[Texas SG Scott Keller]:…If the Court were to try to go down the road of requiring States to equalize within 10 percent of a deviation, both total and voter population, States would inevitably have to disregard many other traditional redistricting factors, like compactness, continuity, keeping communities together. And that would be the opposite of what the Court has said that States have in this context, which is the leeway to structure their elections as part of the core function of their sovereignty.
JUSTICE KENNEDY: That sounds highly probable to me. Has anything been written on this, or any studies on this
MR. KELLER: I don’t
JUSTICE KENNEDY: in the context of Texas.
MR. KELLER: I don’t believe so. We’re not aware of any. And we’re also not aware that this would be practically feasible…
There is a study, a theoretical one not focused on Texas, by Paul Edelman, a professor of law and mathematics at Vanderbilt. The study, Evenwel, Voting Power, and Dual Districting is forthcoming in the Journal of Legal Studies. I blogged about an earlier version of the paper back in August, and I said this about the paper in my LA Times oped on Evenwel:
And this is where the Rolling Stones principle comes in: A total population standard isn’t what everyone wants, but it’s what we need to avoid chaos.
A legislative map equalizing both total voters and total population would violate all sound redistricting principles, breaking up cities, separating communities of interests and producing grotesque shapes. Indeed, after Keller made these points, Kennedy seemed to concede the point: “That sounds highly probable to me.”
An attempt to equalize both population and voters would have especially bad consequences for minority representation. In a forthcoming paper Vanderbilt law and mathematics professor Paul Edelman shows that it is mathematically possible to draw districts that equalize both voters and population — but only at a big cost. He concludes that “dual districting may well be antithetical to achieving majority-minority districts,” a cornerstone of the Voting Rights Act.