Supreme Court will hear redistricting case
Lower court ruled against Virginia’s racially drawn election districts
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court is diving back into the abyss of racially drawn election districts. Can partisan gerrymandering be far behind?
Despite the justices’ efforts to keep a low profile on politically charged issues after last month’s confirmation of Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the court agreed Tuesday to hear Virginia’s appeal of a lower court ruling that it drew 11 state legislative districts with excessive African-American populations.
It will be the second time the high court has heard the case. Last year, it sided with challengers in demanding further review of the districts, drawn by Virginia Republicans to ensure that 55 percent of eligible voters were black.
What remains to be seen is whether the Supreme Court will again take up the issue of partisan gerrymandering, which it has never found to be unconstitutional.
The justices sidestepped a potentially historic ruling in June that would have blocked states from drawing election maps intended to help one political party.
Instead, they sent cases from Wisconsin and Maryland back to lower courts for further review.
Last week, a federal district court panel in Maryland struck down the state’s congressional map as unconstitutional, agreeing with Republican challengers that it was drawn to favor the state’s majority Democrats. That case or others from Wisconsin and North Carolina could reach the Supreme Court in the near future.
In Virginia, last year’s 7-1 ruling was a temporary victory for Democrats who argued that the maps were drawn to pack more blacks than necessary into 12 districts to give Republicans the advantage in many more surrounding districts.
Now-retired Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in his opinion that districts can be held unconstitutional “if race for its own sake is the overriding reason for choosing one map over others” – even if the districts meet traditional redistricting criteria, such as compactness. Associate Justice Clarence Thomas dissented in part.
The high court did not settle the issue. The justices sent the case back to the trial court with instructions to use different criteria in determining whether the Legislature violated the Constitution by setting racial targets. Justices upheld a 12th district as having a 55 percent black voting-age population for legitimate reasons.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 requires states to draw districts that enable African-Americans to elect their chosen representatives, lest blacks not form a majority anywhere.
Two decades ago, Democrats used the law to demand “majority-minority” districts. After Republicans took over many state legislatures in 2010, they began drawing districts with what critics claimed were more African-Americans than necessary, in order to protect surrounding districts.
A federal district court panel originally upheld the Virginia lines in 2015. Paul Clement, representing the Legislature, said they were used to protect black voters and lawmakers from a potentially low African-American turnout.