The GOP‘s redistricting plans suffered another blow when SCOTUS ruled that race cannot be used to guide redistricting, as noted by Lyle Denniston on the Constitution Daily blog:
The trial court had ruled that, if race was used without violating any other redistricting rules, it was valid. Only such a conflict, that court said, makes the use of race unconstitutional as a form of discrimination.
That is the result the Supreme Court overturned. Even if a new map satisfies all of the customary requirements for new districts, the map may still be unconstitutional if race was the guiding factor. Conflict with traditional principles might help prove that predominance, the Justices ruled, but that is not necessary to show unconstitutionality.
In the practical world of redistricting, that declaration by the court is almost certain to compel state legislatures to be newly cautious in how race is considered. While the court has never barred all use of race as a redistricting factor, and in fact has conceded that legislators always are aware of it because minority voters tend generally to vote for Democratic candidates, the new ruling and prior decisions on the subject give the predominance factor heavy weight when a new map is challenged as having been based on racial gerrymandering.
The vote was 7-1, and the holdout, Justice Thomas wanted to go even further down this road. This appears to me to be a strong rebuff to the GOP redistricting plans. That said, I’m glad to have never been given a task like this – between partisan howls and the apparent lack of either accepted process or even goal, it makes me wonder if the use of easily changeable district lines really makes sense. Unfortunately, there are problems with other approaches that come right to mind – but I suspect someone out there thinks they have the perfect solution to the problem, I just haven’t run across it, yet.
