch up on web stuff day for me....