Strict Scrutiny podcast:
Leah, Kate, and Melissa break down last week’s agonizing two-and-a-half-hour oral argument in Louisiana v. Callais, a case that could see the already weakened Voting Rights Act gutted even further. They highlight the themes that emerged and dig into the case’s broader context with Sam Spital, Associate Director-Counsel at the Legal Defense Fund….
Thinking about how the U.S. Supreme Court will handle the Louisiana case that could reshape the Voting Rights Act, the crowning legislative achievement of the civil rights era, Southern University political science professor Albert Samuels says he can’t help but think back.
Out of Louisiana, he noted, came the litigation that helped end Reconstruction laws protecting the formerly enslaved, the “grandfather clause” that kept Blacks from registering to vote and the landmark Plessy case, which enshrined Jim Crow laws limiting African American opportunities.
…The Trump administration’s framework would impose new evidentiary requirements on Black voters who sue over how electoral maps are drawn. Among other things, they would need current statistics showing that a legislature discriminated based on race, rather than party affiliation.
In the United States, where more than 80 percent of Black voters back Democratic candidates, decoupling race and party affiliation in such a way is difficult.
The Justice Department’s approach “would make it extremely difficult for Section 2 plaintiffs to win in jurisdictions where you have intense polarization, like you do in the Deep South,” said Travis Crum, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis.
Nate Cohn in NYT:
Republicans have been redrawing congressional districts this year at President Trump’s behest, but so far it hasn’t seemed to be enough to deny Democrats a reasonable path to control of the House of Representatives.
That might change if the Supreme Court strikes down Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act in Louisiana v. Callais, a case the court heard Wednesday.
Without Section 2, which has been interpreted to require the creation of majority-minority districts, Republicans could eliminate upward of a dozen Democratic-held districts across the South.
Initial thoughts on ELB from Rick Hasen, Ned Foley, Derek Muller, and Travis Crum.
I was in the courtroom for oral argument, expressed a few general thoughts in the media, and may share more detailed thoughts later.
You can do so here starting at 10 am ET on Wednesday, Oct. 15. If you’ve been busy, here’s Amy Howe’s SCOTUSblog summary of the issues and links to briefs.
WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON (AP) — A Republican attack on a core provision of the Voting Rights Act that is designed to protect racial minorities comes to the Supreme Court this week, more than a decade after the justices knocked out another pillar of the 60-year-old law.
In arguments Wednesday, lawyers for Louisiana and the Trump administration will try to persuade the justices to wipe away the state’s second majority Black congressional district and make it much harder, if not impossible, to take account of race in redistricting.
“Race-based redistricting is fundamentally contrary to our Constitution,” Louisiana Attorney General Elizabeth Murrill wrote in the state’s Supreme Court filing.
The Fifth Circuit has issued a temporary stay of the district court opinion in Robinson v. Ardoin. Here is a short story by Bloomberg reporter Meghashyam Mali. This development is not surprising. The question for me is whether the plaintiffs will seek Supreme Court review if the Fifth Circuit reverses the District Court’s opinion, which at this point seems more probable than not.