From the 91-page opinion, also finding Voting Rights Act discriminatory effect: District-based voting was rejected for the 32nd JDC on at least six occasions between 1997 and 2011. Taken as a whole, this timeline shows discriminatory intent. Local white officials, … Continue reading
Category Archives: Voting Rights Act
This was fun! … Continue reading
Texas Tribune reports. … Continue reading
You can find the court’s 107-page order here. From the conclusion: In Part II, the Court concludes that the racially discriminatory intent and effects that it previously found in the 2011 plans carry over into the 2013 plans where those … Continue reading
James Blumstein has posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming, Rutgers Law Journal). Here is the abstract: In the opening sentence of her opinion for the Court in Shaw v. Reno, the North Carolina racial gerrymander case, Justice O’Connor observed that … Continue reading
WRAL: Map makers can use election data to achieve political goals as they redraw North Carolina’s legislative districts, but they’re forbidden from considering voters’ race under criteria approved Thursday by the House and Senate committees overseeing the process. These rules … Continue reading
News & Observer: Federal judges had pointed questions and comments Thursday for the lawyer representing North Carolina lawmakers who have not yet complied with the panel’s order to draw new districts for electing General Assembly members. The judges want the … Continue reading
Texas Observer reports. … Continue reading
Rep. Sensenbrenner oped: In response to this ruling, I introduced the Voting Rights Amendment Act in 2015, and reintroduced it again last week with my Democratic colleague Rep. John Conyers of Michigan. Among other things, the bill modernizes the original … Continue reading
I have posted this new draft on SSRN (for the pre-APSA event, Protecting Electoral Security and Voting Rights: The 2016 U.S. Elections in Comparative Perspective). Here is the abstract: If the “voting wars” which have broken out across the post-2000 election … Continue reading
There are two federal courts considering whether or not Texas should be “bailed back” into preclearance coverage under Section 3 of the Voting Rights Act. That section lets a court in its discretion put a state under federal supervision for … Continue reading
Sophie Schuit and Jon Rogowski have written this article for AJPS. Abstract: Despite wide scholarly interest in the Voting Rights Act, surprisingly little is known about how its specific provisions affected Black political representation. In this article, we draw on … Continue reading
Texas Tribune: And that’s where the case comes back to Wheeler’s name. Heath points out that four candidates preferred by Hispanic voters prevailed in the 2015 elections — the only contests held under the 6-2 map. Among them was Wheeler, … Continue reading
Texas Tribune on the latest trial, starting today, in the never-ending Texas redistricting case. … Continue reading
Michael Li: On July 10, a three-judge panel in Texas begins a week-long trial over the state’s congressional and state house plans. Here’s what you need to know. … Continue reading
DOJ’s position: Now that Texas passed a new law softening its voter id law, there’s nothing more the court should do. No need to find Texas acted with a discriminatory purpose, no need for an injunction, further judicial supervision, or … Continue reading
Stateline reports. … Continue reading
Texas Tribune considers whether the redistricting and voter id cases will lead to federal courts putting Texas’s voting rules back under federal supervision. … Continue reading
John Elwood for SCOTUSBlog’s “Relist Watch:” his week we have five new relists, taxing even my prodigious ability to string transitions between questions presented. For people who have been watching the recent North Carolina election cases like Harris v. Cooper, … Continue reading
Pascal Frank Calogero Jr. writes for The Advocate (La.). … Continue reading
Kimberly Robinson for Bloomberg BNA: After the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 2013 decision in Shelby Cty. v. Holder, Democrats have increasingly turned to another part of the Voting Rights Act, Section 2, to challenge what they see as restrictive voting … Continue reading
Texas Tribune: Amid last-minute efforts to overhaul the state’s voter identification law in light of an ongoing legal fight, the Texas Legislature gaveled out without addressing another embattled election law that’s now moving forward in federal court. The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of … Continue reading
Texas Tribune: A new law softening Texas’ strict voter identification requirements doesn’t absolve the lawmakers from intentionally discriminating against minority voters in 2011 — nor would it properly accommodate those voters going forward, the state’s opponents in a long-running lawsuit … Continue reading
Austin American-Statesman: U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos, who has already ruled that the Republican-backed voter ID law was enacted in 2011 with the intent to discriminate against minority voters, will confer with lawyers on how best to determine whether … Continue reading
I have now posted a revised version of “Essay: Race or Party, Race as Party, or Party All the Time: Three Uneasy Approaches to Conjoined Polarization in Redistricting and Voting Cases” (forthcoming William and Mary Law Review symposium issue on redistricting). This … Continue reading
