This is no suprize. Hell would have to freeze over for him to side with the democrats. lol
Dec. 20, 2003, 12:29PM
Ashcroft OKs remapping plan
Partisan politics, foes say
By R.G. RATCLIFFE and MICHAEL HEDGES
U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft on Friday cleared Texas to use a new Republican congressional redistricting plan for the 2004 elections -- a devastating blow to Democrats and minorities fighting the plan.
Republican officials praised the decision, but opponents blasted it as the action of a highly partisan Justice Department that "hijacks" minority voting rights for political gain.
Now all that stands in the state's way of using the plan is a federal court lawsuit that challenges the map as a violation of minority voting rights and an extreme partisan gerrymander.
Final arguments in that case are set for Tuesday in Austin. The court Friday threw out a Democratic claim that the U.S. Constitution bars a legislature from doing congressional redistricting more than once every 10 years.
The Republican-dominated Texas Legislature in October passed the map that is designed to replace the Democratic majority in the state's congressional delegation with a Republican majority. The political battle took five months and lasted through three special sessions.
In a terse letter Friday to Texas Secretary of State Geoffrey S. Connor, Justice Department official Sheldon Bradshaw said, "The Attorney General does not interpose any objection to the specified changes" passed by the Legislature.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who has been defending the map in court, praised Ashcroft's decision.
"The Justice Department's preclearance decision is a critical first step to a swift implementation of the state's congressional plan -- a plan that reflects rather than frustrates current Texas voting trends," Abbott said.
J. Gerald Hebert, a lawyer representing most of the state's Democratic congressional incumbents, said the decision was a partisan action by President Bush and his attorney general.
"The Bush-Ashcroft Justice Department has been the most political ever to oversee the administration of civil rights," Hebert said.
He noted that the civil rights division is headed by Hans von Spakovsky, a former Republican elections official from Georgia who oversaw portions of the Florida recount for the Bush presidential campaign in 2000.
Hebert, who is a former voting rights division lawyer, said sources within the agency had told him the career professional staff had recommended against approving the Texas map but were overruled by the political appointees.
Abbott dismissed Hebert's claim.
"There's no truth or evidence to support aspersions such as that," Abbott said.
The Justice Department reviews redistricting maps for possible violations of minority voting rights statewide. Federal courts review the maps for possible discrimination on a district-by-district basis.
The Justice Department decision immediately replaces the existing congressional districts with those approved by the Legislature. The old map had been drawn by a federal court after the Legislature failed to act in 2001.
Republicans claimed that the old map was unfair because it gave the Democrats a 17-15 majority in the state's congressional delegation when Republicans were winning statewide. Democrats said it was fair because five Democratic incumbents won in districts that vote Republican in statewide elections.
The new map likely would give Republicans a 22-10 majority after next year's elections. Democrats and minority groups say that new majority was created by splitting minority voting communities illegally to disenfranchise black and Hispanic voters.
Besides Democrats, the map has been challenged in court by the NAACP, the League of United Latin American Citizens and the GI Forum represented by the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
"The Voting Rights Act has been hijacked by the political ideologues," said Brent Wilkes, national LULAC president. "A clearly retrogressive, discriminatory plan has been approved by the Justice Department to further the political agenda of the White House regardless of its impact on minority voters."
Texas NAACP President Gary Bledsoe said he will ask U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, to investigate whether there was any improper political influence in the department's decision.
"Their decision is clearly erroneous and clearly indicates that this department is refusing to follow the law and is engaged in rewriting the law to suit their political purposes," Bledsoe said.
U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land, was instrumental in pushing the Legislature to pass the plan. He praised the department's decision.
"We're pleased that Texas has a new legal map that will yield fairer and more effective representation," DeLay said. "The Justice Department correctly drew the distinction between protecting the interests of minorities and protecting the interests of Democrat politicians."
Senior Texas Democrat, U.S. Rep. Martin Frost, D-Dallas, who would lose his seat under the Republican map, said the Justice Department's action would disenfranchise 3.6 million minority voters. Frost said it is now up to the federal courts to protect minorities.
But Democrats and minorities suffered another setback in federal court Friday when the three-judge panel threw out claims that mid-decade redistricting is illegal.
"With regard to the plaintiffs argument to mid-decade redistricting, the point is not well taken," 5th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Patrick Higginbotham ruledfrom the bench for the court. "The Legislature is not prohibited from redistricting."
Democratic lawyers had argued to the court that the U.S. Constitution implies that redistricting can only be done once a decade after a census.
The Legislature failed to draw a map in 2001, and the current districts were created by a federal court. The Democrats claimed that was the state's "one bite at the apple."
Abbott said the court made the right decision that there is nothing in state or federal law that limits redistricting.
The Colorado Supreme Court ruled earlier this month that a congressional redistricting in that state was illegal because the state's constitution only allowed the boundaries to be changed once a decade.
The Texas case is being heard by Higginbotham and District Judges John Ward and Lee Rosenthal. Higginbotham and Rosenthal are Republican appointees, and Ward is a Democratic appointee
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory...olitan/2309655
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