YOU DONT HAVE TO BE LIBERAL TO HATE THE RACIAL GERRYMANDERING CASES

Conservatives who have cheered the Supreme Court's racial gerrymanderi ng decisions have been misguided. These cases trample on conservative notions of federalism by punishing the states for actions of the feder al government. The Court has left untouched the federally imposed quot a of majority minority districts, but has declared that when states se t out to satisfy that quota, they presumptively act unconstitutionally , because their actions are ''predominantly'' influenced by race. The practical effect of the racial gerrymandering doctrine in many situati ons is to expropriate from the states their constitutional authority t o control their own systems of representation. The racial gerrymanderi ng cases are equally inconsistent with conservative ideas on race poli cy. The cases compel black and Hispanic politicians to have recourse t o the federal executive and judicial branches in order to pursue their representational goals, by severely restricting their opportunity to compete on an equal basis with other groups in the politics of redistr icting. A truly conservative Court would have limited or eliminated th e federal quotas rather than imposing new and ill-conceived constituti onal burdens on the states.