[EL] ELB News and Commentary 12/9/15
Rick Hasen
rhasen at law.uci.edu
Wed Dec 9 07:08:24 PST 2015
The link to Nate Persily's blog post on this point somehow got deleted:
http://electionlawblog.org/?p=78146
On 12/8/15 10:29 PM, Sal Peralta wrote:
> I don't understand your claim in the article that states do not "have
> the data" to draw districts based on the number of registered voters
> in the district. That is certainly not the case in Oregon. We have
> a statewide voter registration system that anyone can use to plot the
> physical address of every registered voter in . I doubt that Oregon
> is exceptional in this regard. What am I missing?
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On Dec 8, 2015, at 9:26 PM, Rick Hasen <rhasen at law.uci.edu
> <mailto:rhasen at law.uci.edu>> wrote:
>
>>
>> “Justices will get no satisfaction with a new ‘one person, one
>> vote’ rule” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=78170>
>>
>> Posted onDecember 8, 2015 9:22 pm
>> <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=78170>byRick Hasen
>> <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
>>
>> I have writtenthis oped
>> <http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-1210-hasen-evenwel-voting-district-20151208-story.html>on
>> Evenwel for the LA Times oped page. It begins:
>>
>> At the Supreme Court on Tuesday, the justices struggled over the
>> meaning of the 1960s-era “one person, one vote” rule. Should
>> Texas legislative districts contain an equal number of people —
>> as they do now — or an equal number of eligible voters, as the
>> plaintiffs inEvenwel vs. Abbott
>> <http://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/14-940_c07e.pdf>demand?
>> Ultimately, the justices may have no choice but to heed some
>> other words written in the 1960s: You can’t always get what you want.
>>
>> Another snippet:
>>
>> At the oral argument Tuesday, JusticeAnthony Kennedy
>> <http://www.latimes.com/topic/crime-law-justice/justice-system/anthony-kennedy-PEPLT00008042-topic.html>tried
>> to split the difference. He pondered whether Texas — and other
>> states — could draw districts with an equal number of people and
>> an equal number of voters. “Why can’t you have both?” he asked
>> Texas Solicitor General Scott Keller.
>>
>> And this is where the Rolling Stones principle comes in: A total
>> population standard isn’t what everyone wants, but it’s what we
>> need to avoid chaos.
>>
>> A legislative map equalizing both total voters and total
>> population would violate all sound redistricting principles,
>> breaking up cities, separating communities of interests and
>> producing grotesque shapes. Indeed, after Keller made these
>> points, Kennedy seemed to concede the point: “That sounds highly
>> probable to me.”
>>
>> An attempt to equalize both population and voters would have
>> especially bad consequences for minority representation. In a
>> forthcomingpaper<http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm%3Fabstract_id=2631666>Vanderbilt
>> law and mathematics professor Paul Edelman shows that it is
>> mathematically possible to draw districts that equalize both
>> voters and population — but only at a big cost. He concludes that
>> “dual districting may well be antithetical to achieving
>> majority-minority districts,” a cornerstone of the Voting Rights Act.
>>
>> It’s also impossible at this point to reliably draw districts
>> with an equal number of voters. As Nathaniel Persily of Stanford
>> Law School has argued, we simply don’t have the data to do it.
>>
>> <share_save_171_16.png>
>> <https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D78170&title=%26%238220%3BJustices%20will%20get%20no%20satisfaction%20with%20a%20new%20%26%238216%3Bone%20person%2C%20one%20vote%26%238217%3B%20rule%26%238221%3B&description=>
>> Posted inredistricting <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>,Supreme
>> Court <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>
>>
>>
>> “Argument analysis: Justices hard to read on Arizona
>> redistricting plan” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=78168>
>>
>> Posted onDecember 8, 2015 9:19 pm
>> <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=78168>byRick Hasen
>> <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
>>
>> Amy Howe
>> <http://www.scotusblog.com/2015/12/argument-analysis-justices-hard-to-read-on-arizona-redistricting-plan/>on
>> Harris oral argument:
>>
>> “Where’s the beef?” That was the question from Washington
>> attorney Paul Smith, arguing at the Court today on behalf of the
>> five-member independent commission charged with drawing new state
>> legislative maps for Arizona. The Justices heard oral arguments
>> in a challenge by several Arizona voters to the maps that the
>> commission drew after the 2010 census; the voters allege that the
>> commission violated the principle of “one person, one vote” when
>> it intentionally put too many residents into Republican-leaning
>> districts while putting too few into Democratic-leaning
>> districts. The Court’s four more liberal Justices seemed inclined
>> to agree with Smith, but some of the Court’s more conservative
>> Justices were harder to read. Because a ruling in favor of the
>> challengers could potentially affect redistricting maps around
>> the country, both sides could be on tenterhooks waiting for the
>> Court’s eventual decision.
