The Supreme Court today announced that it will hear several challenges to the legality of Tom DeLay’s infamous gerrymander in Texas that handed several seats to congressional Republicans. You can read good coverage of the issues at SCOTUSblog and at Election Law.
The issue of partisan gerrymanders has been before the Supremes recently in a Pennsylvania case, and revealed a deeply split Court: 4 Justices said that the courts had no role to play; 4 said that courts could get involved, and 1 – Justice Kennedy – said “maybe.” Because Rehnquist and O’Connor were in the “no review” bloc, it is unlikely that the presence of Roberts or Alito will make any difference in the Texas case – unless one of them turns out to be a surprise vote in favor of judicial review (don’t look for that to happen). This one is all about what Kennedy thinks.
And the case is, of course, HUGELY important. The Court has expedited the cases so that they will be argued on March 1 and decided by the end of the Court’s term in June. That means they could affect the 2006 elections. So if the Court calls the gerrymander into question, hold on to your hats – it’s gonna be wild in Texas. Recall that the gains that the House Republicans made in the 2004 elections were due almost entirely to the DeLay gerrymander. If the Republicans lose that advantage because of court action, the House is very much in play.
You know how we joke about Galvin being the “Prince of Darkness” well Delay is the real deal. Being a recently exiled staffer from the Hill, I can say this much with certainty, if Delay is convicted and the Supreme Court tosses his Texas redistricting it will be a HUGE victory for the Dems. We’d probably win back another 4-5 seats in Texas. More importantly, it gives the RNCC another handful of seats to worry about and makes them play defense while Rahm Emanuel and the DCCC goes on the offensive.
Looks like any redistricting in Texas wouldn’t have an effect until 2008, according to Chris Cilliza at the Washington Post’s political blog, the Fix
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http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2005/12/supremes_to_hea.html
But it depends what the Court does. If it finds a violation, it could pretty much order any remedy it wanted – including new primaries. No one can say for sure what will happen at this point.
Very good point david, guess what I meant say was, it would be highly unlikely for them to rule in a manner that would effect the 2006 mid terms. That being said, its Texas, and well, lots of highly unlikely things happen.
That same post linked above, has been updated to note the fact that the last time the Supreme Court struck down a Texas redistricting, in the 1990s, they did exactly that: ordered the primaries, which had already happened, null, and forced Texas to hold new special elections instead.
I give up on predicting anything that will ever happen in Texas. For all I know the Supreme Court could declare it a sovereign entity come March!