Heartland Patriot wrote:So I would imagine for now at least, we should consider this a positive instead of a negative?
I would think so. The dissenting justice who argued against the court's usurpation of the redisctricting plan pointed out that the court was violating the Constitution in doing so. Justice department attorneys said that the redisctricting as originally laid out by the legislature appeared to be a deliberate attempt to descriminate against minorities........one has to realize that A) a deliberate attempt at racial discrimination on this order would be very hard to prove; B) this is an Obama administration justice deparment; and C) Obama hates Texas and will do whatever he can to diminish the power of conservatism in this state, even if conservatism appears to be the predominant political sentiment.
I don't remember if it's the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or the the Civil Rights Act of 1968 that contained text which specifically targetted states which had a
history of racism. By implication, this was all of the
southern states—never mind that racism was alive and well in New York, Massachussets, Illinois, Michigan, and California among other norther states. The singling out of the southern states was because of southern Jim Crow laws which were specifically intended to descriminate against blacks at the voting booth. The text of the law required that
special attention always be applied to redisctricting in southern states from then on to ensure that redisctricting did not infringe on the civil rights of minorities, before those redisctricting plans could be certified, but there was never any sunset on this special attention codified into the law. Therefore, it continues today.
The problem with this, of course, is that redisctricting in the south is forevermore under the control of the north, since nothern states are exempted from these special reviews and the the law is open ended without an expiration date. Of course, it has been over 50 years since the two civil rights acts were passed, and quality of life for minorities is no better or worse in the south than it is anywhere else. But, redisctricting in the south continues to be under the same scrutiny required by law in the 1960s that northern redisctricting has never been subjected to. And yet, other states are so gerrymandered that their political maps are nearly illegible. We had this stuff going on in Los Angeles County back when I still lived in California, and African American politicians in southern California were some of the worst offenders. But redisctricting in California is not subject to the same federal scrutiny as redistricting in Texas is.....even though it should be.
Although the goals of non-discrimination in housing and voting, etc., are worthy ones, some parts of those laws are anachronisms which not only no longer server a good purpose, but are actually unjust. Why shouldn't Texas have the same control over its redisctring as New York or California has? Particularly since there is more opportunity for people here in Texas regardless of their race than there is in those two states?
Furthermore, I reject the notion that political districts should be drawn according a claimed set of special needs for people of one race over the set of needs of all other races. Jim Crow is more than 50 years behind us. ALL of the people who were responsiblle for setting up, and MOST of the people who were responsible for protecting it, are all dead now and out of power. We live in a completely different world today. Equality of outcome (which is the responsibility of the individual) cannot be guaranteed by government, and equality of
opportunity is already as guaranteed as it can be without crossing over into reverse discrimination. In fact, in some ways, it
has crossed over into reverse discrimination (hiring quotas, school admissions quotas, etc.), and the continued federal government's special emphasis on reviewing
southern redistricting without giving the same degree of scrutiny to
northern redisctricting is certainly part of that.
So, YES, it is a good thing that SCOTUS has issued a temporary stay against the lower court's attempt to usurp the constitutional prerogatives of the state's legislature. It would be my hope that, out of the SCOTUS hearings would come a final closure on the whole idea that the south requires special supervision; because if the status quo continues, then one thing can surely be said, and that is that the north is still fighting the Civil War, while the south has moved on. It's not good for the country for one geographical part of the nation to try and politically marginalize the other part. In fact, it is downright unpatriotic.
That's just my 2¢. Your mileage may vary.
