WFAE: Cooper: It’s pretty rare when the United States Supreme Court issues a 9-0 decision on such a controversial issue as redistricting. But it’s clear that these racially gerrymandered districts are unconstitutional. I don’t think we should have another budget … Continue reading
Category Archives: redistricting
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
I have posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming, ACS Supreme Court Review). Here is the abstract: The United States Supreme Court, like the Lord, sometimes works in mysterious ways. Back in the 1990s, a group of conservative activists convinced a majority … Continue reading
Orders list. Tune in next week to see if the Court grants a hearing in the case for next term (as I’m expecting). … Continue reading
Bob Barnes for WaPo: The Supreme Court could announce as soon as Monday that it is either affirming or reversing the lower court’s decision, or, more likely, accepting the case for full briefing and arguments in the term that begins … Continue reading
Teddy Schleifer for CNN: One person filling some of the fundraising leadership void left by Trump: Sheldon Adelson, the party’s largest contributor, who is preparing for possible headwinds ahead of 2018, according to a person with knowledge of his plans. … Continue reading
The three judge court is acting even before the official mandate from the Supreme Court. Among other things, the court wants to know who speaks for North Carolina. A very good question. … Continue reading
The News & Observer reports. … Continue reading
Fascinating Lyle Denniston post: Both sides in a new Supreme Court test case on partisan gerrymandering – drawing new election districts to favor one party – on Tuesday answered the Justices’ questions about whether the case should stay alive, disagreeing … 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
John Greabe writes on Cooper v. Harris for the Concord Monitor. … Continue reading
Kimberly Robinson for Bloomberg BNA: The U.S. Supreme Court could radically change how states draw their districts for federal and state elections as Republicans and Democrats are preparing to battle over the next redistricting cycle. More than 30 years ago, … Continue reading
NY Times: In Washington, efforts by this state’s Republicans to cement their political dominance have taken a drubbing this month. On May 15, the Supreme Court struck down a North Carolina elections law that a federal appeals court said had … Continue reading
(Apologies for the delay, as ELB was down this morning.) After being relisted only once, the Supreme Court agreed to hear Husted v. A.Philip Randolph Institute from the Sixth Circuit. The question presented is: “Whether 52 U.S.C. § 20507 permits Ohio’s … 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
Very important Chris Elmendorf post at Balkinization, with a more negative view of Cooper v. Harris: How then is a state to comply with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which, as noted above, has long required states to create districts with … Continue reading
Mike Parsons on yesterday’s Supreme Court racial gerrymandering decision. … 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
I’ve already opined on what might have motivated Justice Thomas (and Justice Kennedy) so side how they did today. An ELB reader passes along these additional thoughts about Justice Thomas and what comes next: I’ve always been struck by Justice … Continue reading
Nina Totenberg reports for NPR. … Continue reading
Via the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, comes this stay application in the Wisconsin partisan gerrymandering case (Gill v. Whitford). The state wants the Supreme Court to put on hold a requirement that Wisconsin state legislative districts by November 1. The Supreme Court will … Continue reading
The Court’s decision this morning in the North Carolina redistricting case addressed allegations of predominant and unjustified racial intent. The state attempted to defend its actions, in part, by saying that it was just acting for partisan reasons. The legal … Continue reading
I’ve noted how interesting and mysterious it is that Justice Thomas signed onto Justice Kagan’s opinion in today’s racial gerrymandering case. Given Justice Thomas’s views on Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, and his view of the clearly erroneous … 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
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
Release: The 2018 midterms will be fiercely fought, with a focus on control of the U.S. House after years of Republican dominance. At the same time, the U.S. Supreme Court will likely hear a challenge to partisan gerrymandering in Gill … Continue reading
New Adam Liptak NYT Sidebar column: The Supreme Court has never struck down an election map on the ground that it was drawn to make sure one political party would win an outsize number of seats. But it has left … Continue reading
WaPo editorial: WITH ITS preposterously gerrymandered congressional voting districts, Maryland is an outstanding example of why states need nonpartisan redistricting reform. But the redistricting bill that emerged this year in Annapolis — in equal parts cynical and ludicrous — makes … Continue reading
Read it here. … Continue reading
WaPo: The director of the U.S. Census Bureau is resigning, leaving the agency leaderless at a time when it faces a crisis over funding for the 2020 decennial count of the U.S. population and beyond. John H. Thompson, who has … Continue reading
With Paul Smith (now of the Campaign Legal Center) as Counsel of Record. … Continue reading
Sam Wang and Brian Remlinger LAT oped: Setting aside the Monte Carlo analysis, the most straightforward way to determine if gerrymandering has gone too far is to ask whether one side’s wins were exceptionally lopsided compared with the other. In … 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
This extremely long running case will be coming to a conclusion with a 5 day trial on July 10, followed by an inevitable appeal directly to the Supreme court. … 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
The Dallas Morning News reports. … Continue reading
Micah Altman and Michael McDonald in American Politics Research: In the last decade, Ohio reformers advocated redistricting by formula: selecting the redistricting plan that scores best on a predefined objective scoring function that combines prima facie neutral criteria with political … Continue reading
Amicus brief. … Continue reading
AP: Attorneys for the Republican-controlled Wisconsin Legislature asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday to uphold GOP-drawn legislative boundaries, saying a ruling that found them to be unconstitutional was “dangerously” wrong. The filing comes in support of separate and similar … Continue reading
AP: Georgia lawmakers violated federal voting rights law by moving black voters out and white voters in to two state House districts in 2015, according to a lawsuit filed Monday that calls the mid-decade redistricting an effort to protect white … Continue reading
The Texas Tribune reports. … Continue reading
Michael Wines on the Wisconsin partisan gerrymandering case heading to SCOTUS. … Continue reading
The same three-judge court that recently held that Texas’s congressional redistricting violated the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act in drawing some districts has now issued this new decision and these findings of fact in relation to the challenge to … Continue reading
Watch around the 14 minute mark (NSFW). … Continue reading
At about the 12 minute mark. … Continue reading
Aaron Blake: But gerrymandering is also blamed too much for too many things — especially for our political polarization and for Republicans’ strong advantage in the House. Just last week, an op-ed in The Washington Post blamed gerrymandering for breeding the … Continue reading
Big piece in Quanta Magazine. … Continue reading
A few weeks ago the three-judge court decided a challenge to the 2011 Texas congressional redistricting plan. Pending is a challenge to the 2011 House districts. That opinion may come any time. There also needs to be a trial on … Continue reading