Politics
SCOTUS Hands Democrats Victory In Redistricting Battle
No featured image available
The Supreme Court sided with Democrats and civil rights groups in a major redistricting case on Wednesday.
The opinion for the court was written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito agreed with the result but dissented from certain parts of Kennedy’s opinion.
The case concerned 12 state legislative districts drawn by the GOP-controlled legislature in Virginia, in connection with the redistricting process begun after the 2010 census. The legislature purposefully drew 12 districts with a Black Voting Age Population (BVAP) of 55 percent to ensure minority representation in the legislature.
Some states complain that they face something of a catch-22 when they must redraw congressional and state legislative districts every 10 years. On the one hand, the courts forbid states from making race the predominate factor during the redistricting process. Conversely, the Voting Rights Act (VRA) requires states to consider race in redistricting if they have large minority populations. In this case, the justice had to decide how courts should determine if race “predominated” in the redistricting process.
A lower court concluded that 11 of the 12 districts challenged in this case had not been racially gerrymandered, but that the 12th district had been drawn on the basis of race.
The justices concluded that the lower court used the incorrect standards in assessing whether race was the primary factor motivating the redistricting. The case will now return to the trial court for further proceedings.
Marc Elias, a veteran Democratic elections lawyer who argued the case for the plaintiffs, heralded the ruling as a major civil rights victory which exposes Republican-drawn maps across the country to legal challenges.
Writing at his Election Law Blog, professor Rick Hasen of UC Irvine School of Law concluded the opinion offers some guidance for future cases, but is not a major contribution to the Court’s redistricting jurisprudence.
“The opinion is an important technical case about how to apply the standards racial gerrymandering cases, but it breaks little new ground, and this case itself is likely to be back up to the Supreme Court for further review,” he writes. “It is more of a punt than a major decision.”
Send tips to [email protected].
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact [email protected].