The Texas Gerrymander

	Posted on Tue, Dec. 06, 2005
	The Texas Gerrymander Editorial | The strange case of the vanished memo Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, a Texas Republican who owes his position to the No. 1 Texas Republican, President Bush, sees nothing wrong with a congressional redistricting scheme concocted by the No. 2 Texas Republican, Rep. Tom DeLay. A Justice Department team of career professionals did see something wrong with DeLay's plan in 2003. They agreed unanimously that DeLay's redrawn congressional map of Texas violated the Voting Rights Act by diluting minority (and Democratic) voting strength. Of course, that was exactly DeLay's goal. The redistricting controversy in Texas has had many sequels. It led to DeLay's indictment for money laundering. A prosecutor in Texas alleges DeLay tried to hide the sources of cash he used to help the GOP win the state legislature and thus control redistricting. The dispute also led to DeLay's being admonished by the House Ethics Committee for abusing his authority by seeking to exploit a government agency for partisan purposes. When Democratic lawmakers in the Texas legislature went AWOL rather than form a quorum to vote on DeLay's plan, DeLay asked the Federal Aviation Administration to track a private plane thought to be carrying the wayward Democrats. DeLay's new congressional map enabled the House GOP to pick up five seats in the 2004 election. That solidified Republicans' hold on the House, the chamber where the attorney general's boss launches his legislative priorities. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 requires Texas and other states with a history of discriminatory elections to get Justice Department approval of new congressional maps. This time, the number of Texas congressional districts grew from 30 to 32; the number of districts with a majority of racial minorities remained at 11. At the time of the elections, nobody outside the Justice Department knew that department staff viewed DeLay's plan as a clear violation of civil-rights laws. That's because political appointees at Justice overruled the report, hid it from the public and approved the redistricting plan. News of the staff report finally surfaced last week in the Washington Post. All of which begs for a review of the Justice Department's actions by someone, anyone, who isn't a Texas Republican. Gonzales has pointed out that a three-judge federal appeals court OKd the new map. But the court didn't exactly have all the facts in hand. The Justice Department staff report was kept secret from the judges. The redrawn map is on appeal to the Supreme Court. This episode is hardly the first time a majority party has rammed a favorable redistricting map into law. But this squelching of a unanimous staff ruling smacks of partisan interference with voting rights.

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