At first glance, two political stories from last week don't seem to have much in common.

		Michael McGough is an editor at large in the PG's National Bureau (mmcgough@ nationalpress.com).

On Wednesday the U.S. Supreme Court had upheld a Republican-designed congressional map for Pennsylvania against the charge that it has been unconstitutionally gerrymandered to disadvantage Democrats. Two days later The New York Times reported that black and Hispanic leaders were irked by Sen. John Kerry because the putative Democratic presidential nominee did not have a racially diverse inner circle. "He is generally surrounded by white folks, and sure that concerns me," Rep. James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, a prominent African-American Democrat, told the Times.

The common denominator here is "identity politics" -- the notion, often derided by conservatives and neo-conservatives, that race (and to a lesser extent religion and gender) counts for almost everything in giving Americans a voice in the political process.

In his plurality opinion in the Pennsylvania case (it was a plurality rather than a majority opinion because only three other justices signed it), Scalia dismissed the notion that voters of a particular party deserve the protection of the courts in redistricting just as racial minorities do. That is so, Scalia said, because "a person's politics is rarely as readily discernible -- and never as permanently discernible -- as a person's race."

To be fair, Scalia played the race card defensively, to rebut the argument of dissenting justices that courts have intervened under the Voting Rights Act and the Constitution to scrutinize electoral maps that discriminate against voters on the basis of race. If the courts can police one sort of gerrymandering, they ask, why not another? So Scalia takes pains to say that racial gerrymandering is different.

That is debatable. Dissenting Justice John Paul Stevens argued that "racial gerrymandering is only one species of political gerrymandering" and not uniquely difficult for the courts to monitor. But what is really interesting about Scalia's reference to race is that -- unintentionally, no doubt -- he is giving aid and comfort to the view, usually associated with the left, that "race matters" in political representation in the sense that only an African American can really represent an African American.

Identity politics is not necessarily racial. In Northern Ireland, the Protestant-Catholic divide is so great that the governments of Britain and Ireland -- with support from the United States -- pushed a power-sharing arrangement in which Catholics are guaranteed positions in the government even though Catholics are a minority in Northern Ireland. In Lebanon, the practice has been to reserve the presidency for a Maronite Catholic and other key government positions for adherents of various forms of Islam. In attempting to "nation-build" in Iraq, the American occupation is struggling to make sure that a new government has a role for Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds.

The most conspicuous recent proponent of representation-by-identity in American politics is Bill Clinton, who promised an administration that "looked like America." By that he meant that his adviser would include people of all colors and ethnicities, though not, presumably, people of different ages (there were no teenagers in Clinton's Cabinet), eye colors or body shapes.

George W. Bush, the president of a party that pays lip service to "color blindness," was equally assiduous in practicing identity politics when he assembled his Cabinet. That didn't stop The New York Times for criticizing him for not assembling a really diverse team. Conceding that Bush had given Cabinet portfolios to an Arab-American, a Hispanic and a Japanese-American, the Times sniffed that the Cabinet still lacked "significant ideological diversity."

For years nervous neo-conservatives have protested that identity politics is threatening to overthrow the individualist assumptions of American democracy. They may protest too much, and in other settings neo-conservatives can be nostalgic about the "diversity" of past times -- like the ethnically balanced tickets the political parties used to assemble to broaden their support.

Still, the easy equation of race and representation is troubling, not least because it could work against minority politicians seeking election in overwhelmingly white districts.

It's easy to say that John Kerry should be politically savvy enough to include a few black or brown faces in his inner circle.. But the notion that only blacks can advocate for the interests of blacks is insidious (at least if you're an integrationist), and so is the assumption that it is necessary or desirable that "black" and "white" interests be easily distinguishable forevermore.

Yet that is a widespread assumption. In Washington, D.C., where I now live, advocates of statehood for the District succeeded in getting the city to issue license plates with the slogan "Taxation Without Representation." But it is an open secret that for many advocates of D.C. statehood the appeal of the idea is not that it would enfranchise individual residents of the District; that could be accomplished largely by ceding D.C. neighborhoods to Maryland or Virginia. No, the real attraction is that turning D.C. into a state would assure at least two African-American members of the U.S. Senate.

That brings it back to Scalia's opinion in the Pennsylvania case. In an interesting passage that will come as a surprise even to some politically literate Americans, Scalia pointed out that Congress has the power under the Constitution to override the states and establish gerrymander-free district lines. That same residual power to control "the times, places and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives" arguably would allow Congress to direct that members of the U.S. House be elected statewide or in multimember districts, arrangements that in some states could ensure minority representation in Congress.

Such a system could make race more important than geography in determining who is a good representative -- but perhaps we already have taken that step.