[EL] Justice Alito and Bethune-Hill II dissent

Mon Jun 17 08:47:03 PDT 2019

That's because members condition their voting patterns on the partisan
composition of their electorate. Moderate members are more likely to
represent moderate districts and voters reward this behavior. This is why
looking solely at legislative vote margins as a measure of the districts'
ideology is a poor approach. A preferred metric is statewide offices.

============
Dr. Michael P. McDonald
Associate Professor, University of Florida
703-772-1440 (c)
352-273-2371 (w)
www.electproject.org
@ElectProject

On Mon, Jun 17, 2019 at 11:42 AM Nicholas Stephanopoulos <
nicholas.stephanopoulos at gmail.com> wrote:

> The passages Rick highlights are also notable for their romantic, but
> inaccurate, view of contemporary legislative representation. Justice Alito
> writes: "The interests and views of these constituents generally have an
> important effect on everything that a legislator does." He continues: "When
> the boundaries of a district are changed, the constituents and communities
> of interest present within the district are altered, and this is likely to
> change the way in which the district’s representative does his or her work."
>
> In fact, today's representatives are shockingly *unresponsive* to their
> constituents' preferences. The partisan mix of constituents determines
> whether a Democrat or a Republican is elected. But once that partisan
> choice is made, constituents' views largely stop mattering. Here, for
> example, is a chart from a recent article
> <https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/119500> by Devin Caughey, Chris
> Tausanovitch, and Chris Warshaw, showing the relationship between state
> legislative districts' partisan makeups and state legislators' voting
> records. There is obviously a huge difference between Democrats' and
> Republicans' voting records. But *within* the group of Democratic or
> Republican legislators, there is essentially no connection at all between a
> district's partisan composition and its legislator's voting record.
> Representatives from safe Democratic or Republican districts are
> practically indistinguishable from representatives from competitive seats.
>
> [image: image.png]
>
>
>
> On Mon, Jun 17, 2019 at 10:03 AM Pildes, Rick <rick.pildes at nyu.edu> wrote:
>
>> Justice Alito has always had a particularly keen interest in
>> redistricting, which I assume traces to his father’s involvement with the
>> redistricting pro0cess during his work with the New Jersey legislature.
>> Thus, I am not surprised he wrote the dissent in today’s case.  Leaving
>> aside the standing issue itself, his dissent includes many noteworthy
>> statements about how much redistricting affects what legislatures do and
>> the laws they produce.  Here’s a sampling of the comments that stood out to
>> me.  These comments, in my view, are in considerable tension with one
>> argument Justice Scalia made in his plurality opinion in *Vieth, *in
>> which he argues it is “impossible to assess the effects of partisan
>> gerrymandering” because who knows how voters will vote from election to
>> election.  From Justice Alito today:
>>
>>
>>
>> “A legislative districting plan powerfully affects a legislative body’s
>> output of work.”
>>
>>
>>
>> “…it matters a lot how voters with shared interests and views are
>> concentrated or split up. The cumulative effects of all the decisions that
>> go into a districting plan have an important impact on the overall work of
>> the body. All of this should really go without saying.”
>>
>>
>>
>> “Districting matters because it has institutional and legislative
>> consequences.  … To suggest otherwise, to argue that substituting one plan
>> for another has no effect on the work or output of the legislative body
>> whose districts are changed, would really be quite astounding.  If the
>> selection
>>
>> of a districting plan did not alter what the legislative body does, why
>> would there be such pitched battles over redistricting efforts?”
