Court to hear arguments on campaign finance and redistricting

NY Times:

...

Hearing arguments in a campaign finance case from Vermont on Tuesday and a Congressional redistricting case from Texas on Wednesday, the justices will venture onto a shifting landscape where the controlling legal precedents are either unclear or unstable and the prospect for fundamental change looms on the horizon.

On many of the questions, the new Roberts court will almost certainly be as closely divided as was the Rehnquist court. Two years ago, for example, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who was succeeded last month by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., cast the decisive fifth vote to uphold major provisions of a new federal campaign finance law. The justices were unable during that same term to agree on a majority opinion in a case from Pennsylvania on whether the Constitution prohibits a partisan gerrymander.

While decisions in the new cases are not likely until June, the arguments this week could offer a hint of the court's direction and appetite for forging a new consensus.

Of the issues before the court, the one with the most visibility involves the Texas Democrats' challenge to the redrawn Congressional district lines that the new Republican majority in the State Legislature pushed through in 2003 at the direction of Representative Tom DeLay, the Texas Republican who was then the House majority leader.

...


Democrats will try to defend the indefensible continuation of their 1990's gerrymander in Texas which gave them a majority of representatives in a state where Republicans make up a clear and growing majority. There is also a chance that the Vermont case will give the justices a chance to reverse their terrible decision on campaign finance legislation.

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