Votelaw, Edward Still's blog on law and politics

The Senate Jurisprudence Committee has approved (on a party-line vote) a Republican redistricting plan proposed by the GOP, according to the Dallas Morning News:

A Senate panel approved an aggressive Republican redistricting plan Wednesday that would oust at least five and as many as seven incumbent Democratic congressmen.

While considered dead for this special session, the proposal is likely to be the road map GOP senators follow – at least in broad outline – in a second redistricting session, expected to be called next week.

Democrats' expert believes the Republican plans will not pass muster with the US Justice Department, while a Republican expert does, according to the San Antonio Express:

A pair of redistricting experts gave conflicting accounts Tuesday about how minorities would be impacted by two maps slated for a Senate committee vote today.

"When you 'plus-up' or stuff more African American or Hispanic voters into a district that is already a minority opportunity district, you are all but inviting a presumption of an unconstitutional" action, said Gerald Hebert.

Hebert is a Georgetown University law professor and former acting chief of the Justice Department's Voting Rights section.

Hebert, a consultant for the national Democratic Party, told members of the Senate Jurisprudence Committee that maps drawn by Sen. Todd Staples, R-Palestine, cram minorities in at least six congressional districts.

"There's no way either one of those maps will pass Justice (Department) review," he said outside the hearing.

But Ronald Keith Gaddie, a University of Oklahoma political science professor and consultant to Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott, said either maps is legally defensible to a court challenge.

Gaddie has written six books on politics and testified as an expert witness in six state redistricting lawsuits.

"My job here is to analyze the various data to determine if there is a retrogression of minority voting districts, and to talk about the legal threat (if there is one)," he told committee members.

The Washington Post reports on the genesis of the scheme to re-redistrict Texas:

In early 2001, Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) was driving around Austin with his top political aide, Jim Ellis, brainstorming about how to create more Republican-leaning U.S. House districts in Texas. State legislators were redrawing congressional borders to reflect the latest Census figures, and the Democrats who controlled the state House were preventing GOP senators and the governor from approving a plan that would give Republicans maximum advantage.

The two men devised a bold idea: create a political action committee whose sole purpose was to give Republicans control of the state House in the 2002 elections. Then, they surmised, the legislature could draw the districts again in 2003, this time ensuring more GOP seats in Congress.