[EL] SCOTUS decides Va. redistricting case

[Rick Hasen]

    Breaking: Unanimous Supreme Court Dismisses Va. Racial
    Gerrymandering Case on Standing Grounds, Making No New Voting Law
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82993>

Posted onMay 23, 2016 7:15 am 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82993>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

The Supreme Court has decidedWittman v. Personhuballah 
<http://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/wittman.pdf>, ruling 
against members of Congress on standing grounds. The lower court found 
that the congressional plan was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, 
and the members of Congress challenged this holding.

In a short unanimous opinion (8 pages including the syllabus), Justice 
Breyer held that these members of Congress lacked standing. By deciding 
the case on standing grounds, the Court was able to avoid saying 
anything new about the racial gerrymandering cause of action it revived 
in a surprising way last term in a case from Alabama.  (See my analysis 
inRacial Gerrymandering’s Questionable Revival, 
<http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2601459>part of an 
/Alabama Law Review /symposium <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82979>on 
the 50th Anniversary of the Voting Rights Act.)

There are other racial gerrymandering cases working their way to the 
Court, including one from North Carolina. The Alabama case remains 
pending before the three-judge court on remand.

So how did the Court get to a unanimous opinion here? Well, combine the 
conservatives’ tough line on standing with the liberals’ likely belief 
that the lower court got it right on the merits that the Va. legislature 
took race too much into account in drawing districts which packed 
African Americans and helped Republicans get elected to Congress and you 
have he recipe for compromise. Add to that combination the fact that the 
Breyer opinion decides almost nothing. It leaves open the question 
whether a member of Congress might have standing to challenge a 
congressional districting plan if there were proof it would hurt his or 
her chances of reelection. In this case, the Court said there was no 
such evidence from those members who argued they had standing.

With this decision, the only remaining election law case of the current 
term is the Gov. McDonnell corruption case, another case out of 
Virginia. That one will likely await near the end of the term, even if 
it is also unanimous.  It was argued the last day of the term.

[This post has been updated]

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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
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rhasen at law.uci.edu
http://www.law.uci.edu/faculty/full-time/hasen/
http://electionlawblog.org

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