>>
>> My own read of the transcript was that Thor was really getting hung
>> up even with the conservatives in dealing with the lower court’s
>> factual finding that the Commission’s predominant motivation in
>> deviating from perfect equality in drawing the districts was a good
>> faith belief it was required by the Voting Rights Act. That, and the
>> fact that he offered no good standard for determining how much
>> partisanship in districting is too much to allow deviations from one
>> person, one vote made me think the challengers are likely to lose
>> this one.
>>
>> <share_save_171_16.png>
>> <https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D78168&title=%26%238220%3BArgument%20analysis%3A%20Justices%20hard%20to%20read%20on%20Arizona%20redistricting%20plan%26%238221%3B&description=>
>> Posted inredistricting <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>,Supreme
>> Court <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>
>>
>>
>> “Supreme Court Landmark Case Baker v. Carr”
>> <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=78166>
>>
>> Posted onDecember 8, 2015 9:15 pm
>> <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=78166>byRick Hasen
>> <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
>>
>> Well-timed
>> <http://www.c-span.org/video/?327719-1/supreme-court-landmark-case-baker-v-carr>C-SPAN
>> landmark case discussion.
>>
>> <share_save_171_16.png>
>> <https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D78166&title=%26%238220%3BSupreme%20Court%20Landmark%20Case%20Baker%20v.%20Carr%26%238221%3B&description=>
>> Posted inredistricting <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>,Supreme
>> Court <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>
>>
>>
>> Evenwel Oral Argument News Roundup
>> <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=78164>
>>
>> Posted onDecember 8, 2015 9:14 pm
>> <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=78164>byRick Hasen
>> <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
>>
>> NYT
>> <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/09/us/politics/supreme-court-to-hear-arguments-on-one-person-one-vote.html>
>>
>> LAT
>> <http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-supreme-court-election-districts-20151208-story.html>
>>
>> WSJ
>> <http://www.wsj.com/articles/supreme-court-to-hear-two-disputes-over-how-to-draw-political-maps-1449576004>
>>
>> NPR
>> <http://www.npr.org/2015/12/08/458795687/when-drawing-districts-should-states-count-each-person-or-each-voter>
>>
>> Buzzfeed
>> <http://www.buzzfeed.com/chrisgeidner/supreme-court-considers-what-one-person-one-vote-means-today?utm_term=.svAzr1GMj#.dgAxjBrD9>
>>
>> USA Today
>> <http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/12/08/supreme-court-voting-rights-texas-population-voters/76982334/>
>>
>> AP
>> <http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SUPREME_COURT_VOTING_RIGHTS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT>
>>
>> Reuters
>> <http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-election-idUSKBN0TR25A20151208>
>>
>> SCOTUSBlog
>> <http://www.scotusblog.com/2015/12/argument-analysis-the-choice-be-bold-or-practical/>
>>
>> <share_save_171_16.png>
>> <https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D78164&title=Evenwel%20Oral%20Argument%20News%20Roundup&description=>
>> Posted inredistricting <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>,Supreme
>> Court <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>
>>
>>
>> “What Exactly Does ‘One Person, One Vote’ Mean, Anyway? The
>> Supreme Court justices turn a simple question into something more
>> complicated.” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=78162>
>>
>> Posted onDecember 8, 2015 9:08 pm
>> <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=78162>byRick Hasen
>> <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
>>
>> Dahlia Lithwick
>> writes<http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/supreme_court_dispatches/2015/12/evenwel_v_abbott_the_supreme_court_hears_arguments_in_a_voter_apportionment.html>for
>> Slate.
