Re: Texas redistricting & fairness

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

calling Lani Guinere... calling Lani Guinere...

------------------------
Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine




> -----Original Message-----
> From: Michael Pollak [mailto:mpollak@xxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Friday, December 12, 2003 7:14 AM
> To: PEN-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [PEN-L] Texas redistricting & fairness
> 
> 
> >From today's Washington Post:
> 
> Judge Patrick Higginbotham, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th
> Circuit and one of three federal judges hearing the case, 
> seemed skeptical
> of the Democrats' suggestion that redistricting had ever been a
> scrupulously fair undertaking.
> 
> He recalled that former Texas governor William P. Hobby, a 
> World War I-era
> Democrat, once likened redistricting to a "religious 
> experience" in which
> majority-party lawmakers (then the Democrats) fell to their hands and
> knees over a state map, and drew new congressional boundaries 
> to reward
> their friends and punish their enemies.
> 
> "When did this tradition of fair play across the aisles come 
> to Texas?"
> the judge asked to scattered guffaws around the courtroom.
> 
> "Well, judge, I would hope it would start today," said one of the
> Democratic lawyers, Richard Gladden.
> 
> "Now that would be a religious experience," the judge said.
>