[EL] Justice Alito and Bethune-Hill II dissent

Mon Jun 17 08:55:55 PDT 2019

I agree with Michal McDonald that looking just at the measures that actually get voted on cannot provide a full answer to these questions.  Just look at the a particularly prominent example:  current struggles between Democratic House members about whether to initiate an impeachment inquiry or proceeding.  Democrats elected from districts that lean Republican (or “Trump” districts) are strongly resisting going down that path for now; Democrats from overwhelmingly safe seats are the primary group pushing to go forward.

If we ever get to the point of formal votes being taken on impeachment-related matters, it might well be that Democrats vote in more unified partisan patterns.  But we never get to that point precisely because of district-related divisions within the Democratic Party.

Best,
Rick

Richard H. Pildes
Sudler Family Professor of Constitutional Law
NYU School of Law
40 Washington Sq. So.
NYC, NY 10012
212 998-6377

From: Michael McDonald [mailto:dr.michael.p.mcdonald at gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, June 17, 2019 11:47 AM
To: Nicholas Stephanopoulos <nicholas.stephanopoulos at gmail.com>
Cc: Pildes, Rick <rick.pildes at nyu.edu>; Election Law Listserv <law-election at uci.edu>
Subject: Re: [EL] Justice Alito and Bethune-Hill II dissent

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.

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On Mon, Jun 17, 2019 at 11:42 AM Nicholas Stephanopoulos <nicholas.stephanopoulos at gmail.com<mailto: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://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__dspace.mit.edu_handle_1721.1_119500&d=DwMFaQ&c=slrrB7dE8n7gBJbeO0g-IQ&r=v3oz9bpMizgP1T8KwLv3YT-_iypxaOkdtbkRAclgHRk&m=Lj3lT2Z18VGIyetV_Dx4VOGSxMEeMJRV38Tiu3Us70Q&s=gGOAvhL-9MUgaYwOsKW3bDzS4OhXvEleOKau3CMPY3w&e=> 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.png]

On Mon, Jun 17, 2019 at 10:03 AM Pildes, Rick <rick.pildes at nyu.edu<mailto: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<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<mailto: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=>.

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