>>
>> <share_save_171_16.png>
>> <https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D78162&title=%26%238220%3BWhat%20Exactly%20Does%20%26%238216%3BOne%20Person%2C%20One%20Vote%26%238217%3B%20Mean%2C%20Anyway%3F%20The%20Supreme%20Court%20justices%20turn%20a%20simple%20question%20into%20something%20more%20complicated.%26%238221%3B&description=>
>> Posted inredistricting <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>,Supreme
>> Court <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>
>>
>>
>> “At the Supreme Court, Equal Representation Is in Danger”
>> <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=78160>
>>
>> Posted onDecember 8, 2015 8:53 pm
>> <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=78160>byRick Hasen
>> <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
>>
>> David Gans writes
>> <https://newrepublic.com/article/125362/supreme-court-equal-representation-danger>for
>> TNR.
>>
>> <share_save_171_16.png>
>> <https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D78160&title=%26%238220%3BAt%20the%20Supreme%20Court%2C%20Equal%20Representation%20Is%20in%20Danger%26%238221%3B&description=>
>> Posted inredistricting <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>,Supreme
>> Court <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>
>>
>>
>> WI AG: “John Doe II Must End” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=78158>
>>
>> Posted onDecember 8, 2015 8:52 pm
>> <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=78158>byRick Hasen
>> <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
>>
>> Statement <https://www.doj.state.wi.us/blog/john-doe-ii-should-end>:
>>
>> The Wisconsin Supreme Court has issued yet another decision in
>> John Doe II, the protracted and secret investigation into whether
>> a political group exercising free political speech rights
>> improperly coordinated with Governor Walker during the recall
>> election. For the second time this year, the Wisconsin Supreme
>> Court directed that the John Doe proceeding be halted based upon
>> the Court’s conclusion that prosecutors did not have a legal
>> basis to investigate these political groups when they commenced
>> John Doe II. The Court found that campaign finance statutes upon
>> which the prosecutors relied violate free political speech rights
>> guaranteed by both the United States Constitution and the
>> Wisconsin Constitution.
>>
>> Thus, the Court said that the matter is closed, and the evidence
>> seized through subpoenas and search warrants issued as part of
>> the investigation must be returned. That has not yet occurred,
>> and the owners of that property are understandably upset.
>>
>> The special prosecutor has indicated that he intends to appeal.
>> The only level of appeal left is to the Supreme Court of the
>> United States (SCOTUS), but it is very unlikely SCOTUS would take
>> the case. In the unlikely scenario that SCOTUS were to accept the
>> case, it would more than likely uphold the Wisconsin Supreme
>> Court’s decision.
>>
>> I write because I have indirectly been asked as Wisconsin
>> Attorney General to intervene on behalf of the John Doe targets.
>> The Wisconsin DOJ played a role in the proceedings before the
>> Wisconsin Supreme Court, although it was not a leading role. DOJ
>> represented the judge who was assigned to John Doe II after the
>> initial judge recused herself. The new judge quashed subpoenas
>> issued in the John Doe proceeding, finding that the special
>> prosecutor’s theory of the case was not supported by Wisconsin
>> law. The special prosecutor appealed that ruling, and DOJ
>> represented the judge in the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
>>
>> Last week, the Wisconsin Supreme Court again ordered that the
>> seized evidence be returned to its owners. Given that DOJ
>> represented the judge who first found that the John Doe
>> proceeding was invalid, DOJ certainly has no intention of
>> standing in the way of those orders. The Supreme Court’s order
>> should be carried out forthwith. DOJ has no authority to
>> represent those individual property owners in their effort to
>> enforce the Supreme Court’s order.
>>
>> This has been a long, unfortunate chapter in Wisconsin’s history. The
>> courts have unequivocally rejected the John Doe investigation, both
>> in the manner in which it was carried out, as well as the legal
>> arguments brought by the prosecutors. The Wisconsin Supreme Court has
>> now ordered that the property seized be returned. For everyone
>> involved, the special prosecutor should end the case, and the
>> property seized from the individuals in this case should be returned
>> immediately.
