Top court enters the DeLay fray

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court waded into the thicket of Texas politics Monday, agreeing to review controversial redistricting that produced ballot box gains for Republicans but an ethics rebuke and criminal charges for GOP Rep. Tom DeLay.

The justices had seemed to leave scant room in 2004 for the type of challenge raised by Texas Democrats and their allies in Monday's case, but the high court is undergoing transition now.

Democrats claimed optimism following the announcement that the justices had agreed to hear arguments. "Today's Supreme Court action agreeing to take up the Texas case on Tom DeLay's illegal redistricting scheme is a hopeful sign that the voting rights of millions of minorities will be restored," said House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott countered, "After hearing the case, we expect the court will agree with the unanimous judgment of the three-judge federal court that the Texas redistricting plan is wholly constitutional."

DeLay spokesman Kevin Madden added, "The effort to deliver a new congressional map was founded in the belief that a history of gerrymandering efforts by Democrats in Texas had resulted in an unfair representation of Texas voters."

For all the legal and constitutional claims involved, the controversy is political at its core.

DeLay and his allies helped elect a Republican majority to the Texas Legislature in 2002, then pressured for new congressional district lines in an unusual mid-decade reapportionment. The adjustment in congressional district boundaries was completed in 2003. The plan coincided with a Republican gain of six House seats between the 2002 and 2004 elections. The GOP now represents 21 of the state's 32 House districts

Legal critics include Democrats, local governments and organizations representing Hispanics and blacks.

They allege that in redrawing the state's congressional district boundaries lines three years after the 2000 Census, the Republican-controlled Legislature ignored population changes that had occurred in the meantime, running afoul of one-man, one-vote requirements. Opponents also say the Legislature acted purely for partisan gain when it threw out the district boundaries that had been used in the 2002 elections.

In addition, they argue that the congressional district boundaries used in the 2004 elections diluted the voting strength of Hispanic and black Texans, in violation of the Voting Rights Act.