Ett av de trick som republikanerna använder för att befästa sin makt är s.k. Gerrymandering, dvs att ändra på valkretsgränserna så att deras egna väljare får majoritet och de demokratiska valkretsarna splittras. Tom Delay, republikanernas ledar i representanthuset är mästare på detta smutsiga spel.
Artikeln kommer från Mojos nyhetsblog:
The Supreme Court handed Texas Democrats a paper victory Monday, refusing to affirm a lower court’s support of the controversial, Tom DeLay-backed gerrymandering plan that will probably cost five Democratic incumbents their jobs. While the ruling gives Democrats some hope for challenging the redistricting, however, it won’t affect the election in two weeks, when those five legislators will almost certainly be removed from Congress.
Congressional districts are usually redrawn once a decade, allowing states to adjust their boundaries using new Census data. But in Texas, Republicans chose to gerrymander for the second time since the 2000 Census, using their majority in the state legislature to create a highly partisan map. That’s when Democrats fled to Oklahoma to deny the legislature a quorum, but the standoff eventually ended and the GOP got its way.
Democrats sued over the gerrymander, claiming it was an unconstitutional move done for partisan gain. In January, a three-judge panel in Austin ruled against the Democrats, and many legal experts expected the Supreme Court to simply uphold that ruling. Instead, the court ordered a reconsideration of that ruling.
For Democrats, or anyone who opposes this sort of redistricting for political gain, the Supreme Court ruling provides another chance to make the case. But even if the DeLay plan is overturned, some members of the new Texas congressional delegation will owe their jobs to it.