Supreme Court may decide against Va. Republicans in redistricting fight

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: Washington Post

By Robert Barnes and Jenna Portnoy March 21 at 12:12 PM 

The Supreme Court on Monday seemed likely to leave in place a lower court’s decision that Virginia improperly considered race when drawing congressional districts.

Operating without the late Justice Antonin Scalia, it would require only four members of the court to agree with a judicial panel that the Republican-led legislature improperly packed African American voters into the 3rd Congressional District, which is represented by the state’s lone black congressman, Rep. Robert C. “Bobby” Scott, a Democrat.

The lower court said the map violated the admonition that race not be the predominant factor in drawing legislative districts.
....

Because of the high stakes, redistricting plans in more than three-quarters of the states have been challenged in court. ... But wherever the line is, Virginia’s Republican-led General Assembly crossed it, according to an amicus brief to the Supreme Court filed by the Campaign Legal Center and League of Women Voters, among others. The legislature’s plan “sanctions the impermissible use of race as a proxy to achieve partisan gains,” the groups wrote.



Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-may-decide-against-va-republicans-in-redistricting-fight/2016/03/21/eb7bfac0-ef79-11e5-a61f-e9c95c06edca_story.html

[elljay]

1. When can the districts be redrawn?

With the election in November, I assume that there will not be sufficient time for the SCOTUS to issue its ruling and the Virginia state government to redraw the districts. This means two more years of Republican gerrymandering.

[unc70]

2. Courts made NC delay primary

Court ordered NC to redraw Congessional districts right before primary. The NC Congessional primary will now be in the summer for the November election. That assumes the newly drawn maps are acceptable to the Court. Not sure I would bet on that. A real mess.

[ananda]

3. What about Texas?

The gerrymandering and voting rights suppression here
are egregious.

[elljay]

4. It is all over the place

This is what happens when Democrats are too busy with important things to vote in mid-term elections. We will not be able to overcome most of the gerrymandering until after the 2020 census and toss out the Republican state governments that drew the Congressional district maps, assuming that Democrats have learned their lesson and show up at the polls. The cases that are being heard now are the more egregious examples of racial gerrymandering, which are basically the only types of cases that can be made under the current laws. Again, elections have consequences.