October 22, 2004
EDITORIAL , NY TIMES
Rethinking Texas's Redistricting

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The Supreme Court stepped into Texas' redistricting mess this week, telling a lower court to reconsider its ruling upholding the state's new Congressional districts. The court's action comes too late to change the lines for next month's election. But it raises the welcome possibility that the current Congressional districts, which were redrawn in an unusual mid-decade redistricting, will eventually be declared unconstitutional. It also gives hope that the court will become more willing to strike down legislative districts that are gerrymandered for blatantly political reasons.

After the 2000 census, Texas redrew its Congressional lines, as it was required to, to reflect population shifts. But in 2003, after Republicans took control of the state government, they redistricted again, drawing new lines that broke up safe Democratic seats and swooping around the state to scoop up Republican voters - all to increase the Republican share of the Texas Congressional delegation.

The redistricting fight became so bitter that Democratic legislators fled the state, hiding out in neighboring Oklahoma, and the Republicans sent state troopers after them. Earlier this month, the House ethics committee admonished the House majority leader, Tom DeLay, for telling Federal Aviation Administration officials to look for the missing Democrats.

The Democrats filed a lawsuit charging that the redistricting, which is expected to cost as many as five incumbent Democrats their seats in Congress, was unconstitutional. A special three-judge federal court sided with the Republicans. But this week, the Supreme Court directed the three-judge court to reconsider its ruling in light of Vieth v. Jubelirer, a Pennsylvania redistricting case that the Supreme Court decided last spring.

The Supreme Court rejected that challenge to Pennsylvania's Congressional redistricting. But Justice Anthony Kennedy, who cast the deciding vote, said that if partisan gerrymandering was sufficiently "invidious," it could violate the Constitution. By sending the Texas case back, the court is suggesting that the Texas Republicans' actions may meet Justice Kennedy's standard.

This year, thanks to partisan gerrymandering, there are only a small number of competitive Congressional races around the country, despite the deep divisions in the electorate. District lines have been painstakingly drawn to protect incumbents, and to help the party with control over the process.

When the lower court rethinks its decision in the Texas redistricting case, it will have a perfect opportunity to start drawing a reasonable line for when partisan line-drawing has gone too far.