[EL] Texas case

Fri Dec 9 22:27:46 PST 2011

FYI -- I have placed my article on court-drawn redistricting plans -  "When Judges Carve Democracies: A Primer on Court-Drawn Redistricting Plans," 73 GW L Rev 1131 (2005), at the following link:

http://www.law.columbia.edu/null?exclusive=filemgr.download&id=62593 

I wish the Court could have considered the issues underlying court-drawn plans outside the context of an emergency situation like this.  But with luck (perhaps a lot of it), we might get some clarity for the rules that the will govern the many court-drawn plans that will need to be created for the deadlocked states currently unable to adopt redistricting plans.

Nathaniel Persily
Charles Keller Beekman Professor of Law and
Political Science
Columbia Law School
Jerome Greene Hall
435 West 116th Street
New York, NY 10027
(917) 570-3223
nate at persily.com

 -----Original Message-----
From: "Rick Hasen" [rhasen at law.uci.edu]
Date: 12/10/2011 12:25 AM
To: "law-election at uci.edu" 
Subject: [EL] ELB News and Commentary 12/10/11

    We’re Back, Baby!Posted on December 9, 2011 9:23 pm by Rick HasenThis is the first Supreme Court term since 2003 (when I began blogging)  in which there was no election law case on the Supreme Court’s docket.  (For reasons on the decline of the Court’s election law docket, see here.)  Now we have the high-profile, and uncertain, Texas redistricting case, being fast-tracked for argument at the beginning of January.
Further, we may hear as early as Monday if the Court will hear the Bluman foreign campaign spending case.  I expect we will also soon have cases dealing with (what I expect will be) DOJ’s failure to preclear South Carolina and Texas’s voter identification laws, as well as a case or more on whether section 5 of the Voting Rights Act remains constitutional.
It should be an interesting ride, especially as the 2012 election season gears up even further.Posted in election law biz, Supreme Court  | Comments OffDemocrats’ Election Referendum Qualifies in OhioPosted on December 9, 2011 9:14 pm by Rick HasenThe most important aspect of this news is that the qualification of the referendum stops the enforcement of the Republican Legislature’s changes during the 2012 election, while this referendum is pending.Posted in election administration, referendum  | Comments Off“Civil Rights Groups Again Ask Government to Block South Carolina Voter ID Law”Posted on December 9, 2011 8:59 pm by Rick HasenSee this press release.Posted in election administration, Voting Rights Act  | Comments Off“Challengers to Ban on Campaign Money From Contractors Seek Fast-Track Ruling”Posted on December 9, 2011 8:55 pm by Rick HasenBNA: “Challengers of a ban on federal campaign contributions from individuals with government contracts are trying to put the case on a fast track, possibly to the D.C. Circuit, to try to get a legal ruling in time for next year’s election, according to court papers filed recently (Wagner v. FEC, D.D.C., No. 11-cv-1841, case management order filed 12/7/11).”Posted in campaign finance  | Comments OffNY, Miss.(!), and California File Brief in Shelby County Case Supporting Constitutionality of Section 5 of Voting Rights ActPosted on December 9, 2011 8:52 pm by Rick HasenJustin Levitt links.Posted in redistricting, Supreme Court, Voting Rights Act  | Comments OffNina Perales: SCOTUS Order “Very Disturbing”Posted on December 9, 2011 8:51 pm by Rick HasenSee here. Howard rounds up more coverage of the Court’s unusual order this evening.Posted in redistricting, Supreme Court, Voting Rights Act  | Comments Off“Court to Hear Texas Dispute on Drawing New Districts”Posted on December 9, 2011 8:41 pm by Rick HasenNYT reports.Posted in redistricting, Supreme Court, Voting Rights Act  | Comments OffBreaking News: Supreme Court Will Hear Texas Redistricting CasesPosted on December 9, 2011 4:06 pm by Rick HasenSCOTUSBlog: “The Supreme Court, working late on a Friday, agreed to rule on the constitutionality of three redistricting plans for the two houses of the Texas legislature and its U.S. House of Representatives delegation, and put on hold temporarily a U.S. District Court’s interim maps.”
Here is the Court’s order.
Given what the Court did, with no stated dissents, it is not clear why this had to wait until Friday at 7 pm eastern to issue.
More importantly, it is also not clear what is supposed to happen now in Texas.  What districts can be used, if the districts crafted by the three-judge court are now “stayed pending further order of this Court?”
The case will be argued on January 9.  It is possible the Court will grant an interim order before then addressing which districts should be used. (Perhaps that was the reason for the delay, and it did not come together.  Were they cobbling together a plan and/or an order?  Were there dissents?)  Or the Court may try to rush an opinion soon after argument.
Notably, what the Court did not do is remand the case to the lower court to redraw the districts with greater deference to the Texas-submitted plans (as Texas had requested).  My surmise is that the second opinion issued by that court, the one Judge Smith in dissent characterized as having the “smell of brief on appeal,” could well have caused the Supreme Court to lose faith in whether the lower court would faithfully carry out such an order.
And now the Supreme Court is going to be thrust in the unusual position of deciding a case with immediate partisan consequences.  It is no exaggeration to say that with three or four additional Democratic seats at issue under the original Court-drawn plan, the decision could help decide control of the House.Posted in redistricting, Supreme Court, Voting Rights Act  | Comments Off“S.D. campaign rules working”Posted on December 9, 2011 3:36 pm by Rick HasenDick Semerdjian and I (representing the City of San Diego in the Thalheimer litigation) have written this letter to the editor of the San Diego Union-Tribune.
The case is currently subject to cross-motions for summary judgment in federal district court.Posted in campaign finance  | Comments Off“The slick shtick of Americans Elect; Just what Americans yearn for: A high-tech presidential ticket funded by secret Wall Street money”Posted on December 9, 2011 3:26 pm by Rick HasenSalon reports. “Here’s what the group is not so upfront about: It’s fueled by millions of dollars of secret money, there is a group of wealthy, well-connected board members who have control over Americans Elect’s nominating process, and the group has myriad links to Wall Street.”Posted in third parties  | Comments Off“Redistricting writ petition: January just got busier for the Supreme Court”Posted on December 9, 2011 2:43 pm by Rick HasenGetting tricky in CA.Posted in citizen commissions, direct democracy, redistricting  | Comments Off“Americans Elect: internet-based group gaining steam ahead of election’ New organisation wants to challenge America’s two-party system, but has drawn critical fire over the source of its fundin”Posted on December 9, 2011 1:52 pm by Rick HasenThe Guardian reports.Posted in campaign finance, third parties  | Comments Off --
Rick Hasen
Professor of Law and Political Science
UC Irvine School of Law
401 E. Peltason Dr., Suite 1000
Irvine, CA 92697-8000
949.824.3072 - office
949.824.0495 - fax
rhasen at law.uci.edu
http://law.uci.edu/faculty/page1_r_hasen.html
http://electionlawblog.org  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20111210/6246fb09/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: share_save_171_16.png
Type: image/png
Size: 1520 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20111210/6246fb09/attachment.png>