By Daniel P. Tokaji, a law professor at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law and senior fellow for Election Law @ Moritz.
Whenever the U.S. Supreme Court decides a case, especially one involving elections, commentators have a tendency to wax eloquently about its importance. But let’s face it, not all Supreme Court decisions are really that important. A case in point Friday’s opinion in Perry v. Perez, regarding Texas’ redistricting plans.
To be sure, the decision is important to Texans wondering what their congressional and state legislative districts will look like. It also helps clarify a procedural question involving preclearance under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (“VRA”). But the broader significance of Friday’s
per curiam decision is limited. What’s most significant is an issue the Court doesn’t address: whether Section 5 is constitutional. That’s the 800 pound gorilla which the justices (with the noteworthy exception of Justice Thomas) avoid mentioning – but will probably come before them in the not-too-distant future.
per curiam decision is limited. What’s most significant is an issue the Court doesn’t address: whether Section 5 is constitutional. That’s the 800 pound gorilla which the justices (with the noteworthy exception of Justice Thomas) avoid mentioning – but will probably come before them in the not-too-distant future.A bit of context is useful. Every state must redraw its congressional and state legislative maps at the start of each decade to account for population shifts. Section 5 of the VRA requires some jurisdictions to obtain “preclearance” of voting changes – including redistricting plans – before they take effect. As originally enacted, Section 5 covered Southern states that excluded African Americans from voting. Coverage was later expanded to include states with a history of excluding Latinos and other groups from fully participating in the electoral process. Texas is among the states now covered by Section 5, which was reauthorized and extended for another 25 years in 2006. To obtain preclearance, covered jurisdictions must show that their proposed changes don’t have a discriminatory purpose or retrogressive effect on minority voters.
At issue in Perry v. Perez is what should happen when a state legislature has drawn new districts, but no preclearance decision has yet been made. After the 2010 Census, the Texas legislature redrew its congressional and state legislative lines. As required by Section 5, the state then requested preclearance of the legislature’s plan, filing suit in the federal district court in Washington, D.C. That court denied Texas’ motion for summary judgment, but hasn’t yet ruled on whether preclearance should be granted. Meanwhile, separate lawsuits were filed in another federal court, alleging that the redistricting plans violate the U.S. Constitution and another section of the VRA. (You can find court filings from the cases here and here.)
Here’s the problem: Under Section 5, the 2011 Texas redistricting plans can’t take effect until they’ve been precleared. But the old districting plan, the one in effect through 2010, can’t be used either – that would violate the one person, one vote rule due to population shifts of the last decade. The lower court was therefore left with no choice but to draw its own map. That map departed from the legislatively-drawn map in significant respects, even though the court didn’t find a likelihood that plaintiffs would prevail in their legal challenges to it. Texas argued that the court didn’t show enough deference to the un-precleared plans drawn by the state legislature.
identification or proof of citizenship, reduce registration opportunities and limit early voting could “make it significantly harder for more than five million eligible voters” to cast ballots in 14 states, the report estimates. And these estimates do not even take into account the potential consequences of proposed measures states that have not yet passed in at least 24 other. Click 
minority” House districts, an increase of seven over the current arrangement. Abrams contends that the goal of this process is to ensure Republican two-thirds majorities so that it can enact state constitutional amendments without Democratic votes. “They accomplished this by purging the state of Georgia of white Democrats. Almost without exception in the Fulton-DeKalb area, if you are a white Democrat who is near an African-American, you were paired and you are going to have to run against one another,” said Abrams.