Local Flavor II

The GOP led redistricting lost another round today.

While I think that the effort was deplorable, juvenile and pretty much contemptible. I think that they were legally right. As I understand it, the legislature is responsible for redistricting once every 10 years. Since the last redistricting was done by a judge (who did a very good job, by the way), they have every right to do it again.

That being said, I think that this is bad precedent, and sets the stage to make partisan politics become even more ridiculous. Eugene Volokh has an older post regarding a different issue entirely, but one that really hits the meat of the matter to my mind. Namely that the Republicans may be legally right to do this, but it doesn't make them ethically right.

Incidentally. This was the first blog post I ever read that made me sit back and think "Wow, that's exactly right."

Pointless butt-kissery aside, even though Eugene is talking about First amendment rights here, I think the general analogy translates. Sure the republicans have a legal case here, but the the true test of right and wrong is if they realize that it will do more harm than good to pursue it.