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Justices brave the DeLay show

The U.S. Supreme Court will review cases that revolve around Tom DeLay's effort to overturn a court-ordered redistricting plan for Texas.

By agreeing to take on the case of Texas redistricting gone wild, the U.S. Supreme Court is about to plunge into Tom DeLay's abyss. No matter what constitutional conclusion the justices reach, their inquiry will require they hold their noses. This was politics in its most vulgar form.

That this court, led by new Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., would agree to take on the Hammer is in itself an encouraging signal. DeLay, who has been indicted for money laundering and formally admonished for his starring role in the redistricting gambit, is no longer House majority leader but still thrives on intimidation. Surely the justices are not interested in providing constitutional cover for his partisan decadence.

The cases the court will review revolve around DeLay's effort to overturn a court-ordered redistricting plan for Texas. After the Legislature failed to reach agreement, the court drew the districts and the 2002 congressional elections produced 17 Democrats and 15 Republicans. DeLay then began his attempt to overthrow the districts and the Democrats. The Republicans who controlled the Legislature changed procedural rules in order to pass an unusually shaped district plan in 2003, and their scheme worked. In 2004, Republicans took 21 of the 32 congressional seats.

Legally speaking, the court will be asked several questions: Did the plan unfairly dilute minority voting power? Can a state legally change its district plan more often than once a decade? Is there a point at which such blatant partisan objectives unconstitutionally disenfranchise some voters?

Politically speaking, the court's focus on the DeLay games can only serve to further taint the Republicans who played a role. The Washington Post already has uncovered a Justice Department memorandum, written in December 2003, revealing that career attorneys had unanimously rejected the Texas redistricting plan as a violation of the Voting Rights Act. That advice was overruled by political appointees.

Last year, when the Supreme Court was asked to rule in a Pennsylvania case of partisan gerrymandering, Justice Anthony Kennedy provided the swing vote only after he cautioned that such abuses do have limits. He also mused about democracy.

"The ordered working of our Republic, and of the democratic process, depends on a sense of decorum and restraint in all branches of government," Kennedy wrote. "Here, one has the sense that legislative restraint was abandoned. That should not be thought to serve the interests of our political order. Nor should it be thought to serve our interest in demonstrating to the world how democracy works."

The Pennsylvania case, in Kennedy's eyes, did not rise to the level of "excessiveness." In Texas, he may find that excess is what Tom DeLay is all about.

[Last modified December 27, 2005, 02:30:20]