The Supreme Court on Friday set aside Texas redistricting plans drawn by a federal court that were favored by minorities and Democrats, and ordered the lower court to come up with new plans based more closely on maps drawn by the Texas legislature. In an unsigned opinion that drew no dissents, the justices said a federal panel in San Antonio “exceeded its mission” in drawing interim plans for the state’s upcoming primaries. It said the court was wrong to believe its plans needed to be completely independent of the ones passed by the legislature. “A district court should take guidance from the state’s recently enacted plan in drafting an interim plan,” the justices wrote. They added, however, that courts must be careful not to incorporate parts of a state’s plan that might violate the Constitution and the federal Voting Rights Act.
Because of its population growth over the past decade, Texas was awarded four new congressional districts. Nearly two-thirds of that growth was in the Hispanic community, and Latino groups said the plans approved by Texas’s Republican-dominated legislature and signed by Gov. Rick Perry (R) improperly diluted their power. On the national political landscape, the maps are important because some analysts believe they could play a role in deciding which party controls the House of Representatives.
They said the congressional plan drawn by the legislature could result in Republicans claiming three those new districts. The plan written by the three-judge panel in San Antonio could result in just the opposite results, the analysts said. The Supreme Court’s mission was complicated by the fact that the Voting Rights Act had meant Texas’s redistricting was being considered in two courts with different objectives.
Full Article: Supreme Court sides with Texas on redistricting plan – The Washington Post.
