<x-flowed>  An interesting statement by Rep. Phil King, head of the TX House Redistricting Committee in 2003, gives some sense of what the world might be like without Section 5 of the VRA.  In a deposition in Session v. Perry, the TX re-redistricting case, he said that but for Section 5, he'd have tried to draw a redistricting plan that would have given the Republicans every one of Texas's congressional seats.  I doubt that that's possible, but he certainly could have reduced Democratic seats by cramming more minorities into a smaller number of districts if he hadn't  had to satisfy Beer, Bossier I and II, etc.  This of course would hurt black and Latino, as well as Anglo Democrats, nationally as well as in Texas.
  Since a post-Stevens Court will take any remaining air out of Vieth, and since Republicans can always apparently legally cover a racial with a partisan motive under Section 2 and the 14th and 15th Amendments -- see the evidence and opinions on the racial discrimination issues in former congressional districts 23 and 24 in Session v. Perry -- a failure to renew Section 5 will have quite predictable consequences for African-American and Latino representation:  It will reduce it by encouraging Republicans to pack minorities into as few districts as possible, which they can legalize by claiming a partisan motive.
  Vieth and the VRA really are connected.
Morgan

Prof. of History and Social Science, Caltech
snail mail:  228-77 Caltech, Pasadena, CA 91125
phone 626-395-4080
fax 626-405-9841
home page:  <http://www.hss.caltech.edu/~kousser/Kousser.html> (Newly Revised!)
to order Colorblind Injustice:  http://uncpress.unc.edu/books/T-388.html
          "Peace if possible, Justice at any rate" -- Wendell Phillips

</x-flowed>