"The Trouble with Texas"

Stuart Taylor offers this National Journal column (free access) on the Texas redistricting case. It ends:

Perhaps you, dear reader, can clearly discern from all this what would be the fairest outcome. But I have given up. And most of the justices seemed content to leave bad enough alone. They also seemed likely to reject most or all of the Democrats' claims that this or that district had too few or too many voters of this or that race.

Whatever the outcome, it would be nice if the justices could tidy up a bit -- bringing a dollop of clarity to their rules, loosening the one-person, one-vote straitjacket, reducing the pressure to draw minority-controlled districts even in places where minority candidates have a fair shot without such manipulations.

But it's hard to imagine the justices inventing a new right to more-competitive districts, or where in the Constitution they could find it.

Posted by Rick Hasen at March 6, 2006 07:49 AM