Informed Speculation

Behind the Tom DeLay case lies the decision by Texas Republicans to undergo a new round of redistricting in 2003, a round that, unsurprisingly, resulted in a lot of districts that were more likely to vote Republican than before. Now the Supreme Court has agreed to review the legality of that move:

The Supreme Court agreed yesterday to consider the legality of Texas’s 2003 congressional redistricting plan, which was engineered by then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) and helped cement GOP control of the House.

The court will hear challenges from Democrats and minority groups who say that the mid-decade redistricting unlawfully diluted the strength of minority voters, injected undue partisanship into the congressional map and violated the concept of one person, one vote by drawing district lines with outdated census data.

Among the other outcomes of this unusual mid-decade move was the flight of Texas Democrats:

In 2003, at DeLay’s urging, the legislature and Gov. Rick Perry (R) redrew the congressional map in three special sessions. Democratic legislators tried to thwart the effort, at one point fleeing to Oklahoma to deny the legislature a quorum. The Ethics Committee rebuked DeLay for using the Federal Aviation Administration to track down a private plane that was shuttling Democrats out of the state.

Local progressives will rejoice…should the rest of us? Too soon to say…put this one in the ‘to-be-continued’ file…