voting rights

Preview of Evenwel v. Abbott

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The issue presented in Evenwel v. Abbott is:

SupremeCourt“Issue: Whether the three-judge district court correctly held that the “one-person, one-vote” principle under the Equal Protection Clause allows States to use total population, and does not require States to use voter population, when apportioning state legislative districts.”

The case will be argued before the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, the same day that the Court hears oral argument in the redistricting case from Arizona, Harris v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission (see previous post).

Garrett Epps at The Atlantic has a preview. Who Gets to Be Represented in Congress?

Ideally, litigants come to appellate courts with a problem the courts can solve.  Sometimes, though, they bring solutions in search of a problem the courts can create. The plaintiffs in Evenwel v. Abbott have gone even further: Their case brings the U.S. Supreme Court a problem and asks the Court to create more problems, with no solution in sight. They want the Court to completely upend the current system of drawing legislative districts—in a way that would give more power to conservative voters and candidates. Beyond that, they are asking the Court to adopt a new constitutional rule with no constitutional provision attached.

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Preview of Harris v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission

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The issues presented in Harris v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission are:

SupremeCourtIssues: (1) Whether the desire to gain partisan advantage for one political party justifies intentionally creating over-populated legislative districts that results in tens of thousands of individual voters being denied Equal Protection because their individual votes are devalued, violating the one-person, one-vote principle; and (2) whether the desire to obtain favorable preclearance review by the Justice Department permits the creation of legislative districts that deviate from the one-person, one-vote principle, and, even if creating unequal districts to obtain preclearance approval was once justified, whether this is still a legitimate justification after Shelby County v. Holder. [This is a retroactive application argument.]

The case will be argued before the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, the same day that the Court hears oral argument in the “one person, one vote” case from Texas, Evenwel v. Abbott. “Issue: Whether the three-judge district court correctly held that the “one-person, one-vote” principle under the Equal Protection Clause allows States to use total population, and does not require States to use voter population, when apportioning state legislative districts.”

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9th Circuit Court of Appeals strikes down Tucson’s electoral system, appeal to follow

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TucsonBack in May, the U.S. District Court upheld Tucson’s electoral system. The Republican plaintiffs appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

On Tuesday, a week after the Tucson mayor and council election, the Ninth Circuit ruled 2-1 in favor of the plaintiffs, the first time since voters enacted the electoral system in the Tucson City Charter in 1930 that someone has successfully challenged the electoral system in court. Tucson’s electoral system has passed muster in numerous legal challenges and DOJ preclearance reviews under the Voting Rights Act in the past.

Here is the Ninth Circuit opinion (.pdf) in Public Integrity Alliance v City of Tucson, 15-16142.

The local reporting on this case is lacking in analysis. It does not appear that anyone has actually read the opinion past the headnotes of the case, and threw in some quotes from the litigants and political party officials. Pro Tip: actually read the case including the dissent, which in this case is the far better reasoned opinion than the majority opinion (albeit with some minor errors in citation). The dissenting opinion should instruct the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals sitting en banc and/or the U.S. Supreme Court.

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Chris Christie vetoes universal (automatic) voter registration bill

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ChristieNew Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s presidential campaign is circling the drain, Next GOP debate: Christie, Huckabee bumped from main stage, so naturally the “Bridgegate” Bully has turned to a perennial GOP favorite to gain some attention — and notoriety —  voter suppression.

Think Progress reports, Chris Christie Vetoes Legislation Making It Easier To Vote In New Jersey:

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) vetoed legislation Monday that would have added 1.6 million new voters to the state’s rolls and made New Jersey the third state in the country to adopt automatic voter registration.

After sitting on the “Democracy Act” for almost five months, the governor and Republican presidential candidate vetoed his second voting rights-related bill in three years, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. Christie has previously said that he does not support making it easier for residents of his state to vote.

“In New Jersey, we have early voting that are available to people,” he said in June. “I don’t want to expand it and increase the opportunities for fraud.”

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Greenberg Poll: Democrats need a reform agenda to go with popular economic policies

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Greg Sargent of the Washington Post reports on Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg’s new poll today which shows that the so-called “Rising American Electorate,” the Obama coalition, is less “tuned in” to the 2016 election than the angry old white conservatives who listen to hate talk radio and FAUX News demographic a year out from Election Day:

A new poll by veteran Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg . . . illustrates the challenge that Democrats face.

The new poll, which was commissioned by Women’s Voices Women Vote Action Fund and conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, shows that members of the Rising American Electorate — minorities, millennials, and single women — are significantly less tuned in to next year’s election than GOP-aligned voter groups are. [This is a hangover from the midterm election Democratic voter drop-off problem.]

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The poll has some good news for Democrats. The survey, which was taken in four key battleground states — Colorado, Florida, Ohio, and Wisconsin — suggests that in those states, the demographics do favor Dems. That’s because the poll finds that RAE voter groups — who helped drive Obama’s wins — now make up a “majority or near majority of the vote” in all those states. The poll also finds Dems leading in Senate races in two of those states and tied in two others.

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