VRA and majority-minority districts

[Beezer]

Looking ahead to the next round of redistricting and a possibly good 2018 for the Democrats I've been wondering: Is it legally possible for Democrats to break-up majority-minority districts and instead create "influence" or "coalition" districts or would this proposal be thrown out in court under the "no retrogression" rules concerning majority-minority districts? Cause if the Dems want to stand a chance of taking back the House, they obviously need to do a better job of spreading their voters across different districts. But what are limits placed on such a vote dilution by the VRA, considering that it bans vote dilution of the racial kind.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

It might come down to whether a majority or near-majority VAP is enough or not.

[muon2]

The first thing is to apply the Gingles test to an area: 1) is there a compact area where a single minority could make up over half the voting population; 2) does the minority tend to vote as a bloc for preferred candidates; and 3) does the white majority tend to vote as a bloc against the minority's preferred candidates. If the area passes the test the VRA requires that a district be drawn where the minority can elect the candidate of their choice, and that needn't be at 50% VAP if it can be shown that through primaries or by crossover voters the minority is likely to prevail. If multiple districts could be drawn for the minority, then one has to look at the totality of the circumstances including the rough proportionality of the minority to the total voting population.

If the Gingles test doesn't apply, then the mappers are not bound by the VRA to keep the minority intact.

[Beezer]

OK, so I assume if Democrats were to split up a compact and electorally unified black electorate into separate "coalition" districts, they could argue that there is no requirement for a majority-minority district because the third Gingles condition would in this instance not apply seeing as the white majority does not vote as a bloc that denies blacks the right to select their preferred (Democratic) candidate?

[muon2]

OK, so I assume if Democrats were to split up a compact and electorally unified black electorate into separate "coalition" districts, they could argue that there is no requirement for a majority-minority district because the third Gingles condition would in this instance not apply seeing as the white majority does not vote as a bloc that denies blacks the right to select their preferred (Democratic) candidate?

They might be able to do that in cities where the white voters are overwhelmingly Dem and have shown a willingness to support the preferred minority candidate. That case has been successfully made in places like LA and Chicago, but it requires real data analysis to stand up. In other areas the best the Dems can do is show that a coalition allows a district to be slightly less than 50% minority and still perform for that minority. The new VA CDs are examples of that.

[Torie]

OK, so I assume if Democrats were to split up a compact and electorally unified black electorate into separate "coalition" districts, they could argue that there is no requirement for a majority-minority district because the third Gingles condition would in this instance not apply seeing as the white majority does not vote as a bloc that denies blacks the right to select their preferred (Democratic) candidate?

They might be able to do that in cities where the white voters are overwhelmingly Dem and have shown a willingness to support the preferred minority candidate. That case has been successfully made in places like LA and Chicago, but it requires real data analysis to stand up. In other areas the best the Dems can do is show that a coalition allows a district to be slightly less than 50% minority and still perform for that minority. The new VA CDs are examples of that.

However, to complete the picture, it should be noted that SCOTUS (in particular Justice Kennedy), explicitly rejected looking at minority coalition CD's. Gingles is triggered only if one minority has 50% VAP, not a combo of minority groups. However, with other minority groups in play, there may be less block voting, for and against on minority group, so that would tend to allow for lower minority VAP percentages, if Gingles is triggered. It may be that SCOTUS will move away from the 50% bright line test, and focus more on the ability to elect candidates of the minority's choice metric. We shall see.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

What would the consequence be of a redefinition of the threshold from "single non-white minority" to "all non-white minority"?

[Beezer]

Hmm, I personally almost feel as if the VRA is in this instance counterproductive. Districts adjacent to maj-min ones are for all intents and purposes bleached and in this day and age of racial polarization this means they're heavily Republican. So you get a few blue islands of majority-minority districts here and there while the rest is solidly red. I suppose as the country moves ever closer to a nationwide majority-minority status, the whole premise of having to have these kinds of districts to ensure minority representation ought to be revised. Any indication of that happening? All I know is that Shaw v. Reno of course made the case against using race as the sole standard in drawing district lines. Are the courts in general moving in such a direction of arguing that "racial dilution" doesn't necessarily have to correlate with "vote dilution"?

[smoltchanov]

Hmm, I personally almost feel as if the VRA is in this instance counterproductive. Districts adjacent to maj-min ones are for all intents and purposes bleached and in this day and age of racial polarization this means they're heavily Republican. So you get a few blue islands of majority-minority districts here and there while the rest is solidly red. I suppose as the country moves ever closer to a nationwide majority-minority status, the whole premise of having to have these kinds of districts to ensure minority representation ought to be revised. Any indication of that happening? All I know is that Shaw v. Reno of course made the case against using race as the sole standard in drawing district lines. Are the courts in general moving in such a direction of arguing that "racial dilution" doesn't necessarily have to correlate with "vote dilution"?

Well, while i am absolutely anti-VRA NOW (for reasons you described here - that leads to small islands of multi-tentacle hyper-Democratic districts, which vote 80-90% Democratic, which is absolutely unneccessary for political purposes, and a lot of more or less solid Republican one (say - 58-60% Republican), which is enough for the same political purposes), i joke sometimes that it (VRA) will be neccessary in not too distant future (when whites will become a minority) to guarantee THEIR (whites) political rights, influence and proper representation:)

[muon2]

There are big cities where the districts surrounding the minority districts are still solid D. For instance look at IL-3 and IL-5 surrounding IL-1, 2, 4, and 7. IL-8, 9 and 11 are also solid D and make up most of the band after IL-3 and 5. Even without a Dem gerrymander, those areas would still produce Dem districts. Without the VRA, it's not clear they would produce as many minority districts.

[Beezer]

OK, so I assume if Democrats were to split up a compact and electorally unified black electorate into separate "coalition" districts, they could argue that there is no requirement for a majority-minority district because the third Gingles condition would in this instance not apply seeing as the white majority does not vote as a bloc that denies blacks the right to select their preferred (Democratic) candidate?

They might be able to do that in cities where the white voters are overwhelmingly Dem and have shown a willingness to support the preferred minority candidate. That case has been successfully made in places like LA and Chicago, but it requires real data analysis to stand up. In other areas the best the Dems can do is show that a coalition allows a district to be slightly less than 50% minority and still perform for that minority. The new VA CDs are examples of that.

A legal question just popped into my head. If the Democrats were in charge of redistricting and decided to split up minority voters in an effort to potentially increase their "substantive" rather than "descriptive" representation, potentially breaking some of the VRA's requirements (as subsequently interpreted by the Supreme Court), who could or would take action against it? Would Republicans (perhaps a GOP Attorney General) then take these redistricting plans to court and argue that the Democrats were now the ones breaking the VRA?