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13 replies
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Well at least they didn't just make the Texas Legislative maps the interim maps. They could have done that - and that would have sucked even worse.
Texas Redistricting blog 1/20/12
SCOTUS rules; sends case back to San Antonio court for further proceedings
The Supreme Court entered an opinion in the interim map appeal this morning, sending the case back to the San Antonio court for further proceedings.
The opinion is available here. The opinion was issued per curium (i.e. it was unanimous and issued on behalf of the court without a stated author).
The court held that the state’s maps should have been used as the starting point for interim maps but that the San Antonio court could adjust those maps if it found a likelihood of section 2 or other violations as a result of the case tried before it or if the court found a “reasonable probability” of section 5 violations.
SCOTUS rules; sends case back to San Antonio court for further proceedings
The Supreme Court entered an opinion in the interim map appeal this morning, sending the case back to the San Antonio court for further proceedings.
The opinion is available here. The opinion was issued per curium (i.e. it was unanimous and issued on behalf of the court without a stated author).
The court held that the state’s maps should have been used as the starting point for interim maps but that the San Antonio court could adjust those maps if it found a likelihood of section 2 or other violations as a result of the case tried before it or if the court found a “reasonable probability” of section 5 violations.
So the new maps won't be good for us, they will just be less terrible in general.
SCOTUS blog 1/20/12
Court rejects interim Texas maps
The Supreme Court on Friday unanimously overturned orders issued by a federal court in Texas that drew new maps for legislative districts, and ordered it to reconsider. In an 11-page unsigned opinion, the Court said that the three-judge District Court in San Antonio may not have used the “appropriate standards,” which the Court spelled out in some detail. Justice Clarence Thomas, in a separate opinion, repeated his view that a key federal voting rights act implicated in the Texas case is unconstitutional. The decision is here.
Because of Justice Thomas’s view about Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, he would have ordered the San Antonio court to let Texas use its own maps without change for the 2012 elections. However, the other Justices did not accept that approach, instead ordering the court in Texas to start with the plan but also to make some rulings about whether any parts of it are likely to be nullified in court.
The Court ordered its ruling into effect immediately, thus stressing the importance of moving rapidly on a dispute in which there has been a Feb. 1 deadline for creation of new maps for the election of members of the Texas state legislature and its 36-member delegation in the U.S. House of Representatives. The Justices themselves produced their opinions just 11 days after lawyers had argued the case.
When the case is taken up again by the San Antonio court, it is now under orders to use a series of maps drawn by the state legislature last year “as a starting point” for crafting any new districts. Although Texas’s own maps have not yet been legally cleared in Washington, as Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act requires, the Court said that does not mean that the legislature’s maps, or the policies that lay behind the creation of those maps, “can be disregarded by a district court drawing an interim plan.”
Court rejects interim Texas maps
The Supreme Court on Friday unanimously overturned orders issued by a federal court in Texas that drew new maps for legislative districts, and ordered it to reconsider. In an 11-page unsigned opinion, the Court said that the three-judge District Court in San Antonio may not have used the “appropriate standards,” which the Court spelled out in some detail. Justice Clarence Thomas, in a separate opinion, repeated his view that a key federal voting rights act implicated in the Texas case is unconstitutional. The decision is here.
Because of Justice Thomas’s view about Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, he would have ordered the San Antonio court to let Texas use its own maps without change for the 2012 elections. However, the other Justices did not accept that approach, instead ordering the court in Texas to start with the plan but also to make some rulings about whether any parts of it are likely to be nullified in court.
The Court ordered its ruling into effect immediately, thus stressing the importance of moving rapidly on a dispute in which there has been a Feb. 1 deadline for creation of new maps for the election of members of the Texas state legislature and its 36-member delegation in the U.S. House of Representatives. The Justices themselves produced their opinions just 11 days after lawyers had argued the case.
When the case is taken up again by the San Antonio court, it is now under orders to use a series of maps drawn by the state legislature last year “as a starting point” for crafting any new districts. Although Texas’s own maps have not yet been legally cleared in Washington, as Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act requires, the Court said that does not mean that the legislature’s maps, or the policies that lay behind the creation of those maps, “can be disregarded by a district court drawing an interim plan.”
Lyle Denniston gives us a much more detailed explanation.
for Lyle!
I think that's been in the cards for awhile. Both parties lose a lot of money on conventions - so there will be a lot of chaos. Who knows how this will impact voter turnout?
This is new to all of us.
Postcards from the Lege blog AAS 1/20/12
U.S. Supreme Court rejects redistricting maps drawn by San Antonio Court
(snip)
The high court’s ruling essentially says that district courts should not be part of the policy-making process, he said. They are “ill-suited” for it, Abbott said, echoing the opinion of the Supreme Court.
