CARL P. LEUBSDORF Texas political map may get review

It looks like a ho-hum political year in most parts of Texas, with Republican incumbents favored to hold the governorship, a Senate seat and most U.S. House seats.
But the Supreme Court could change all that.
All it has to do is throw out the controversial Republican redistricting plan that ended decades of Democratic domination and gave the GOP a solid majority of the state's congressional delegation.
Such a ruling would come as a distinct surprise. But the court already provided one surprise when it agreed to next week's hearing on the appeal from lower court rulings upholding the GOP plan.
It takes only four of the nine justices to accept an appeal, so the action raised speculation that the four had some reason to think they could gain the decisive fifth vote.
Roberts and Alito
Some clues may come next week. Of special interest will be any questions or comments by the two new members, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Associate Justice Samuel Alito.
But it's likely we'll only learn when the court rules this spring why it decided to hear a case that could produce a range of potential outcomes, from a new standard for redistricting to a narrow verdict hinged on technicalities.
Several arguments could affect the result: that it was unconstitutional for the Texas Legislature to enact the decade's second redistricting plan, that the drawing of certain district lines was detrimental to minority voters, that the principal purpose was political.
In the most recent redistricting case, four justices said political gerrymandering by Pennsylvania's Republicans was sufficient reason to overturn a plan giving the GOP a solid majority in an evenly divided state.
All four remain on the court: Republican appointees John Paul Stevens and David Souter, and Democratic appointees Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.
A fifth justice, Republican appointee Anthony Kennedy, said political factors could be grounds to overturn a plan -- but not in that case.
His opinion left unanswered the question of how much politics was too much.
Here are some possible outcomes:
UThe court could uphold the plan, which transformed the Texas House delegation from 17 Democrats and 15 Republicans to 21 Republicans and 11 Democrats. In that case, the elections this year and in 2008 and 2010 would take place as now scheduled.
UThe court could bypass civil rights and political issues, rule that it was illegal for the Legislature to redistrict the seats for the second time in the decade and restore the plan ordered by a federal court after the Legislature failed to pass its own plan in 2001. Such a verdict might enable some Democrats defeated in 2004 to regain their seats, but most analysts think a GOP majority would remain.
UThe court could also rule it was wrong to redistrict a second time but apply that standard at some future date.
UThe court could throw out the entire Republican plan on broader grounds, that it violated the rights guaranteed minority voters in the Voting Rights Act or was drawn solely for political reasons, and restore the old plan.
UBut the court could come to the same conclusion, rejecting the plan on either of those two reasons, and order a different fix, directing a lower federal court to remedy the defects, either by issuing a new plan or ordering the Legislature to produce one.
UThe court could also uphold most of the plan but reject parts, accepting, for example, the argument that minority rights were violated when the Dallas-area 24th District was transformed from a district with an African-American majority represented by Democrat Martin Frost to the current one represented by Republican Kenny Marchant. Another vulnerable area could be the decision to divide Austin into three districts.
If the court does anything but uphold the current plan, there would be further complications since general-election candidates will have been nominated in districts that no longer exist.
So the case could produce no end of possible options -- and a political firestorm.
X Carl P. Leubsdorf is Washington bureau chief of the Dallas Morning News. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.