Mathismander

[jimrtex]

The SCOTUS heard oral arguments in two redistricting cases. The transcripts of the arguments are here:

Mathismander

This is whether Republican districts can be underpopulated if there is some other pretext, and they keep the deviation under 10%.

There are a lot of parallels to the Virginia congressional case, because Arizona is arguing that the reason they discriminated was to get the executive branch of the federal government to approve their plan. Both Arizona and Virginia had their plans approved by the USDOJ.

Incidentally, when the independent redistricting commission was approved, it was claimed that the deviation for legislative districts would be similar to that for Congress.

Does one man, one vote mean?

This is the Texas case whether districts used to elect legislators must have equal numbers of electors.

The arguments are pretty interesting since Texas was making a different argument than the United States.

[jimrtex]

The Evenwel oral arguments are fascinating.  Roberts seems to be on board with the plaintiffs, with some reservations about practicality, while Scalia was completely silent.  The most interesting part to me was when Kennedy started a line of questions about a dual standard that would target both population equality and eligible voter equality simultaneously:

http://electionlawblog.org/?p=78154

The commentator gives an example of equalizing eligible voters between districts subject to an X% maximum deviation on the total population metric.  Of course, this could be done in reverse, where total population is kept as equal as possible subject to an upper bound of a X% difference in eligible voters.  In either case, if the X% constraint were kept high, the impact would mostly be limited to California and Texas, along with some rural prison districts here and there.

The plaintiffs had offered that compromise. I had always thought it odd, since if there is a fundamental right to electoral equality, there is no compromise. But maybe it was tactical to get Kennedy on board.

I don't see the use of the ACS being a constitutional issue. The reason we have block data is because Congress required it in response to the OMOV decisions. Congress could determine the number of citizens (the Constitution specifies that Congress determine the number of adult citizens, and how many are disenfranchised, and for what reasons).

[jimrtex]

The Evenwel oral arguments are fascinating.  Roberts seems to be on board with the plaintiffs, with some reservations about practicality, while Scalia was completely silent.  The most interesting part to me was when Kennedy started a line of questions about a dual standard that would target both population equality and eligible voter equality simultaneously:

http://electionlawblog.org/?p=78154

The commentator gives an example of equalizing eligible voters between districts subject to an X% maximum deviation on the total population metric.  Of course, this could be done in reverse, where total population is kept as equal as possible subject to an upper bound of a X% difference in eligible voters.  In either case, if the X% constraint were kept high, the impact would mostly be limited to California and Texas, along with some rural prison districts here and there.

The plaintiffs had offered that compromise. I had always thought it odd, since if there is a fundamental right to electoral equality, there is no compromise. But maybe it was tactical to get Kennedy on board.

I don't see the use of the ACS being a constitutional issue. The reason we have block data is because Congress required it in response to the OMOV decisions. Congress could determine the number of citizens (the Constitution specifies that Congress determine the number of adult citizens, and how many are disenfranchised, and for what reasons).

The plaintiffs in this case were on board with a dual standard?  That's really surprising to me, as a dual standard basically requires drawing majority-minority regions as a Democratic gerrymander under current VRA law, in a way that would serve the plaintiffs' political ends even less than the status quo. 

It's also worth noting that this feels like precisely the kind of case where Thomas and/or Scalia could cross over to vote with the left-leaning justices for the status quo on a Reconstruction era strict originalist interpretation.  Think Virginia v. Black and the Confederate license plates case.  I also suspect Breyer is in play for changing the standard if it's written narrowly.

A companion decision to Reynolds v Sims was WMCA, Inc. v. Lomenzo. New York's constitution provided for apportionment of the legislature on the basis of the citizen population. The SCOTUS had no problems with that, it was how the citizen population was used that violated equal protection.

A strict originalist theory would overturn Reynolds v Sims. The legislatures that approved the 14th Amendment were malapportioned by the post Reynolds-Sims standards. Therefore, at worst, ratification of the 14th Amendment was invalid, at best it was not a judiciable question how states allocate their political power.

Texas was arguing for the status quo - that it is a political decision.