Divided Fifth Circuit Rejects Argument of Dallas, Texas White Voters of Voting Rights Violation and Racial Gerrymandering; Judge Ho Partly Dissents, Seeking to Read Voting Rights Act More Strictly

You can find the opinions in Harding v. County of Dallas at this link.

Judge Ho’s partial dissent is significant in that it reads the Supreme Court’s 2018 opinion in Perez v. Abbott to add new requirements for plaintiffs seeking to bring Voting Rights Act claims. (For authority, he relies on Justice Sotomayor’s dissent in the case and a Slate piece of mine on the case.)

And yet even as Judge Ho says that plaintiffs generally will have a harder time winning VRA cases, he wants a remand for the white voters who failed to prove their case under (what he considers to be) an easier standard. That’s quite odd.

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