Last political post of the day...

TPM alerts us to the fact that the Department of Justice is looking into Rick Perry's Redistricting Plan in Texas.

The Justice Department said late Friday that based on their preliminary investigation, a congressional redistricting map signed into law by Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry appears to have been "adopted, at least in part, for the purpose of diminishing the ability of citizens of the United States, on account of race, color, or membership in a language minority group, to elect their preferred candidates of choice to Congress."

DOJ's Civil Rights Division is specifically contesting the changes made to Texas Districts 23 and 27, which they say would not provide Hispanic citizens with the ability to elect candidates of their choice.

Obviously, this is wrong. But at the risk of doing "a plague on both your houses" of my own... it's a known fact that both parties engage in gerrymandering. Both parties try to strengthen the demographics that they know will vote for them while splitting up the demographics that they know will vote against them. It's called pack and crack.

It was a Ralph Nader campaign point back in 2000 because, in his view, the parties conspire to ensure safe incumbents in all districts. You get your rural district, and i get my urban district, and the unpredictable suburban voters are split up in small numbers between the two where they won't cause either of us any problems (for example).

Of course, this strategy would often cause breaks among ethnic lines, so i'm surprised that the DOJ is finding a problem with it this time. Unless this is the beginning of a crackdown on such practices, although even as i type this i realize how impossible that sounds.