>>
>> <share_save_171_16.png>
>> <https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D78158&title=WI%20AG%3A%20%26%238220%3BJohn%20Doe%20II%20Must%20End%26%238221%3B&description=>
>> Posted inchicanery <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>
>>
>>
>> “Be careful what you wish for in Evenwel, Justice Kennedy”
>> <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=78156>
>>
>> Posted onDecember 8, 2015 8:47 pm
>> <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=78156>byRick Hasen
>> <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
>>
>> Joey Fishkin blogs.
>> <http://balkin.blogspot.com/2015/12/be-careful-what-you-wish-for-in-evenwel.html>
>>
>> <share_save_171_16.png>
>> <https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D78156&title=%26%238220%3BBe%20careful%20what%20you%20wish%20for%20in%20Evenwel%2C%20Justice%20Kennedy%26%238221%3B&description=>
>> Posted inredistricting <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>,Supreme
>> Court <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>
>>
>>
>> Six Takeaways from the Evenwel Argument
>> <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=78154>
>>
>> Posted onDecember 8, 2015 4:07 pm
>> <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=78154>byRichard Pildes
>> <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=7>
>>
>> The argument, which I attended this morning, was unusually subdued.
>> I think that’s because the prior case, challenging the Arizona
>> Independent Redistricting Commission’s plan, was tedious and
>> frustrating to the Court, with the lawyers challenging the
>> Commission’s plan not able to give the Court clear, consistent
>> answers regarding their basic theory of the case. The Court was
>> energetic in the first case but then seemed a bit worn down from the
>> unsatisyfing first argument. But in terms of how/Evenwel/is likely
>> to come out, here are my views on six central points:
>>
>> 1. The Court is not going to hold that voter equality (equal
>> numbers of eligible voters per district) is constitutionally
>> required. Justice Kennedy showed no interest in that position
>> and asked no questions that suggested he was wrestling with
>> embracing that view. That is consistent with my view going into
>> the case that it was always unlikely this Court would conclude
>> that voter equality is required. Some early journalistic
>> coverage of the argument, such ashere,
>> <http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-supreme-court-election-districts-20151208-story.html>portray
>> the Court as likely to adopt the voter equality standard, but I
>> think those stories misunderstand the nature of the questions
>> Justice Kennedy was asking.
>> 2. The Court is not going to embrace the other clean, polar position
>> either, which is that the Constitution requires that total
>> population be the measure. That issue was not properly teed up
>> for the Court, with none of the counsel before the Court arguing
>> that the Court should adopt total population. The issue here is
>> whether the Court will expressly leave this question open and
>> keep alive the possibility that, if and when the Court has to
>> confront that question, the Court would then clearly be free to
>> decide that total population is the required standard.
>> 3. So the Court will either affirm the status quo or adopt an
>> intermediate position to which Justice Kennedy appears drawn.
>> That is the view that states have to at least/consider/voter
>> equality as/one factor/to take into account. He consistently
>> returned to this question and it seemed his central instinct
>> about the case. Texas acknowledges that it did not take voter
>> equality into account at all (the State Constitution prohibits
>> that) and this case was tossed out at the very first stage of the
>> litigation, on a motion to dismiss. Justice Kennedy asked more
>> than once whether, given this context, states should have at
>> least the/minimal/obligation to see whether they could do a
>> better job at diminishing inequalities among eligible voters
>> across districts, without perhaps sacrificing too much other
>> constitutional and redistricting values. If the Court adopts this
>> approach, that would be slicing the issues pretty thinly between
>> the two sides. If this view prevails, it would impose a
>> process-oriented obligation: voter equality is a factor that
>> must be “considered.”
>> 4. This would look like a victory for the appellants, but it would
>> be a win on the most minimal grounds. Moreover, even that
>> holding might be accompanied by qualifications concerning the
>> reliability of the ACS data that counts citizens and
>> non-citizens. There is a debate among the briefs, reflected at
>> the argument, over the reliability of this data, and I don’t know
>> if the Court would want to resolve that issue for itself in the
>> first instance. So even this narrow holding might come in this
>> form: states have to at least consider voter equality, to the
>> extent there is accurate and reliable data on that, and we leave
>> it to the lower courts in specific cases to address that
>> reliability question.