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Richard H. Pildes
>>
>> Sudler Family Professor of Constitutional Law
>>
>> NYU School of Law
>>
>> 40 Washington Sq. So.
>>
>> NYC, NY 10012
>>
>> 212 998-6377
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Law-election [mailto:
>> law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] *On Behalf Of *Rick Hasen
>> *Sent:* Monday, June 17, 2019 10:26 AM
>> *To:* Election Law Listserv <law-election at uci.edu>
>> *Subject:* [EL] Bethune-Hill II decided
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Supreme Court, on 5-4 Vote in Bethune-Hill Racial Gerrymandering Case
>> from Virginia, Concludes Va. House of Delegates Lacks Standing to Pursue
>> Challenge.
>> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__electionlawblog.org_-3Fp-3D105642&d=DwMGaQ&c=slrrB7dE8n7gBJbeO0g-IQ&r=v3oz9bpMizgP1T8KwLv3YT-_iypxaOkdtbkRAclgHRk&m=_2J9rzVzu3gPDSXJg5OKMnwid2ezSVNsHzv84W0rd4I&s=FpfO4LiwXDfmif3zgrUNj4juhgqgho8lWIo63sKCiOo&e=>
>>
>> Posted on June 17, 2019 7:23 am
>> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__electionlawblog.org_-3Fp-3D105642&d=DwMGaQ&c=slrrB7dE8n7gBJbeO0g-IQ&r=v3oz9bpMizgP1T8KwLv3YT-_iypxaOkdtbkRAclgHRk&m=_2J9rzVzu3gPDSXJg5OKMnwid2ezSVNsHzv84W0rd4I&s=FpfO4LiwXDfmif3zgrUNj4juhgqgho8lWIo63sKCiOo&e=>
>>  by *Rick Hasen*
>> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__electionlawblog.org_-3Fauthor-3D3&d=DwMGaQ&c=slrrB7dE8n7gBJbeO0g-IQ&r=v3oz9bpMizgP1T8KwLv3YT-_iypxaOkdtbkRAclgHRk&m=_2J9rzVzu3gPDSXJg5OKMnwid2ezSVNsHzv84W0rd4I&s=uZSQJtx2EQGpq5dQNkZYFpA8qItLE3oW7K_nPhRfOKg&e=>
>>
>> You can find the opinion here
>> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.supremecourt.gov_opinions_18pdf_18-2D281-5F6j37.pdf&d=DwMGaQ&c=slrrB7dE8n7gBJbeO0g-IQ&r=v3oz9bpMizgP1T8KwLv3YT-_iypxaOkdtbkRAclgHRk&m=_2J9rzVzu3gPDSXJg5OKMnwid2ezSVNsHzv84W0rd4I&s=-eqGbLe_46bYNVszNMUeLGtUOwnDGfrGVgUDwGbxVEA&e=>
>> .
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> [image: Share]
>> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.addtoany.com_share-23url-3Dhttps-253A-252F-252Felectionlawblog.org-252F-253Fp-253D105642-26title-3DSupreme-2520Court-252C-2520on-25205-2D4-2520Vote-2520in-2520Bethune-2DHill-2520Racial-2520Gerrymandering-2520Case-2520from-2520Virginia-252C-2520Concludes-2520Va.-2520House-2520of-2520Delegates-2520Lacks-2520Standing-2520to-2520Pursue-2520Challenge.&d=DwMGaQ&c=slrrB7dE8n7gBJbeO0g-IQ&r=v3oz9bpMizgP1T8KwLv3YT-_iypxaOkdtbkRAclgHRk&m=_2J9rzVzu3gPDSXJg5OKMnwid2ezSVNsHzv84W0rd4I&s=pEZ-vkzgDAke9pEK4Au6nCMftiNs8luH4CzFM4kppU0&e=>
>>
>> Posted in Uncategorized
>> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__electionlawblog.org_-3Fcat-3D1&d=DwMGaQ&c=slrrB7dE8n7gBJbeO0g-IQ&r=v3oz9bpMizgP1T8KwLv3YT-_iypxaOkdtbkRAclgHRk&m=_2J9rzVzu3gPDSXJg5OKMnwid2ezSVNsHzv84W0rd4I&s=XMCxIWmTvMBgIgdj7qfbL1XlNv3RUijCIhDu8p8hQCw&e=>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> 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
>>
>> rhasen at law.uci.edu
>>
>> http://www.law.uci.edu/faculty/full-time/hasen/
>> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.law.uci.edu_faculty_full-2Dtime_hasen_&d=DwMGaQ&c=slrrB7dE8n7gBJbeO0g-IQ&r=v3oz9bpMizgP1T8KwLv3YT-_iypxaOkdtbkRAclgHRk&m=_2J9rzVzu3gPDSXJg5OKMnwid2ezSVNsHzv84W0rd4I&s=s-KnLREcuWUR5qVy5dQEgy-jtUifKDZ6SI5vqxBreck&e=>
>>
>> http://electionlawblog.org
>> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__electionlawblog.org_&d=DwMGaQ&c=slrrB7dE8n7gBJbeO0g-IQ&r=v3oz9bpMizgP1T8KwLv3YT-_iypxaOkdtbkRAclgHRk&m=_2J9rzVzu3gPDSXJg5OKMnwid2ezSVNsHzv84W0rd4I&s=i3p78VEhKbm61EUU-rLv8N-L6ObJfAHf6hN9PE5aPkY&e=>
>>
>> [image: signature_537431996]
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>
>
>
> --
> Nicholas O. Stephanopoulos
> Professor of Law
> Herbert and Marjorie Fried Research Scholar
> University of Chicago Law School
> nsteph at uchicago.edu
> (773) 702-4226
> http://www.law.uchicago.edu/faculty/stephanopoulos
> _______________________________________________
> Law-election mailing list
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