| The Washington Post has an excellent run-down of the events that brought us to where we are in the current redistricting/election calendar mess.
In particular, Aaron Blake cogitates on which map is likely to be used for the 2012 elections, and the implication of that decision on future redistricting lawsuits focused on pre-clearance. He writes:
It seems very unlikely that the map drawn by Republican state legislators will be used for 2012. The fact that the D.C. district took up the case suggests it sees something objectionable. And even if the state legislature were able to draw a new map to comply with the court's ruling, it would have to go through pre-clearance again and wouldn't be ready in time for the 2012 election.
It's also pretty unlikely that the Supreme Court will sign off on the three-judge panel's interim map. Like the D.C. district court, the Supreme Court's decision to take up the case suggests there is something it doesn't like about the interim map.
Blake suggests that SCOTUS will give the San Antonio court instructions on how to revise their map, likely to bring it into closer alignment with the state's initial Republican gerrymandered map. His logic is as follows:
First, the Supreme Court could tell the three-judge panel in San Antonio that it needs to draw something closer to the map drawn by the state legislature. Or second - and this is the Nuclear Option - it could say that the state should simply use the map drawn by the state legislature.
The former option would set a new standard when it comes to court-drawn maps. Currently, court-drawn maps are drawn with deference to the last constitutionally-approved map available (i.e. the existing map). Changing the standard would give state legislatures greater power over the final product, even in the event that their maps are invalidated.
This, apparently, is what is at center of Abbott's challenge and what SCOTUS is interested in: when adjusting a map that fails to receive pre-clearance (as the Legislature's gerrymandered/minority-quashing maps did) do the courts start with the bad map and make it less-bad? Or do they start with the current districts (i.e. what we used in 2010) and tweak them to reflect population growth and change?
If SCOTUS tells the San Antonio panel to re-do their work and draw a less-bad, non-gerrymandered version of the map the Republicans put forth in the legislature, well, isn't that kind of like putting lipstick on a pig? Every legislature-drawn map was crafted with the explicit intent of denying minority Texans the representation they have earned due to population growth. Oh, and as a side effect they wanted to run folks like Wendy Davis and Lloyd Doggett out of office.
Is it even possible to start with the hack-job the Republicans drew and make it sufficiently less bad so as to not have a CD-25 that starts in African-American East Austin, stretches up through Fort Hood, and peters out in southern Tarrant County?
The latter [telling the state to use the Legislature's map] would be the big one, as some suggest it would essentially invalidate the section of the Voting Rights Act - Section 5 - that requires states like Texas to get pre-clearance. Essentially, the maps would no longer have to be pre-cleared. This would allow these states greater freedom to draw their maps and increase the burden on minority groups and others who may fight the maps in court. These groups would no longer have an avenue to stop the maps before they are enacted.
Some SCOTUS followers have indicated that Chief Justice John Roberts has been wanting to get his hands on Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, the part that sets forth pre-clearance. Pre-clearance requires either the Department of Justice or a three-judge panel of the DC Federal District Court to basically approve map changes and make sure they don't unfairly discriminate against minorities. Here's a map of jurisdictions requiring pre-clearance. As you can see, it's mostly Southern states, in a vestige of the racism of the 1960's that required the VRA in the first place.
If SCOTUS goes this route, then all eyes turn to the pre-clearance case itself, which is set for January 17-26 in DC. Right now, the Legislature's maps have not received pre-clearance, but haven't been denied pre-clearance either. (Clearly, at the very least, there is a problem when the vast majority of a state's population is from minority residents, yet minority representation does not reflect that growth.)
In the scenario where SCOTUS forces the state to use the Legislature's maps, and then those maps fail to gain preclearance, the San Antonio court will then draw remedial maps to address the problems identified in the Legislative maps by the DC Court.
And as always, don't forget that this mess has been brought to you by Republican overreach in the Legislative redistricting process, when their partisan gerrymander deeply disenfranchised minority communities. |
