News In Texas Redistricting 

 The noted Texas redistricting case, known politically for its role involving Tom DeLay and academically for the  amici curiae  brief filed by Gary King, Andrew Gelman, Jonathan Katz and Bernard Grofman, was ruled on by the Supreme Court today. In short, the party-based gerrymandering was not a problem - nor was the fact that it was done off the traditional calendar - but the composition of districts involving the dilution of Hispanic voters was. The court has ordered that those irregular districts be redrawn. (Note: only the composition of District 23 was considered to be in violation of the Voting Rights Act, but you obviously can't redraw one district without affecting another.)  

 The nature of this ruling should surprise no one involved in Jim Greiner's Quantitative Social Science and Expert Witnesses class. 

  A good summary is here.