Andrew Harrer/BLOOMBERG - The Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C.
Political analysts said the legislature’s plan could result in Republicans claiming three of the new districts. The plan by the three-judge panel in San Antonio could result in just the opposite, they said.
The Supreme Court’s mission was complicated by the fact that Texas’s redistricting was being considered in two courts with different objectives.
Because of past discrimination against minorities, Texas is one of the states covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, meaning its electoral laws must be “pre-cleared” — approved by the Justice Department or a panel of federal judges in Washington.
Texas chose to go the judicial route, and a three-judge panel in Washington this week held a trial to consider the Section 5 challenges. It is not expected to rule until next month.
Until that is settled, the San Antonio judges were charged with drawing an interim map, so that Texas’s elections could proceed.
Texas has delayed its primaries, which are among the earliest in the nation, because of the dispute. The state says it needs a new plan by Feb. 1 to hold primary elections on its new date, April 3.
Texas last month asked the Supreme Court to keep the judicial plan from being used even on an interim basis, and that was the request granted Friday.
The court’s order noted the difficulties facing the San Antonio judges. The plan passed by the legislature cannot be used, the justices agreed, because it has not been pre-cleared.
“But that does not mean that the plan is of no account or that the policy judgments it reflects can be disregarded by a district court drawing an interim plan,” the justices wrote.
The court was especially critical of the San Antonio judges for drawing a congressional district that appeared to be a “minority coalition” district. The justices said it was unclear whether the district was intentionally drawn to allow two different minority groups to band together to form a majority.
But, “if the district court did set out to create a minority coalition district, rather than drawing a district that simply reflected population growth, it had no basis for doing so,” the order said.
New York University School of Law professor Richard Pildes said it is far from clear which plan will be used in the Texas elections. “I think we’re only at the beginning stages of sorting this out,” he said.
While the constitutionality of Section 5’s pre-clearance requirement was not at issue in the case, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote separately to reiterate his opinion that it should not stand. No other justice joined him, although the ruling did note that the court in a 2009 case from Texas said Section 5 raised “serious constitutional questions” because of its intrusion on state sovereignty.
The challenges to the plan are collectively known as Perry v. Perez.
Campaign 2012 tools
The Post Most: PoliticsMost-viewed stories, videos and galleries int he past two hours
Featured Blogs & Columns
Loading...
Comments