Nina Perales, a lawyer for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which is suing the state in the San Antonio court, said today that she was not discouraged by the Supreme Court’s ruling.
Perales said she’s pleased that the Supreme Court’s ruling directs the San Antonio court to re-draw the maps and make sure the districts they create comply with the Voting Rights Act.
Based on past testimony from the San Antonio trial, Perales is confident that several of the districts that Legislature created would not be part of the subsequent maps, she said.
U.S. Supreme Court rejects redistricting maps drawn by San Antonio Court
(snip)
The high court’s ruling essentially says that district courts should not be part of the policy-making process, he said. They are “ill-suited” for it, Abbott said, echoing the opinion of the Supreme Court.
Nina Perales, a lawyer for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which is suing the state in the San Antonio court, said today that she was not discouraged by the Supreme Court’s ruling.
Perales said she’s pleased that the Supreme Court’s ruling directs the San Antonio court to re-draw the maps and make sure the districts they create comply with the Voting Rights Act.
Based on past testimony from the San Antonio trial, Perales is confident that several of the districts that Legislature created would not be part of the subsequent maps, she said.
Huffington Post 1/20/12
Texas Redistricting: Supreme Court Throws Out Judge-Drawn Electoral Maps
WASHINGTON -- In a partial victory for Texas Republicans, the Supreme Court on Friday morning sent Texas' redistricting maps back to the drawing board.
The high court's unsigned, unanimous opinion in the linked cases of Perry v. Perez and Perry v. Davis threw out interim state and congressional district maps drawn up by a three-judge federal court in San Antonio, Texas. The lower court had drawn up the interim maps when civil rights groups challenged the original maps created by the Republican-controlled state legislature as unlawfully discriminating against minority voters.
The case itself has been a rushed, complicated affair involving two federal district courts taking on two different sections of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 and driven by the looming shadow of Texas' fast-approaching primary elections.
Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act requires a number of states, including Texas, to submit any changes they make to their election procedures to the Department of Justice or a federal court in Washington, D.C., for preclearance. Texas chose to send its redistricting maps, redrawn in response to a massive population increase reported in the 2010 census, to the D.C. court.
Meanwhile, the San Antonio court determined that the maps violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits voting procedures that have a racially or ethnically discriminatory effect. Fearing that the D.C. court would not provide its own determination on the maps' overall validity in time for the Texas state legislature to draw up revised maps before the primary, which was then scheduled for March, the San Antonio court created interim maps in November.
Texas Redistricting: Supreme Court Throws Out Judge-Drawn Electoral Maps
WASHINGTON -- In a partial victory for Texas Republicans, the Supreme Court on Friday morning sent Texas' redistricting maps back to the drawing board.
The high court's unsigned, unanimous opinion in the linked cases of Perry v. Perez and Perry v. Davis threw out interim state and congressional district maps drawn up by a three-judge federal court in San Antonio, Texas. The lower court had drawn up the interim maps when civil rights groups challenged the original maps created by the Republican-controlled state legislature as unlawfully discriminating against minority voters.
The case itself has been a rushed, complicated affair involving two federal district courts taking on two different sections of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 and driven by the looming shadow of Texas' fast-approaching primary elections.
Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act requires a number of states, including Texas, to submit any changes they make to their election procedures to the Department of Justice or a federal court in Washington, D.C., for preclearance. Texas chose to send its redistricting maps, redrawn in response to a massive population increase reported in the 2010 census, to the D.C. court.
Meanwhile, the San Antonio court determined that the maps violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits voting procedures that have a racially or ethnically discriminatory effect. Fearing that the D.C. court would not provide its own determination on the maps' overall validity in time for the Texas state legislature to draw up revised maps before the primary, which was then scheduled for March, the San Antonio court created interim maps in November.
I really, really hope she gets a seat she can win.
As it is we women are woefully underrepresented in the Texas Senate. There are only three women in the Texas Senate that are Democrats. There are currently 3 repuke women senators. That's only 19 percent of the Senate chamber.
Our Democratic women senators are Wendy Davis, Leticia Van de Putte and Judith Zaffirini. On the repuke side Senator Florence Shapiro is retiring and not running this next cycle. That seat will go back to a republican male. If we lose Wendy's seat women will only hold 4 seats in a 31 member body. And our percentage of women representation drops down to about 13%.
This is horrible and one major reason Texas is so f**ed up policy wise. Old conservative white men make up most of the policy in the Texas Legislature. This is not progress! This is wholesale regression!!
