Justice Department lawyers concluded that the landmark Texas congressional redistricting plan spearheaded by Representative Tom DeLay, Republican of Texas, violated the Voting Rights Act, according to a previously undisclosed memo obtained by the Washington Post. But senior [political appointee] officials overruled them and approved the plan.
''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 73-page memo, dated Dec. 12, 2003, 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. Lawyers who worked on the case were subjected to a gag rule. (The memo was provided to the Post by a person connected to the case who is critical of the adopted redistricting map.)
Mark Posner, a longtime Justice Department lawyer who now teaches law at American University, said it was ''highly unusual" for political appointees to overrule a unanimous finding such as the one in the Texas case. ''In this kind of situation, where everybody agrees at least on the staff level . . . that is a very, very strong case," he said. ''The fact that everybody agreed that there were reductions in minority voting strength, and that they were significant, raises a lot of questions as to why it was" approved, he said.
Because a federal three-judge panel rejected a Democratic Party challenge to the redistricting plan, the case is on appeal to the US Supreme Court.
--edited from an article by Dan Eggen, Washington Post December 2, 2005
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It is no wonder that with a corrupt political environment like this at Justice, career lawyers and professionals there are leaving in droves.
Among other things, this new information adds to evidence that the Bush administration let's its fundamentalist right wing ideology be final arbiter in decisions covering science to civil rights, whether or not the facts warrant. It looks as though this decision may come back to bite them legally, though. For one thing, slimey Tom Delay's fingerprints are all over it and Justice Dept. career officials, who are entrusted with making decisions in this area, are totally against the decision. It will be interesting to see how the 'new' Supreme Court sees it.
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