Friday’s Supreme Court Ruling Will Help GOP in Texas

The Supreme Court rejected a lower court’s elections maps in Texas that had favored Democratic candidates.
The New York Times reported, via Free Republic:

The Supreme Court on Friday rejected elections maps drawn by a federal court in Texas that had favored Democratic candidates there.

The unanimous decision said that redistricting is primarily a job for elected state officials and that the lower court had not paid enough deference to maps drawn by the State Legislature, which is controlled by Republicans. The justices sent the case back to the lower court, extending the uncertainty surrounding this major voting-rights case.

The new maps to be drawn by the lower court could play a role in determining control of the House of Representatives. Democrats need a net gain of 25 seats to take back the House from Republican control, and both parties are fighting for every advantage in the battle for the House majority. Experts in election administration said the new maps could influence outcomes in perhaps three Texas districts.

“A district court should take guidance from the state’s recently enacted plan in drafting an interim plan,” the Supreme Court’s unsigned decision said. “That plan reflects the state’s policy judgments on where to place new districts and how to shift existing ones in response to massive population growth.”

The changes to the electoral maps were required because Texas grew by more than four million people in the last decade, with about 65 percent of that growth coming in the Hispanic population. The growth entitled the state to four additional House seats. In rejecting significant aspects of the Legislature’s maps, the lower court said it had tried to ensure that Hispanic voters had adequate opportunities to elect candidates of their choice, adding that political considerations had played no role.

“This is a big win for Texas, and will require the drawing of districts much more likely to favor Texas’s interim plan,” Richard L. Hasen, an election law expert at the University of California, Irvine, said in an e-mail. The new maps, Professor Hasen said, would “favor Republicans over Democrats” as compared with the lower court’s original maps.

Greg Abbott, the attorney general of Texas, expressed satisfaction with the decision.

“The Supreme Court confirmed that the San Antonio court drew illegal maps, without regard for the policy decisions of elected leaders,” Mr. Abbott said in a statement.

#1 January 21, 2012 at 9:54 am
JoyO commented:

We have to put a end to activist judges at all levels of our judicial system — judges at the local, state, and Federal levels have been LEGISLATING law instead of APPLYING law. We are supposed to be a nation functioning under the rule of law and we’re becoming a banana nation due to our activist judges!
#2 January 21, 2012 at 9:55 am
pksawyer commented:

Yeeehaw.
#3 January 21, 2012 at 10:08 am
Nancy commented:

Gee, what a surprise. Activist judges doing something illegal under the cover of their office. Color me stunned.
#4 January 21, 2012 at 10:09 am
bg commented:

++

OT..

this should have it’s own post, if for nothing else, to get the truth out..

“Newt Gingrich’s oh-so-controversial college course that he started
back in 1993 before he was Speaker. Remember how Democrats
denounced it?” Jackson began. “Tax fraud? Well, never mind. After a
three-and-a-half year examination, the Internal Revenue Service –
Bill Clinton’s IRS – has issued an official finding: no violation of tax
laws.”

and shut the know it all know nothings the hell up once & for all
(well, maybe that’s aiming too high, but at least we’d have a GP
reference link.. )!!

==
#5 January 21, 2012 at 10:17 am
retire05 commented:

What is really sick about the whole “Texas” redistricting issue is that the Democrats are claiming that due to the lines drawn by our Legislature, minorities are being disenfranchised since they are not equally represented. That is due to a SCOTUS ruling that affects only states that once had Jim Crow laws, 50 years ago.

The problem is that the Democrats have no argument because Texas is now a minority-majority state, where people of color (Blacks and Hispanics) outnumber whites. Also, white are blatantly disenfranchised in districts held by those like Sheila Jackson Lee where her lines have been drawn, repeatedly, by Democrats to protect her by having a strong black majority constituency.

