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June 28, 2006
Supreme Dissent
Supreme Court opinion reading can sometimes be interesting - especially the dissents. Today, the SCOTUS overthrew just a portion of Texas' redistricting plan. Most of it was fine, but a minority-district that went from Austin to Houston was deemed invalid by a 5-4 vote.
Chief Justice Roberts had this to say about the majority opinion. I like the "style points" comment:
The majority dismisses the District Court’s careful factfinding on the ground that the experienced judges did not properly consider whether District 25 was “compact” for purposes of §2. Ante, at 24. But the District Court opinion itself clearly demonstrates that the court carefully considered the compactness of the minority group in District 25, just as the majority says it should have. The District Court recognized the very features of District 25 highlighted by the majority and unambiguously concluded, under the totality of the circumstances, that the district was an effective Latino opportunity district, and that no violation of §2 in the area had been shown.
Unable to escape the District Court’s factfinding, the majority is left in the awkward position of maintaining that its theory about compactness is more important under §2 than the actual prospects of electoral success for Latino-preferred candidates under a State’s apportionment plan. And that theory is a novel one to boot. Never before has this or any other court struck down a State’s redistricting plan under §2, on the ground that the plan achieves the maximum number of possible majority-minority districts, but loses on style points, in that the minority voters in one of those districts are not as “compact” as the minority voters would be in another district were the lines drawn differently. Such a basis for liability pushes voting rights litigation into a whole new area—an area far removed from the concern of the Voting Rights Act to ensure minority voters an equal opportunity“ to elect representatives of their choice.” 42 U. S. C. §1973(b).
The full opinion is here.
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