CASE SUMMARY

After gaining 4 congressional seats in the 2010 reapportionment, Texas enacted new congressional and legislative redistricting plans and submitted them to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to obtain preclearance under § 5 of the federal Voting Rights Act (“VRA”). During the preclearance process, various plaintiffs filed several federal lawsuits challenging Texas’s new plans as racially discriminatory and as diluting Black and Latino voters’ voting strength in violation of the U.S. Constitution and § 2 of the VRA.

  • As litigation proceeded and it became clear the plans wouldn’t obtain preclearance in time for the 2012 elections, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas held hearings and imposed interim redistricting plans for the 2012 elections that largely differed and failed to give any deference to the state’s enacted plans. The State appealed the district court’s decision adopting the interim plans to the U.S. Supreme Court on the grounds the plans were unnecessarily inconsistent with the State’s enacted plans.
  • On January 20, 2012, SCOTUS ruled in favor of the State. Emphasizing that redistricting is primarily a legislative function, the Court explained enacted redistricting plans represent important representational policy judgments that the legislature, not the court, is best suited to decide. It clarified that unless there is any indication that an enacted redistricting plan or any part thereof is unlawful, a court’s interim plans must closely adhere to a state’s legislatively enacted plans. Here, since it was unclear whether the lower court followed appropriate standards when making their interim plans, the Court vacated the decision and remanded the case for further proceedings.

CASE LIBRARY

U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, San Antonio Division - No. SA-11-cv-360

U.S. Supreme Court - Nos. 11-713; 11-714; 11-715 [565 U.S. 388 (2012)]