Communication 09 How To draw Redistricting Plans That Will Stand Up In Court

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But the Court of Appeals in Ketchum also noted that The 65% figure . . . should be reconsidered regularly to reflect new information and new statis id. at 1416. In redistricting following the 1990 census, several courts found th registration and voter participation among minority groups, a mi slightly more than 50 percent was sufficient to provide an effec Bartlett v. Strickland, the 65 percent guideline has been abandoned. The Seventh Circuit in Ketchum warned that provision of majorities exceeding 65%-70% may result in packing. Id.at 1418. But the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit upheld a redistricting plan for the city of Boston where, of two district district had a Black population of 82.1 percent. Latino Political Action Committee v. City of Boston, 784 F.2d 409 (1st Cir. 1986). The Court found that this packing against Blacks because there was only a moderate degree of racia [T]he less cohesive the bloc, the more packing needed to assure . . . a Black representative (though, of course, the less polarized the voting, the less the Id. at 414. The Black population was so distributed that, even if fewer Blac districts, there were not enough Blacks to create a third distri Id. If you face a charge of a § 2 violation, you had better be prepared with empirical data to sho what is reasonable and fair under the totality of the circums invalidated for putting either too few or too many members of a While political party members have spent the last decade packing language minority groups have spent the last decade fracturing t cities to the suburbs, diluting their votes within the majority See, e.g., Richard Fry, The Rapid Growth and Changing Complexion of Suburban Public Schools, Pew Hispanic Center (Mar. 31, 2009). You may find that drawing majority-mino is harder than it was before. B.Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act 1.In Covered Jurisdictions, Plans Must be Precleared While § 2 of the Voting Rights Act applies throughout the United States, amended at 42 U.S.C. § 1973c), applies only to certain covered jurisdictions, which are list appendix to the Code of Federal Regulations, 28 C.F.R. Part 51. If your because all of your election law changes since 1965, and not jus to be precleared, before they take effect, by either the U.S. De Court for the District of Columbia. The preclearance requirement has been challenged repeatedly and 2009.See, e.g., Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One (NAMUDNO) v. Holder, No. 08-322, 557 U.S. ____ (June 22, 2009); City of Rome v. United States,446 U.S. 156 (1980); South Carolina v. Katzenbach,383 U.S. 301 (1966). The Court in NAMUDNO expressed serious doubt that § 5s current burdens [were] justified by current needs, slip op. at 22