Wary High Court Tackles Texas ‘One Person, One Vote’ Case

Practical concerns about forcing states to abandon the way they have drawn electoral districts for more than 50 years seemed to give a key justice pause Tuesday in a Supreme Court case of immense importance to the nation’s growing Latino population.

The court heard arguments in a case from Texas on the meaning of the principle of “one person, one vote,” which the court has said requires that political districts be roughly equal in population.

But it has left open whether states must count all residents, or only eligible voters, in drawing district lines.

In Texas, and other states with large immigrant populations, the difference is more than academic. Urban districts include many more people who are too young, not citizens or otherwise ineligible to vote.

Two rural Texas voters are challenging the use of total population data in drawing state Senate districts because they say it inflates the voting power of city dwellers at their expense.

Their arguments seemed to make some headway Tuesday with Justice Anthony Kennedy, the pivotal vote on so many close high court cases.

When some districts of roughly equal population have dramatically different numbers of eligible voters, shouldn’t Texas “at least give some consideration to this disparity that you have among voters?” Kennedy asked.

Later he wondered whether states could produce districts that were roughly equal in terms of overall population and eligible voters, saying, “Why is one option exclusive of the other? Why can’t they have both?”

Texas Solicitor General Scott Keller said such an outcome could only be achieved at the expense of other traditional requirements about redistricting, including drawing relatively compact districts that don’t split counties.

Kennedy sounded persuaded. “That sounds highly probable to me,” he said.

The Texas case was one of three matters before the court on Tuesday that dealt with redistricting.

The justices also considered a challenge from Republicans over whether Arizona’s state legislative districts were redrawn in a way that illegally shifted voters to give Democrats an advantage. The case also invokes the “one person, one vote” principle in asking whether slight differences in population that typically pass muster are nonetheless problematic if districts are drawn for partisan advantage or to comply with a now-defunct provision in the Voting Rights Act.

In yet a third case, the court unanimously revived a challenge by some Maryland residents to their state’s 2011 redrawing of its congressional districts, ruling that their case must be heard by a panel of three judges, not a single judge.

The arguments in the Texas case were unusual in several respects. The justices displayed little of the aggressiveness that often marks Supreme Court arguments and Justice Antonin Scalia said nothing at all during the hourlong session.

Civil rights groups say forcing states to change their method would damage Latino political influence. Texas picked up four congressional seats after the 2010 census, mainly because of the growth in its Hispanic population.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito appeared most open to the challengers’ argument, but Scalia, another usually reliable conservative voice, did not comment at all.

The court’s liberal justices seemed more clearly disposed to upholding the districting plan for the Texas Senate that is being reviewed.

This article appeared in print on page 23 of the December 9th, 2015 edition of Hamodia.