Justice Staff Saw Texas Districting As Illegal
Voting Rights Finding On Map Pushed by DeLay Was Overruled

From the Washington Post courtesy of the Daily Kos:

Justice Department lawyers concluded that the landmark Texas congressional redistricting plan spearheaded by Rep. Tom DeLay (R) violated the Voting Rights Act, according to a previously undisclosed memo obtained by The Washington Post. But senior officials overruled them and approved the plan.

The memo, unanimously endorsed by six lawyers and two analysts in the department's voting section, said the redistricting plan illegally diluted black and Hispanic voting power in two congressional districts. It also said the plan eliminated several other districts in which minorities had a substantial, though not necessarily decisive, influence in elections.

"The State of Texas has not met its burden in showing that the proposed congressional redistricting plan does not have a discriminatory effect," the memo concluded.

The memo also found that Republican lawmakers and state officials who helped craft the proposal were aware it posed a high risk of being ruled discriminatory compared with other options.

But the Texas legislature proceeded with the new map anyway because it would maximize the number of Republican federal lawmakers in the state, the memo said. The redistricting was approved in 2003, and Texas Republicans gained five seats in the U.S. House in the 2004 elections, solidifying GOP control of Congress.

And

The 73-page memo, dated Dec. 12, 2003, has been kept under tight wraps for two years. Lawyers who worked on the case were subjected to an unusual gag rule. The memo was provided to The Post by a person connected to the case who is critical of the adopted redistricting map. Such recommendation memos, while not binding, historically carry great weight within the Justice Department.

Under the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Texas and other states with a history of discriminatory elections are required to submit changes in their voting systems or election maps for approval by the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division.

The Texas case provides another example of conflict between political appointees and many of the division's career employees. In a separate case, The Post reported last month that a team was overruled when it recommended rejecting a controversial Georgia voter-identification program that was later struck down as unconstitutional by a court.

Click here for the rest.

Just to make this clear: back when the whole thing was going down, longtime Justice Department staffers decided after careful analysis that Texas' Congressional redistricting plan, which was rammed through the state legislature by Republicans a couple of years ago, discriminated against blacks and hispanics, but President Bush's political appointees to the DoJ not only overruled their employees, but buried the report so deeply that we're only just now hearing about it, and only because of a whistle-blower. This is, of course, absolutely outrageous, but utterly non-surprising. This is how Republicans do business in the 21st century, down and dirty. Illegally, too, for that matter. The only upside to all this is that chickens are coming home to roost for the GOP pretty much all over the place. The charges of corruption and money laundering that former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay is fighting right now, for instance, come directly out of this redistricting case. Beyond this one case, is the potential for Republican uber-lobbyist Jack Abramoff to testify against scores of GOP politicians in exchange for leniency in his Indian bilking case. Then there's the CIA leak case. And the manipulation of intelligence to justify the needless and illegal invasion of Iraq. And, oh yeah, the ever increasing death toll of US servicemen and women over there. This is all blowing up at once.

Maybe there really is such a thing as justice. We'll see.

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