LA Times speculates SCOTUS may change who counts for redistricting

[Torie]

If this article has any truth to it, based on the comments at oral argument, the conservative five are thinking seriously about not allowing large disparities in the count of who is eligible to vote between districts. That would really upset the apple cart.

[traininthedistance]

Here's another piece on this case.

The Texas and US Solicitors General raised what would seem to be a pretty persuasive technical point against the plaintiffs:

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Emphasis mine.

[muon2]

Here's another piece on this case.

The Texas and US Solicitors General raised what would seem to be a pretty persuasive technical point against the plaintiffs:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Emphasis mine.

To me, the whole CVAP thing is silly.  If your goal is to equalize voters between districts, then just make the standard a minimum deviation in the total # of votes cast in each district in the zero-year election (or most recent presidential election if preferred).  I would certainly hope we would always have an accurate official record of that!

But CVAP is usually the standard of counting in districts for the VRA. CVAP is used there to give minorities the ability to elect the candidate of their choice. If CVAP is what gives minorities fair access under the VRA, the argument is that it should be what gives everyone fair access to representatives.

[jimrtex]

Here's another piece on this case.

The Texas and US Solicitors General raised what would seem to be a pretty persuasive technical point against the plaintiffs:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Emphasis mine.

The apportionment clause of the 14th Amendment would appear to require the collection of CVAP data. The Census used to collect citizen data, and until the 2000 census did so as part of the actual census. Presumably, the census bureau thought that the ACS was as good as the census sample, and better because it was continuing.

The Federal Government as part of its enforcement of the 14th and 15th amendments requires use of CVAP.

Can the USDOJ require racial data to be included with Section 5 submissions, since the census is not required by the Constitution to collect racial information?

Legislative and congressional districts do not take into account persons living overseas, and the federal government doesn't bother to try for persons not working for the government.

The Texas Solicitor General did not say the ACS data was not reliable enough to use for redistricting.

[Torie]

Jimrtex introduced this under the Mathismander thread.  If anything, the most interesting revelation is that Kennedy seems interested in a dual standard that would require minimizing variations in both CVAP and total population between districts, subject to some maximum deviation threshold.  A dual constraint gets the most fascinating with Section 2 VRA districts, because satisfying both Section 2 obligations and a dual population/CVAP standard simultaneously would basically require packing as many elderly white areas as possible into the Section 2 district while maintaining the bare minimum threshold for the target minority.  I'd love to see you try making a map in a smallish state with a section 2 district under say a 10% maximum deviation in both total pop and CVAP and see what happens.

Section 2 with Hispanic CD's already uses CHVAP in general. What is interesting is if Kennedy's idea of having a maximum variance test becomes law, more states might start allowing such variances to reduce chops, like we are doing now with Muon2's scheme.