According to certain African-American voters, following the 2010 census, Virginia State legislators redistricted the voting map specifically to ensure that each district held 55 percent of the black voting age population (BVAP). In the voters’ eyes, this was an attempt to weaken the power of black voters by spreading them out across district lines, making certain voting regions whiter and more conservative. They have argued before the District and Supreme Court that this is in direct violation of the Equal Protection Clause which prevents the predomination of race in the drawing of district lines.
These voters won a small victory last week when the US Supreme Court partially returned the racial gerrymandering case, so that the lower court might reexamine its ruling that race did not predominate in 11 of the 12 districts in question.
The Central Arguments
The ruling of the Supreme Court breaks down into two main points:
Firstly, according to the high court, the District Court “employed an incorrect legal standard in determining that race did not predominate in 11 of the 12 districts.” The lower court dismissed the possibility that race could have predominated on the basis that the legislative map followed traditional districting principles such as contiguity, compactness and political considerations. But according to the Supreme Court, the mere lack of “an actual conflict” between racial bias and traditional criteria does not mean that race did not predominate. In fact, according to the majority opinion, race could be the primary motivating factor behind the creation of seemingly conventional districts. What matters are the concrete intentions behind the legislative map, “not post hoc justifications that the legislature could have used but did not,” to quote Justice Kennedy. What this means is that the challengers will have to produce circumstantial or direct evidence to show that the legislators who drew the map did indeed have predominantly racially biased motivations. In this way, the court merely reframed the case for future ruling, remaining neutral as to the question of race in the 11 districts at issue.
The second major point made in the final ruling pertains to the 12th District, known as District 75. Here the higher court upheld the opinion of the Virginia District Court which found that race did in fact predominate in the construction of the district. The Supreme Court maintained that even though there were racial motivations, the legislature could show that there was “compelling state interest.” What was the compelling state interest? In the eyes of the court and the defendant, this was a perceived need to satisfy criteria set forth by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). And according to the court, the State does not have to show an actual need to meet said criteria, but must have “’good reasons to believe’ its use of race was needed in order to satisfy the [VRA].” The “good reasons” in this case were related to a provision of the VRA that stopped legislators from limiting the minority voters’ ability to vote for candidates of their choice. Thus, according to the ruling, allotting 55 percent of the BVAP to the District 75 was an appropriate move given statutory limitations.
Final Remarks
According to Amy Howe of the SCOTUS Blog, “Kennedy’s opinion for the court depicted today’s decision as a relatively straightforward one that relies on existing cases rather than making new law.” But as she points out, it is very possible that this case might return to the Supreme Court where a ruling in favor of the challengers could be a very big win for African-American voters in Virginia and elsewhere.
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