High court to rule on Delay redistricting,fleecing of minority voters.

Source AP News via Yahoo News

Finally, the Supreme Court hears a case that could change the political landscape for years to come. The issue in balance is whether or not a Republican redistricting plan is unconstitutional.

WASHINGTON--In less than three years, a Republican-imposed redistricting of Texas' congressional districts strengthened the GOP grip on Congress, hastened former Majority Leader Tom DeLay's fall from power and triggered a partisan clash over the voting rights of blacks and Hispanics.

Now the Supreme Court will consider whether it was constitutional as well as controversial.

In legal terms, the dispute turns largely on this: Whether the Republican maneuver in 2003 crossed the line between "excessive partisanship--which is unconstitutional--and permissible partisanship--which is not unconstitutional," according to Guy-Uriel E. Charles, a law professor who summarized the case in an American Bar Association publication.

This was a clear attempt by the GOP to create Republican-leaning districts and zap away votes from heavily Democratic-leaning districts.

Republicans reaped a gain of six seats in Congress from Texas in 2004, when the new district lines were used. The state's delegation, which had consisted of 21 Democrats and 11 Republicans, became 17-15, advantage Republicans.

This same plan also violates the "Voting Rights Act" and is a lurid attempt by the GOP to disenfranchise minority voters.

Critics of the Republican reapportionment plan also allege the new district lines violate the Voting Rights Act, which is designed to protect the rights of blacks and Hispanics. In addition, they argue that the Constitution prohibits mid-decade redistricting, and that Republicans ignored updated census data, violating the Constitution's requirement on one person, one vote.

Angle said the GOP-drawn apportionment "reduced the number of effective minority districts from 11 to 9....They take the cynical view that a minority district is defined by the color of the skin of the person elected. But that's not what the law says. The law says a minority district is determined by the color of the voters."

I just laugh when I think about the fact that this is the bunch pushing freedom and corruption-free elections in Iraq and other places around the world. They can't run a fair system in their own backyard.

Oh, the irony of things!