WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court handed Texas Republicans a partial victory Friday, tossing a court-drawn electoral redistricting plan that favored minorities and Democrats but leaving the future of the state’s political maps — and possibly control of the U.S. House — in the hands of two federal courts with the state’s April primaries looming.
In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court ordered a three-judge court in San Antonio to craft a new map that pays more deference to one originally drawn by Texas’ GOP-led Legislature. The immediate effect was to scrap the interim map the San Antonio court drafted that would have favored Democrats to pick up four new congressional seats that Texas will add in 2012.
Republicans, led by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, heralded the ruling as a clear victory for the state.
“The court made clear in a strongly worded opinion that the district court must give deference to elected leaders of this state,” he said in a statement.
But the Supreme Court didn’t go as far as Texas wanted, which was to implement the maps the Legislature drew for this year’s election. Doing so would have rewritten existing election law as well as the Voting Rights Act. Only Justice Clarence Thomas said he would have gone that far.
After the 2012 election, Texas will have 36 seats in the next Congress, a gain of four seats. Under the map thrown out Friday, Democrats would have been favored in three or four new seats. The GOP holds 23 of the current 32 seats.
Republicans were quick to say Friday’s decision will benefit them, but Democrats and minority groups said that’s not so. Jose Garza, who argued on behalf of minority groups and Texas Democrats at the Supreme Court, said he expects the new maps to look very similar to the ones rejected Friday.
