US House Redistricting: West Virginia

[Torie]

Here is the Kanawha split. I espy "rat" droppings here. Shocking! 

[Torie]

Plus ca change, plus ca meme chose.

[Torie]

Why on earth would SCOTUS take this case, particularly since it would not be heard and decided this year, which means a redraw for the next election, and all over basically nothing (there is hardly a pressing need to find if a population deviation of more than a few people but less than 1% is Constitutional)?  I don't think so.

[Torie]

Because they need to take it if they want to overrule the lower court (which did find a pressing need, for whatever bizarro reasons)? They can't just stay the lower court's decision indefinitely, can they?

Oh SCOTUS stayed the appellate court decision?

Yes, indeed it did. So I guess that is the equivalent of granting cert. I very much doubt SCOTUS is going to fly speck the state law, or try to decide if a lower population deviance is appropriate given the alternatives, etc. They may just hold that deviations of less than 0.5% or whatever are Constitutional if there is some reasonable reason for it under state law, like not splitting counties, or precincts, or whatever, and defer to the state courts as to whether the map comported with state law. I just can't see them evaluating a bunch of maps.  So I suspect the map the legislature drew will be upheld, since the grounds it was bounced was only based on the equality of population issue. My guess is that SCOTUS will hardly even look at the maps.

The WV Supreme Court itself deferred to the state legislature on the legislative districts, refusing to involve itself as to whether other maps better implemented the state law.

[Torie]

Because they need to take it if they want to overrule the lower court (which did find a pressing need, for whatever bizarro reasons)? They can't just stay the lower court's decision indefinitely, can they?

Oh SCOTUS stayed the appellate court decision?

Yes, indeed it did. So I guess that is the equivalent of granting cert. I very much doubt SCOTUS is going to fly speck the state law, or try to decide if a lower population deviance is appropriate given the alternatives, etc. They may just hold that deviations of less than 0.5% or whatever are Constitutional if there is some reasonable reason for it under state law, like not splitting counties, or precincts, or whatever, and defer to the state courts as to whether the map comported with state law. I just can't see them evaluating a bunch of maps.  So I suspect the map the legislature drew will be upheld, since the grounds it was bounced was only based on the equality of population issue. My guess is that SCOTUS will hardly even look at the maps.

The WV Supreme Court itself deferred to the state legislature on the legislative districts, refusing to involve itself as to whether other maps better implemented the state law.

One question they may engage in is whether a whole county plan with a range of 0.79% should stand when there are many alternative plans with whole counties and significantly less deviation (like 0.04% in Cooper 3). The state will argue that their plan also preserved the maximum number of counties because it shifted only one county. Does that state interest justify the larger deviation?

Who knows, but I really doubt SCOTUS wants to micromanage that way. If it were me, I would just set a bright line limit of 1.0% deviation, or 0.5% (maybe using your statistical approach of say what is the one or two standard deviation variance in population change between the census date and the election date in 95% of the cases, as to what that percentage is).  It is next to pointless to do case by case litigation over such small percentage variations. The Courts have better things to do, and SCOTUS doesn't like Courts being involved in redistricting anyway if it can reasonably be avoided. Somehow I suspect 1.0% might be it because it 1) is a whole integer, and 2) saves the WV map.

[Torie]

Doesn't a 1.0% deviation save the map?