“Argument preview: Racial gerrymandering, partisan politics, and the future of the Voting Rights Act”

I have written an extensive preview for SCOTUSBlog of a pair of cases the Supreme Court will hear at a November 12 oral argument. The issues are complex but very important and I’ve tried to lay it out so that someone not in the election law field can understand what’s at stake.  The preview begins:

The Supreme Court has long ignored Justice Felix Frankfurter’s warning to stay out of the political thicket. It regularly hears challenges to redistricting cases (not to mention lots of other types of election cases), raising issues from the one-person, one-vote rule to vote dilution under the Voting Rights Act, to racial and partisan gerrymandering claims. The Court’s decision to hear a part of a challenge to Alabama’s state legislative redistricting plan enacted after the 2010 census (in Alabama Legislative Black Caucus v. Alabama and Alabama Democratic Conference v. Alabama, set for argument on November 12) brings all of these issues together in a seemingly technical but high-stakes case, showing the artificiality of separating issues of race and party in redistricting, offering a bold role reversal in political parties’ use of racial gerrymandering claims, and offering a surprising new threat to the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act.

 

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