In a 5-4 ruling the Supreme Court upheld portions of the re-districting plan in Texas. They did declare that a west Texas district was really painfully redrawn diluted the Latino vote and was unconstitutional. (This district will have to be redrawn and approved before the November election.) That is the only thing in the ruling that is clear to me. The rest of the ruling seems to be several different decisions that really don’t help to decide anything. Just to prove that concensus was lacking, 7 different opinions were written. Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Il.) Chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, “Every redistricting is a partisan political exercise, but this is going to put it at a level we have never seen. That’s the gift that the Supreme Court and Tom DeLay have given us.” Look for states to begin re-drawing districts left and right (pun intended).
I look forward to reading Glenn Greenwald’s take on this.
