League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry

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League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry

Supreme Court of the United States

Argued March 1, 2006
Decided June 28, 2006

Full case name:	United Latin American Citizens, et. all v. Perry, Governor of Texas, et. all
Docket #:	05-204

Citations:	548 U.S. 399; 2006 U.S. LEXIS ___

Holding

Texas' redrawing of District 23’s lines amounts to vote dilution violative of §2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Court membership

Chief Justice: John Glover Roberts, Jr.
Associate Justices: John Paul Stevens, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Samuel Alito

Case opinions

Majority by: Kennedy (in part)
Joined by: Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer (Parts II-A & III); Roberts, Alito (Parts I & IV); Souter, Ginsburg (Part II-D)
Concurrence/dissent by: Roberts
Joined by: Alito
Concurrence/dissent by: Stevens
Joined by: Breyer (Parts I, II)
Concurrence/dissent by: Scalia
Joined by: Thomas; Roberts, Alito (Part III)
Concurrence/dissent by: Souter
Joined by: Ginsburg
Concurrence/dissent by: Breyer

Laws applied

Voting Rights Act of 1965

League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry, 548 U. S. 399 (2006), is a Supreme Court of the United States case in which the Court ruled that only District 23 of the 2003 Texas redistricting violated the Voting Rights Act. The Court refused to throw out the entire plan, ruling that the plaintiffs failed to state a sufficient claim of partisan gerrymandering. The opinion requires lawmakers to adjust Congressional district boundaries in comport with the Court's ruling, though the ruling does not threaten Republican gains as a result of the redistricting in Texas.^[1] The Court also declined to resolve a dispute over whether partisan gerrymandering claims present nonjusticiable political questions.

1 Statewide Claims
2 Frost's old District Claim
3 Districts 23 & 25
4 Dissent on Districts 23 & 25
5 Practical Result
6 See all
7 References
8 External links

[edit] Statewide Claims

The plaintiffs argument of this being a statewide unconstitutional partisan gerrymander was rejected 7-2. A similar split was seen in the Pennsylvania-based case Vieth v. Jubelirer.
The plaintiffs argument that states can't redistrict more than once per census under the federal constitution or acts of US congress were both explicitly rejected. States can mid-decade redistrict however often they please.

[edit] Frost's old District Claim

The challenge to Martin Frost's old district being shattered was also rejected. The majority of the court noted that old district 24 had three separate communities to began with (Anglos, Blacks, Latino) and Frost (an Anglo Democrat) never having been challenged in 22 years in a primary made it impossible to dispute the state legislative history that it was specifically created for an Anglo Democrat.

[edit] