[EL] can congress dictate redistricting commissions

[Michael McDonald]

Why even bother with those pesky state governments? Congress could just
adopt their own U.S. House districts for the entire country.

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


On Thu, Jan 28, 2021 at 2:48 PM Levitt, Justin <justin.levitt at lls.edu>
wrote:

> The courts have generally held that because the Constitution expressly
> assigns the responsibility for administering federal elections to states
> (while also reserving the ability of Congress to modify those rules), there
> aren’t the same commandeering concerns in the elections context that might
> exist in other arenas of federal legislation.  In the mid-90s litigation
> over mandates of the NVRA for federal elections, for example, the courts
> uniformly rejected commandeering challenges.  ACORN v. Miller (
> https://casetext.com/case/association-of-community-organ-v-miller) is a
> good example, and lists some of the other circuit decisions for ready
> reference.
>
> Justin
>
> --
> Justin Levitt
> justin.levitt at lls.edu
>
> On Jan 28, 2021, at 11:34 AM, Mark Scarberry <
> mark.scarberry at pepperdine.edu> wrote:
>
> 
> A question I asked on my Election Law final exam was whether Congress
> could impose a preclearance requirement on states' redistricting plans if
> they did not use independent redistricting commissions.
>
> *Requiring* states to set up commissions could violate anti-commandeering
> doctrine, right?
>
> Otherwise it would seem that Art. IV, sec. 4, cl. 1, would give Congress
> authority to determine the way that congressional districts are drawn. I
> suppose Congress could set up a redistricting commission or commissions to
> draw the districts.
>
> It isn't clear to me where Congress would get authority with regard to
> drawing of districts for state legislatures, other than, conceivably, the
> enforcement provisions of the 14th and 15th Amendments.
>
> Mark
>
> [image: Pepperdine wordmark] *Caruso School of Law*
>
> * Mark S. Scarberry*
>
> *Professor of Law mark.scarberry at pepperdine.edu
> <mark.scarberry at pepperdine.edu>*
> Personal: mark.scarberry at gmail.com
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jan 28, 2021 at 11:19 AM Hess, Douglas (Doug) <
> HESSDOUG at grinnell.edu> wrote:
>
>> Can the US Congress require states to use a type of redistricting
>> commission that it establishes (or select from a set of types it lists)?
>>
>>
>>
>> -----------------------
>>
>> Douglas R Hess
>>
>> Assistant Professor, Political Science/Policy Studies
>>
>> Grinnell College
>>
>> *On sabbatical until fall 2021*
>>
>> *My latest op-ed using Grinnell College National Poll:
>> https://bit.ly/hesshess102020 <https://bit.ly/hesshess102020> *
>>
>>
>>
>> *Website: http://www.douglasrhess.com <http://www.douglasrhess.com> *
>>
>> -----------------------
>>
>>
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