The old rules need to be changed. Voter districts were never meant to be drawn based on race, but on population. SCOTUS rules were just one more stab at the South. Ever read how the inner city districts of Chicago or Detroit disenfranchise white voters? No, and you won’t.
#6 January 21, 2012 at 10:18 am
retire05 commented:

bg, and your post about Gingrich has exactly WHAT to do with redistricting lines?
#7 January 21, 2012 at 11:50 am
valerie commented:

” “This is a big win for Texas, and will require the drawing of districts much more likely to favor Texas’s interim plan,” Richard L. Hasen, an election law expert at the University of California, Irvine, said in an e-mail. The new maps, Professor Hasen said, would “favor Republicans over Democrats” as compared with the lower court’s original maps. ”

There are law schools and election experts in Texas who are closer to the issues and know far more about the entire scenario. So why does the New York Times go to California to get a quote? I wonder if they had to go quote shopping in order to find what they wanted to print.
#8 January 21, 2012 at 12:15 pm
Mad Hatter commented:

Here’s a story I found from Fox News back on November 17th, 2011, when the activist (not Judges, they’re activist) at a Federal Court first blocked the legal redistricting plan.

Let’s do this one by one from the story.

Democrats and minorities have complained that the maps drawn by the Republican-controlled Legislature prevent minority groups from electing their choice of candidate.

But state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer — who is chairman of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, one of the plaintiffs — said the court’s proposal “reflects the natural demographic progression in a state that is changing day by day.”

“If adopted by this court, this will be the greatest expansion of minority opportunity in the history of the Texas House of Representatives.”

First off, when did everything evolve around minorities interests for laws, and elections?

“maps drawn by the Republican-controlled Legislature prevent minority groups from electing their choice of candidate.”

So if/when the new district maps are drawn up, minority groups won’t have a chance to elect their choice of candidate in a primary? Then vote for that candidate in the general election. Just proof that Trey Martinez Fischer either doesn’t know how our system of elections work, or he’s not intelligent enough to think about this common practice that takes place in elections.

“If adopted by this court, this will be the greatest expansion of minority opportunity in the history of the Texas House of Representatives.”

So the only way minorities are to get elected is if they hold the majority voting power in districts? It sounds like he’s implying that whites won’t vote for a minority candidate. Sounds like Trey Martinez Fischer (I’m sure he’s one of the high and might open minded superior people of our society) needs to go to sensitivity training.

He needs to look up Nicky Haily, Bobby Jindal, Marco Rubio, and Allen West to name a few. The little man will quickly see that minorities do just fine without having set aside districts.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/11/17/texas-redistricting-may-give-democrats-greater-chance-willing-seats-in-state/

It’s typical of the Democrats, isn’t it? If they can’t get the dead people out on election day, they’ll get the illegals out on election day.

If they can’t win that way, they’ll cry foul when the Republicans redraw the districts in the state House they won. It’s not like the Democrats have ever done that before, right?

They’ll play the victim, shop it to a judge, and if that doesn’t work, then parade out the “drip drip drip” parade of victims that have been “disenfranchised” because of the new laws. All in an attempt to guilt down the majority population.

What a bunch of pathetic losers.
#9 January 21, 2012 at 12:35 pm
Bad Actor commented:

Can the new congressional district map for Texas PLEASE be drawn to eliminate Sheila Jackson Lee’s district? Please? I am SO sick of hearing the idiocy that comes out of her mouth.
#11 January 21, 2012 at 3:54 pm
Militant Conservative commented:

Four new seats due to growth not caused by Obama.

Democrats are going down hard, the NOTUS is

Such a loser. Satan is in the WH
#12 January 21, 2012 at 7:42 pm
The Elector of Saxony commented:

The Left hates a fair election, that’s for sure. If the vote goes their way, how dare you challenge it in court. If the vote goes against them, they shop for a court that will overturn the democratic election. All over the world, Socialists hold elections where the outcome is never different, a 100% result for the reigning Socialist oligarchy. Obama and his supporters (Obama has even said this out loud) would love to bypass the voting booth and rule outright.

So-called minorities like to complain they are being disenfranchised unless elections are fixed in their favor. Of course, the result of such fixes has historically been disastrous to the places where such fixes applied. Visit fabulous Detroit! The most minority city in America, and the least successful. Chicken, Egg, I think all but the moronic know the answer.
#13 January 21, 2012 at 7:58 pm
Molon Labe commented:

Election districts should be drawn up in an impartial way disregarding demographics but defined by clear boundaries rather than having some of the infamous wandering districts designed to favor a specific group of people. This is why we have so little change in our leaders and representatives.