The Legislature is back in town to revisit Congressional redistricting. Their mission? Replace the current congressional map with its 20 Republican-leaning districts with another map that has 20 Republican leaning districts.

Yes, after all the storm and fury, Republicans are likely to end up with the same number of GOP leaning districts.

So what's the point?

It’s simple. This whole exercise is about shuffling the deck to undermine the power of incumbency.

The handful of Democrats that Majority Leader Tom DeLay is trying to excise are well-known in their current districts. In some cases, they have served for decades.

One Democrat, Charlie Stenholm serves an agricultural district and is the ranking member of the Agriculture Committee -- critical to his people.

By and large, they have taken care of the folks back home. So, while their voters may generally vote for George Bush and Rick Perry, they jump over to the Democratic column to vote for the incumbent.

Incumbents almost always have the advantage. When I handicap Legislative races, I give the incumbent an automatic 5-point advantage.

Name identification, fund raising, constituent service and voter familiarity all work to the advantage of an incumbent.

That's why the biggest turnover in any Legislative body is usually the year after redistricting when incumbents have to introduce themselves to a pile of new voters that they have not represented before.

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	Redistricting may not add seats After all the hubbub, there may not be more districts than before.

The courts drew a congressional map two years ago after Republicans stopped the process cold in the Texas Senate.

The Republican beef with the subsequent court-drawn map is that it did not shuffle the deck enough. The court map left Democratic congressmen in districts where most voters already knew them and had no reason to fire them.

When the Legislature finishes, there will probably be the same number of Republican districts as before. The difference is that they will be designed to obliterate the advantages of Democratic incumbency.