Texas redistricting domino effect

The responses in the liberal blogosphere to yesterday's Supreme Court ruling on the Texas redistricting plan ranged from guarded optimism to profound disappointment.

The high court left the GOP's politically-motivated off-year redistricting mostly intact, but ordered the revision of one district to ensure more equitable Hispanic representation.

It turns out, however, that the change will have a broader effect than just in that one district.

Federal law requires that each district be evenly divided into exactly 651,619 residents, based on census figures. That means tweaking one district will have a domino effect on many of the surrounding districts.

"Districts are going to have to be reconfigured from everything from the eastern edge of El Paso, along the Rio Grande, through McAllen, and coming back up through the Austin, San Antonio area," Hicks said.

The catch is that the re-redistricting could prove so complicated that the changes might not be possible until after the November elections.