>> 5. If the Court holds that states have to take voter equality “into
>> account” as “a factor,” what would that mean on the ground? The
>> key question would then become: how much weight do states have
>> to give this factor, compared to total population, once they
>> start “taking it into account?” The Court is not likely to
>> answer that question and it will likely take years of litigation
>> to sort it out. But I think the most the Court would ultimately
>> hold is that if states can do more to promote voter equality,
>> while not allowing their districts to vary in total population by
>> more than 10% and while not violating traditional districting
>> principles, then/within those constraints/, states would need to
>> avoid unnecessary departures from voter equality. That is a long
>> way away from a requirement that districts be based on voter
>> equality — as a practical matter, even if there is a majority for
>> the position Justice Kennedy was debating, I think the practical
>> effect would be very modest changes in outcomes concerning how
>> districts are designed and how the distribution of political
>> power is affected.
>> 6. The most important effect of/Evenwel/is not, therefore, likely to
>> be doctrinal. The case itself — as is often true of Supreme
>> Court cases — raises the visibility of an option that many
>> jurisdictions might well not have considered before.
>> Redistricters have been routinely using the Census data, which is
>> total population data. In some areas where the politics over
>> immigration are particularly heated, some states or local
>> government bodies might now start talking about shifting to CVAP
>> data in the next redistricting cycle. Will the litigation itself
>> become a catalyst for some states to choose of their own accord
>> to start districting based on voter equality, rather than total
>> population — even if the Court’s decision does nothing more than
>> affirm the status quo, in which this option has always been
>> possible. That is the most politically consequential question
>> surrounding this case, given that the Court is not going to hold
>> that districting based on voter equality is constitutionally
>> required.
>>
>> <share_save_171_16.png>
>> <https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D78154&title=Six%20Takeaways%20from%20the%20Evenwel%20Argument&description=>
>> Posted inUncategorized <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>
>>
>>
>> Clearing the Brush in Today’s One-Person, One-Vote Case
>> <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=78146>
>>
>> Posted onDecember 8, 2015 2:22 pm
>> <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=78146>bynpersily
>> <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=8>
>>
>> The oral argument today in/Evenwel v. Abbott/was revealing in many
>> respects, as such arguments often are, in highlighting which points
>> in the briefs command the most attention from the Justices. However,
>> as is also often the case, the oral argument can serve to obscure
>> certain points, as advocates attempt to use their time to complicate
>> issues that really are quite simple. Such is the case, I believe,
>> with the debate in/Evenwel/over whether redistricting on some basis
>> other than total population is possible. On this question, I should
>> note I am hardly a disinterested observer, having filed anamicus
>> brief
>> <http://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/evenwel-persily-Brief.pdf>based
>> on my experience as a Special Master and court-appointed
>> redistricting expert, and having written about the issue inPolitico
>> <http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/06/the-supreme-courts-big-data-problem-118568>,Scotusblog
>> <http://www.scotusblog.com/2015/08/symposium-evenwel-v-abbott-and-the-constitutions-big-data-problem/>,
>> and theWashington Post
>> <https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-theory/wp/2015/10/19/theres-nothing-conservative-about-destabilizing-our-election-system/>.
>>
>> To be clear, the issue is not whether one is physically able to draw
>> districts on the basis on some data source other than the census
>> population numbers. Of course, one could. The question is whether
>> the available data are consistent with the theory of one person, one
>> vote – even according to the Appellants’ novel interpretation of that
>> rule. There is a fundamental incongruity between the interpretation
>> of the Equal Protection Clause proposed by the Appellants and the
>> data they use to demonstrate a constitutional violation and suggest
>> as a remedy.
>>
>> First, no dataset of eligible voters exists. All of the debate about
>> the American Community Survey’s (ACS) citizen voting age population
>> (CVAP) data is somewhat beside the point. Even that dataset does not
>> pretend to capture the relevant statistic — eligible voters — that
>> the Appellants contend is necessary for compliance with one person,
>> one vote. The ACS data do not account for 168,000 people in Texas
>> prisons or the roughly 350,000 others who are disfranchised because
>> of a felony conviction. Nor do they account for the roughly half
>> million eligible voters who live abroad but can vote in Texas
>> elections. These large categories of persons do not amount to
>> rounding errors or statistical nit-picks – even if the ACS were
>> accurate, it does not satisfy Appellants own constitutional standard
>> for one person, one vote compliance.
