A terrible map. On Tuesday, a district court panel threw out Virginias map of Congressional districts, finding that one district was unconstitutionally racially gerrymandered in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. Individuals in the Third Congressional District whose constitutional rights have been injured by improper racial gerrymandering have suffered significant harm, a two-judge majority of the panel wrote. Virginia has 11 Congressional districts. In 2012, Republican House candidates won 51 percent of the votes cast in the state — and they ended up winning eight seats, to the Democrats three. Heres what the partisan results looked like: VA gerrymander (Patrickneil) All three Democrats won with more than 61 percent of the vote, but most Republicans won with margins in the mid-fifties — a classic sign of gerrymandering, indicating that the Democratic-leaning voters were packed into a small number of districts. But the US Constitution doesnt prohibit partisan gerrymandering, so that wont lead a court to toss out the maps. DEMOCRATS ARGUED THAT BLACK VOTERS WERE BEING UNCONSTITUTIONALLY PACKED INTO ONE DISTRICT TO DILUTE THEIR VOTING STRENGTH Partisanship in the US, though, is often intertwined with race. If you look at all the blue in the southeast of the state, thats just one, heavily-black district — the third, represented by Bobby Scott (D). In fact, its the only majority-black district in the state — even though about one in five residents are black. So when state Republicans proposed this map in 2011, Democrats argued that another majority-minority district should have been created, and that black voters were being unconstitutionally packed into the third district to dilute their voting strength. Though the GOP got the map through the narrowly-divided state Senate by just one vote the following year, Democrats soon sued. Now, a majority of this district judge panel has agreed with their criticism. The district court has ordered Virginias legislature to pass a new map by April 1, 2015. The GOP legislature would still draw up the new maps, which could limit hopes of Democratic gains. But the Republican governor who signed the original maps, Bob McDonnell, is no longer in office (and is currently awaiting sentencing after being convicted on corruption charges). Now, the new Democratic governor, Terry McAuliffe, can veto any new map. CARD 8 OF 14 LAUNCH CARDS What is racial gerrymandering? The US House of Representatives elects only one member from each district. Such a system can potentially make it quite hard for minority groups to gain representation. For instance, if African-Americans are spread out throughout a state, they might not have sufficient numbers in any one district to elect any representatives at all. In the past, many US states have brought about this outcome deliberately, drawing their maps to ensure whites would win every district. Thats a process known as racial gerrymandering. The federal government addressed this in the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which made it illegal to draw districts that intentionally dilute the voting power of a protected minority. When the courts have assessed whether certain maps do this, they tend to judge the districts by compactness. In other words, judges assess how geographically logical the districts are, to make sure they arent unnaturally designed to disenfranchise minority voters. Its also possible to racially gerrymander to benefit minority groups, by drawing districts in unusual ways to ensure certain racial minority groups make up a majority there. Groups such as the NAACP advocate for more minority representation in Congress, and in the past, theyve pushed for more majority-minority districts as a way to achieve that goal. But the courts have been skeptical of this too. In a series of 1990s decisions, including Shaw v. Reno, Miller v. Johnson, and Bush v. Vera, the Supreme Court struck down certain majority-minority districts because their shapes were so irregular or bizarre that they could only have been drawn for racial reasons. However, like partisanship, race is highly entangled with geography. Since many minority groups are concentrated in urban areas, most current majority-minority districts occur quite naturally, Nate Silver found. So more elaborate racial gerrymandering is likely not necessary to ensure significant minority representation in Congress.
Posted on: Wed, 15 Oct 2014 04:38:37 +0000
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