"Not sufficiently suspect"? Well, then. That at least gives the next aspiring DeLays hope that they haven't hit the limit quite yet. I guess it only looked like a duck and walked like a duck.

The Democrats need to keep focusing on the state assemblies. Winning that back in, say, Texas will mean an immediate ability to redraw the map, and so, with the current state of things, will be a requirement to win national elections.

The Repubs drew first blood on this.

Perhaps, ultimately, the ensuing chaos will spark a new consitutional amenment to resolve it.

For while-collar criminals and the true haters of Democracy.

A system of checks and checks. and checks.

This gives a green light to re-redistricting 24/7 in state legislatures across the land. One can imagine changing districts every two years, which could drive to extinction whatever democratic accountability remains in the federal House.

It's irksome to see articles on Supreme Court decisions which don't indicate who voted how.

So, the law is set; the bright side is, at least we have the option to abuse the same rules now.

It's a shame that this was not a renouncement of the yet further politicization of one of, perhaps the leading, achilles' heel of our system, district definitions. Gerrymandering was named for the guy who made drawing unnatural shapes infamous; perhaps we need to coin Delaymandering for the new abuses he pioneered.

When the districts are redrawn out of a normal scheduled, we now have a name for it.

They were put there specifically to do the bidding of their masters in the Bush administration and maintain Republicans in power at all costs. (That's also why Harriet Meiers was nominated, since Bush clearly saw the utility of placing his old family retainer on the Supreme Court.) There was no way that they were going to decide this case any other way and undermine the efforts of the Rethugs to gerrymander themselves into power.

Of course, the conservative base thinks that Alito and Roberts were put on the court to overturn Roe vs. Wade, Griswold vs. Connecticuit, and all the other decisions that they don't like. Masterly bit of indirection, that. But who knows, it may yet happen ...

The Supreme Court basically ruled today that a state legislature can redistrict anytime it wants so basically the Delay gambit in Texas is ok. It also said Hispanics were denied some rights and some changes need to be made in Delay's redistricing to correct for the inherent bias ( non dare call it racism)...anyhow instead of crying in our beer about the overall pro-Repbulican decision the Democrats should do two things:

1. Loudly and clearly broadcast that the Texas Republican Party discrimitated against Hispanics and that they can be expected to do the same the more of they succeed in the in the November 06 and 08 elections ...in all states across the nation.

2. All states with Democratic legislatures should begin redistricting to box out Republicans, increase the voting power of their constituents, and take back as much power as possible from the piglet party...

The Supreme Court said this is fair play so let's play to win...I bet California could be an interesting place to start ... don't cry... get busy.

What did anyone expect from this Parti-cular Supreme Court? Bush knew who he nominated. And dont wait for DeLays eventual appeal, this very same court will get him off.

Click on the link to the pdf file of the opinion and you will see why Salon hasn't listed who voted how. It is a lengthy opinion divided into several parts, and the court was quite split on many of those parts, with several justices penning their own opinions dissenting and/or concurring in part for several small portions of the overall opinion. Not all of the justices joined in all parts of the opinion. You really need a flowchart to describe who voted how. On the plus side, one of the new districts will have to be redrawn.