Many of those who are defending — professionally or otherwise — the DeLay power-grab are arguing that courts simply should not be involved in drawing congressional maps, period. This raises a practical question since legislatures often get deadlocked and can’t come up with a map — and the election cycle won’t wait. But, more to the point, it’s beside the point. We could make any number of innovations in our political system: strike courts from redistricting, outlaw gerrymandering, gerrymander every two years, whatever. The point is that we have an established system and DeLay & Co are changing it in the interest of immediate partisan, even personal advantage. And in any case, the courts-out-of-elections mantle hangs rather heavy on a crew whose president owes his office to a judicial ruling.
