High stakes in redistricting fights

The fights are just as fierce and the outcomes equally crucial - but this time, more are losing battles. The proliferation of voter redistricting cases that began in the 1980s and '90s has continued on into the 21st century. But since the 2000 census, significantly fewer have succeeded in challenging districts they deemed unfair: only 22 percent have resulted in court-ordered modifications, compared with 35 percent in the 1990s.

Theories abound about what's changed. Lower-court judges, some say, have been wary of ruling in highly politicized redistricting cases since the US Supreme Court's decision in Bush v. Gore drew intense criticism as politically motivated. Others say legislators better grasp the law after three modern redistricting cycles and numerous challenges.

Republican dominance in Congress probably also plays a role, as Republicans have historically challenged districts more often than the Democrats, now the underdogs. The change also follows a series of Supreme Court cases in the 1990s that reined in redistricting that favored minority groups - coupled with the facts that in recent years more candidates of color have been elected and voting along color lines has declined, making racial discrimination harder to prove.

Whatever the cause, the trend has raised the bar for challenges following the 2000 census, making the major court battles now under way - from a Pennsylvania gerrymandering case before the Supreme Court to two minority vote-dilution cases in Boston - particularly worth watching.

"There are so many fewer cases getting serious consideration this time around that the ones that do have to stand out in some way from those we've seen over the past 30 years," says Kimball Brace, president of Election Data Services in Washington, DC.

In some ways, the Boston case, Black Political Task Force et al. v. William Francis Galvin, looks like a classic race-based redistricting fight. Plaintiffs claim it's no accident white incumbent Thomas Finneran, Speaker of the Massachusetts House, appointed two old friends to chair the House redistricting committee and redraw lines to replace three heavily black precincts in his district with three overwhelmingly white ones.

Cases of this sort have been the norm, particularly since the 1990s Supreme Court challenges clarified the impact of the 1965 Voting Rights Act on racial gerrymandering - or the redrawing of voting districts to favor a particular political or ethnic group. Invariably, defendants in such cases argue, as Speaker Finneran's counsel did, that drawing districts to protect incumbents - of any race - is as old as the country itself, and though distasteful to many, it's legal unless a state forbids it. Massachusetts does not.

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