USA TODAY, 6/28/06
By Kathy Kiely

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court’s decision Wednesday in a controversial Texas redistricting case raises the possibility of congressional districts being redrawn every time a political party gains the upper hand in a state.

That’s what happened in Texas in 2002. Republicans, after taking control of the state House and Senate, tossed out the congressional district map drawn a year earlier by a federal court and substituted a new one. It resulted in the GOP gaining a majority of the state’s congressional seats for the first time since Reconstruction.

The high court’s refusal to bar the mid-decade changes in Texas’ 32 congressional districts prompted some to predict a barrage of copycat efforts in other states. Gerald Hebert, an attorney who represented Texas Democrats on the losing side of the Supreme Court case, said the decision would encourage gerrymandering, the term used when districts are drawn to fit political needs rather than geographical compactness, by both political parties.

“Let the redistricting festivities begin,” he said. “This really signals that the federal judiciary will not step in even in the most extreme cases.”

Some Democrats suggested the Nov. 7 elections might give them an opportunity to exact revenge for the Republican gains in Texas, where the redrawn map resulted in six new Republican congressional seats in 2004.

Michael Davies, executive director of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, said legislatures in 20 states — controlling 195 of 435 congressional districts — have at least one chamber within four seats of changing political hands. “There is a huge potential for a shift of power,” he said.

The chief architect of the Texas Republican plan, former congressman Tom DeLay, predicted the maneuvering will wait until after the next Census in 2010. “This decade is almost over,” DeLay said.

Others argue that the Texas experience may discourage politicians from attempting to follow suit. The Texas Legislature’s efforts to redraw the political map came under national scrutiny when Democrats staged a midnight escape and holed up across the border in Oklahoma to block passage of the redistricting plan. DeLay and other Texas officials asked federal authorities for help tracking them down.

DeLay, once one of the most powerful politicians in Texas and Congress, was forced to give up his post as House majority leader in part because of the role he played in the redistricting effort. Ronnie Earle, the Democratic district attorney in Austin, is prosecuting DeLay on charges that he improperly directed corporate contributions to the campaigns of Republican state legislative candidates. DeLay resigned from Congress earlier this month.

While Benjamin Ginsberg, a Republican election law expert, called the court decision a “vindication” for DeLay, the attorney doesn’t think it will inspire politicians in other states to follow suit. “Oh, God no,” Ginsberg said. “As the Texas case showed, it is a traumatic activity to go through.”

It also requires an alignment of political stars: To prompt a mid-decade change in congressional districts, one party must gain control of both chambers in the state legislature and the governor’s mansion.

Then there’s the question of whether it’s worth the effort. There’s no state where the potential political rewards are as great as they were for Texas Republicans. At the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, Davies is eyeing “a number of states where there could be a two- or three-seat shift.”

Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., chairman of his party’s congressional campaign committee, said “it’s a little late” for political parties to mount redistricting efforts. The court’s decision, he said, would make the potential for bare-knuckle gerrymandering all the greater after the 2010 Census. “If you think redistricting is always partisan and political, which it is,” he said, “it’s going to be on steroids this time.”