>>
>> Second, the problem with the ACS CVAP data is not that you are unable
>> to put it into a computer and use it for redistricting. You could do
>> that with any dataset. Rather, what you would be putting into the
>> computer at the time of redistricting are old estimates of what the
>> population was, not what it is. Everyone, including Appellants,
>> agrees that the yearly ACS surveys are not usable for redistricting
>> because they only sample 2.5% of households and are released only for
>> communities in excess of 65,000 people. Therefore, they say, you
>> should use the averages of the ACS surveys from the previous five
>> years – that is, use five-year old data to redistrict for a ten-year
>> redistricting cycle! At the time of the 2011 redistricting, for
>> example, you would have had to use data averaged from the 2006 to
>> 2010 surveys. Some of the 17 year olds not counted in the 2006 CVAP
>> numbers, for example, would be 23 years old by the time of the first
>> elections held under the new lines.
>>
>> Third, the granularity of the data and the presence of error margins
>> introduce novel questions regarding one person, one vote. Again, the
>> point here is not whether one is/able/to redistrict on the basis of
>> survey results: You could draw lines to equalize between districts
>> the number of Donald Trump supporters according to presidential
>> preference surveys. Rather, the idea of a survey – as compared to a
>> census – is in tension with the notion of one-person, one-vote. The
>> linedrawer who draws a district using the ACS survey data is, in
>> effect, saying that he or she is 90 percent certain (the ACS’s
>> reported confidence intervals) that the population in that district
>> is within the margin of error as reported by the survey. As explained
>> in myamicus brief
>> <http://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/evenwel-persily-Brief.pdf>,
>> these error margins are sometimes quite large, especially at the
>> local level. Such errors will increase further in size, if one needs
>> to break up the block groups into blocks, as one often would do, in
>> order to accommodate any number of other redistricting
>> considerations. (Even the five-year averages of ACS data are not
>> released below the block group level.) When it comes to ACS
>> citizenship data, moreover, some of the data are imputed by the
>> Census Bureau, itself: For five percent of respondents in the 2013
>> ACS, the Bureau “allocated” (i.e., filled in) the answer to the
>> citizenship question.
>>
>> Finally, and perhaps most obviously, the ACS can be eliminated at any
>> time. This is not a theoretical possibility: the House of
>> Representatives voted to eliminate it in 2012. Further, because of
>> the government shutdown in 2013 and a reduction in funding in 2004,
>> ACS surveys in those years suffered from a high margin of error.
>>
>> I hope the ACS stays around, as it is an invaluable tool to inform
>> public policy, including the redistricting process. But the
>> possibility that it might disappear highlights the irony in
>> the/Evenwel/Appellants’ argument. They maintain that the only
>> constitutionally required population dataset – namely, the census
>> enumeration of persons – is actually forbidden by the Constitution
>> for use in redistricting. That just cannot be right.
>>
>> <share_save_171_16.png>
>> <https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D78146&title=Clearing%20the%20Brush%20in%20Today%E2%80%99s%20One-Person%2C%20One-Vote%20Case&description=>
>> Posted inUncategorized <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>
>>
>>
>> Evewel and Harris Transcripts Now Available
>> <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=78142>
>>
>> Posted onDecember 8, 2015 10:59 am
>> <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=78142>byRick Hasen
>> <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
>>
>> Tuesday, December 08
>>
>> 14-232 <http://www.supremecourt.gov/qp/14-00232qp.pdf> Harris v.
>> Arizona Independent Redistricting Comm’n Transcript
>> <http://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/14-232_c0ne.pdf>
>>
>> 14-940 <http://www.supremecourt.gov/qp/14-00940qp.pdf> Evenwel v.
>> Abbott Transcript
>> <http://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/14-940_c07e.pdf>
>>
>>
>> I’m off to a long meeting and to give a talk, so commentary from me
>> about these tonight or tomorrow.
>>
>> <share_save_171_16.png>
>> <https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D78142&title=Evewel%20and%20Harris%20Transcripts%20Now%20Available&description=>
>> Posted inUncategorized <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>
>>
>> --
>> 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
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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
--
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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