High court's remap case crucial to Texas; Justices weigh Pennsylvania gerrymandering

PATTY REINERT, Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court Wednesday considered whether to rewrite the rules for redrawing congressional districts in a case that could have a dramatic impact on Texas' redistricting fight as it heads to court in Austin today.

Paul Smith, arguing for Democratic voters challenging a new congressional map in Pennsylvania, asked the high court to limit gerrymandering, a practice in which district lines are redrawn to overwhelmingly favor one party.

Smith also is fighting that battle for Democrats in Texas whose representatives earlier this year fled the state twice as Republican lawmakers worked to pass a redistricting plan that would give the GOP a majority in the state's congressional delegation.

Unlike the Pennsylvania case, however, the Texas Democrats also have alleged racial gerrymandering, accusing Republicans of trying to dilute the voting strength of Hispanics and blacks in violation of constitutional and federal Voting Rights Act protections.

Republicans counter that any impact on minority voters in Texas is unintentional. The state Legislature's goal, they say, was not to exclude minorities or diminish their voting power, which would be illegal, but merely to create a map favorable to Republicans, which is legal.

Smith said a three-judge federal court in Austin will be asked to halt the implementation of the new Texas map until the high court offers guidance in the Pennsylvania case. The old map would then be in place in the 2004 elections.

Failing that, he said, Texas Democrats intend to take their case to the Supreme Court as well - possibly by the end of the year. If Republicans lose in Texas, they also could go directly to the high court.

States are required to redraw district boundaries to reflect population changes after every census. Over the years, that process has become more political, and those drawing the lines have used increasingly sophisticated computer models to track voter registration and actual voting patterns down to certain city blocks and houses.

Republicans currently have a 23-vote margin in Congress, and in states like Pennsylvania and Texas, they have redrawn district maps in a way that could lock in that control of Congress for years to come - even if Democrats eventually regain majority status in their home states.

"The House of Representatives is supposed to be the mirror of the people," Smith told the justices. " . . . This is like saying a Republican vote is worth more than a Democratic vote."

But lawyers for the state of Pennsylvania argued that political motivation is inherent in drawing district lines for elections and that is perfectly legal.

"Frankly, we don't have a problem with that," said Bart DeLone, a deputy attorney general who argued for the state's Republican leaders. So long as voters aren't shut out of the political process, he said, the courts should stay out of the fight.

In 1986 the high court ruled partisan gerrymandering could be challenged in court. But the justices did not give clear guidance on how lower courts should decide the cases.

This time the justices could rein in partisan gerrymandering or it could rule in the other extreme, finding that courts have no role at all in such fights.

On Wednesday, Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia and Sandra Day O'Connor appeared to be leaning toward the latter option.

"Maybe the way to go is to say, 'Hands off,' " O'Connor said.

But Justice John Paul Stevens appeared to side with the Democrats in the case, suggesting that the court should rein in partisan gerrymandering by rewriting the rules to focus on the intentions of those redrawing the maps.