Map drawers get ready to roll with recent Supreme Court decision

The latest Supreme Court ruling considering the Texas gerrymandering case of 2003 will have serious political implications.

What the court basically said was that gerrymandering was okay or at least something for the states to decide its legality, unless it happens to non-white people.

If you're non-white, you cannot have your voting power diluded. If you're white, Republican, Democrat or what have you, well then tough. You can be stacked and packed wherever the politicians decide to put you.

Talk about reverse descrimination. Oh well, you get used to it.

In any case, I can just see the map drawers sharpening their pencils 2007. State legislative elections are going to be huge now, more so then ever before because control of the legislature along with the governor's office controls the U.S. House of Representatives. Isn't it funny that once upon a time control of the legislatures meant control of the U.S. Senate because Senators were picked by the legislatures (which I'm all in favor of going back to)now, if one party sweeps to power in the state capital, incumbent congressmen could very well be in danger by the next election cycle, because redistricting, instead of the traditional every 10-year process, can now be an every two-year process if there's one-party control.

Thus, elections this fall in Illinois, Colorado, New York, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Arizona, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Ohio and Michigan will be huge because both governor's chairs and statehouses will be up for grabs, which means Congressional seats for 2008 will also be up for grabs.

For non-major parties, the result of the decision means that gerrymandering is going to get a lot worse. But that's fine. That allows such parties to be the official opposition in the fall. Or they can take their chances in the party primaries running in coaltions with like-minded fellows of the major parties. The recent Utah GOP Congressional Primary was a good example of that. If you can secure that party label, in most cases, your ticket to high office is already punched.