On Tuesday, Oct. 4, the US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Merrill v. Milligan regarding Alabama Congressional Redistricting. Listen to the Oral Argument on YouTube.
Last January, a three-judge district court in Alabama had agreed that the state’s new congressional map likely violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. A divided Supreme Court temporarily blocked that ruling in February and after nearly two hours of oral argument on Tuesday, the justices appeared inclined to permanently set aside the district court’s ruling according to Amy Howe of SCOTUSblog.
The crux of the state of Alabama’s argument is that the legal test to determine a violation of Section 2 – the Gingles test – should find no violation if that redistricting plan is drawn using race-neutral criteria. Some Justices pointed out during the argument that historically that test has been used to find whether a redistricting map dilutes minority voting power in contravention of the statute. Alabama’s argument would suggest that no vote dilution occurs if the process of drawing the districts is race-neutral, regardless of whether dilution has actually occurred.
UCLA professor Rick Hasen’s take on the oral argument is slightly less pessimistic in that he suggests the court will reject Alabama’s theory as presented but instead narrow the scope of Section 2 on some other ground.
Media Coverage:
Supreme Court Leans Toward Alabama in Voting Rights Dispute (New York Times)
How Eric Holder views the latest Supreme Court challenge to the Voting Rights Act (NPR)
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