[EL] Update on Texas Redistricting

[Pildes, Rick]

As an update to last night's discussion on Texas, turns out on Sunday the legislature repealed its prior districting plans that had been at issue and adopted the interim plans the three-judge federal Court in Texas had created.  Assuming the Governor signs that legislation, which he is expected to do, the issues about the initial plan that we've been discussing are moot.
From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Justin Levitt
Sent: Tuesday, June 25, 2013 11:12 PM
To: law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
Subject: [EL] Texas and discriminatory purpose

On some of the three-judge court's findings, they acknowledged a distinct difference in the burden of proof, finding that Texas had not disproven discriminatory intent.  But on other findings, the court stated their conclusions far more affirmatively: "we are also persuaded by the totality of the evidence that the plan was enacted with discriminatory intent"  (emphasis mine).

Even if there is no formal issue preclusion, I'd be surprised if the San Antonio federal court simply brushed off the DC court's findings.

Justin



On 6/25/2013 8:00 PM, Samuel Bagenstos wrote:
Pretty sure a difference in the allocation of the burden of proof is a recognized exception to issue preclusion, alas.

Sent from my iPad

On Jun 25, 2013, at 10:51 PM, "Pildes, Rick" <pildesr at exchange.law.nyu.edu<mailto:pildesr at exchange.law.nyu.edu>> wrote:

A three-judge federal court has found already that Texas' redistricting plan was motivated by a racially discriminatory purpose.  Whether that finding is right or wrong, I assume it is going to be collateral estoppel against the state in the immediate litigation that is going to ensue.  Unless that finding was affected by Section 5 - because it resulted from the shifted burden of proof under Section 5 - Texas' only recourse if it wants to put into effect the rejected plan would be to appeal to the Supreme Court.  I haven't reviewed the three-judge court opinion lately but I'd be interested to learn more about this issue from lawyers on the list who have.


_______________________________________________
Law-election mailing list
Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu<mailto:Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu>
http://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election




_______________________________________________

Law-election mailing list

Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu<mailto:Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu>

http://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20130626/4685bb9e/attachment.html>