There are a bunch of North Carolina redistricting cases stacked up at the moment. A few of these are in front of the Supreme Court, and could move as early as Tuesday. Since we just had a North Carolina redistricting case … Continue reading
Important Anita Earls in the SCOTUSBlog symposium on Cooper v. Harris: Although not breaking new ground, the court’s post-2010 census round of racial gerrymandering cases make clear that while not every district drawn as a majority-black or majority-Latino district is … Continue reading
I have written this oped for the Washington Post. It begins: Sometimes the most important stuff in Supreme Court opinions is hidden in the footnotes. In Monday’s Supreme Court ruling striking down two North Carolina congressional districts as unconstitutionally influenced … Continue reading
Rick Hasen and Rick Pildes have already weighed in on the NC redistricting case this morning. I agree with much of the Ricks’ analysis, and their assessment that this was utimately a win for voting rights plaintiffs. But I have … Continue reading
The Supreme Court has issued this 5-3 opinion in Cooper v. Harris. Justice Kagan wrote the opinion for the Court, with Justice Thomas making the fifth vote for affirmance. Chief Justice Robert and Justices Alito and Kennedy dissented. That is … Continue reading
Jim Malewitz for the Texas Tribune: A flurry of legislative activity Sunday night gave life to efforts to overhaul Texas’ voter identification rules — legislation Republicans call crucial to the state’s arguments in a high-profile legal battle over whether the … Continue reading
Bob Barnes for WaPo: The big win for voting rights activists at the Supreme Court last week came with an equally big asterisk, and provided new reason for jittery liberals and civil rights groups to continue to fret about Chief … Continue reading
NPR Weekend Edition: The high Court decided not to hear a case on North Carolina’s restrictive voting law. But other cases are moving forward. NPR’s Lulu Garcia-Navarro talks to Richard Hasen, law professor at UC Irvine. … Continue reading
Ian Millhiser for Think Progress. … Continue reading
Listen. … Continue reading
Reveal: Federal judges have ruled four separate times this year that Republican leaders in Texas rigged election systems to discriminate against minority voters, which potentially could land the entire state under federal oversight. Under what’s known as preclearance, local and … Continue reading
Bryan Sells writes. … Continue reading
Michael Wines in the NYT: It seemed like an important victory for voting rights advocates on Monday when the Supreme Court declined to reconsider an appellate decision striking down North Carolina’s restrictive voting law. But those who follow the arcana … Continue reading
With the North Carolina voting case gone, I’ve seen some suggestions that the Texas voter id case is the next big voting rights case to make it to SCOTUS. I don’t think that’s right. That case won’t be decided by … Continue reading
Today Chief Justice Roberts wrote separately in connection with the Supreme Court decision not to hear the North Carolina voting case, underlining the procedural irregularities of the case and noting it was not a decision on the merits. The Chief did … Continue reading
There’s already talk of the North Carolina general assembly (which has a veto-proof Republican majority) passing another strict voting rule (over the certain objections of the Democratic governor). This may happen even though the Supreme Court allowed the Fourth Circuit’s … Continue reading
Paul Waldman: And I promise you that if the Supreme Court upholds the Texas law, we’ll see just what we saw after the court took a knife to the Voting Rights Act: a rush to enact new restrictions in time … Continue reading
Release: A federal district court judge in Georgia agreed that a coalition of plaintiffs representing minority communities has the right to claim the method of electing local officials in Gwinnett County, Georgia denies them from participating equally in electing local … Continue reading
Today the Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to a Fourth Circuit decision holding that a North Carolina voting law (one I’ve called the strictest set of voting rules rolled into one law passed since at least the passage … Continue reading
Pema Levy for Mother Jones. … Continue reading
The Guardian: Pasadena was one of the first places in the country to be placed back under federal supervision after that 2013 ruling. So Saturday’s mayoral and city council elections were keenly watched by civil rights advocates. Those hoping Pasadena … Continue reading
The Court has already decided one major racial redistricting case this Term, Bethune-Hill, from Virginia. The other major racial redistricting case, Cooper v. Harris, from North Carolina, is now one of three cases outstanding the longest since argument. Cooper involves … Continue reading
Spoiler alert: Texas does not look good. … Continue reading
The Atlantic: In the half-century since the parish moved to an at-large system, only one black judge, Juan Pickett, has ever been elected to the 32nd District Court. That he ran unopposed has been taken by state officials as proof … Continue reading
Texas Tribune: As the 2018 election cycle nears, it appears Texas and its legal foes are headed for a trial — yet again — over what the state’s House and congressional boundaries will look like, and it will likely come … Continue reading