[EL] SCOTUS takes Alabama redistricting cases.

[Rick Hasen]

    "Supreme Court to hear Ala. redistricting challenge"
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=61943>

Posted on June 2, 2014 7:13 am <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=61943>by 
Rick Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

AP 
<http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SUPREME_COURT_ALABAMA_REDISTRICTING?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT>: 
"The Supreme Court said Monday it will consider a challenge from Alabama 
Democrats who say a Republican-drawn legislative map intentionally packs 
black Democrats into a few voting districts, giving them too little 
influence in the Legislature."

This will mark the first time since the /LULAC /decision that the Court 
will consider the unconstitutional racial gerrymandering cause of 
action.  The last significant look at that question was Easley v. 
Cromartie <http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/532/234/>, when 
Justice O'Connor, whose views were so central to this cause of action, 
was still on the Court.  (In /Cromartie /Justice O'Connor joined the 
liberals in rejecting a racial gerrymandering claim, after a number of 
cases, beginning with Shaw v. Reno 
<http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=2057233072475851470&hl=en&as_sdt=6&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr>, 
where she recognized it but differed from the other Justices about how 
to prove it.)

It will be interesting to see what the Chief and Justice Alito think 
about this.

The grants were limited, as Marty Lederman explains:

    Alabama Democratic Conference v. Alabama, No. 13-1138 (limited to
    question one --- Whether Alabama's effort to redraw the lines of
    each majority-black district to have the same black population as it
    would have using 2010 census data as applied to the former district
    lines, when combined with the state's new goal of significantly
    reducing population deviation among districts, amounted to an
    unconstitutional racial quota and racial gerrymandering that is
    subject to strict scrutiny and that was not justified by the
    putative interest of complying with the non-retrogression aspect of
    Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act; and whether these plaintiffs
    have standing to bring such a constitutional claim;), and

    Alabama Legislative Black Caucus v. Alabama, No. 13-895 (limited to
    question two --- whether Alabama's legislative redistricting plans
    unconstitutionally classify black voters by race by intentionally
    packing them in districts designed to maintain supermajority
    percentages produced when 2010 census data are applied to the 2001
    majority-black districts).

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-- 
Rick Hasen
Chancellor's 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://www.law.uci.edu/faculty/full-time/hasen/
http://electionlawblog.org

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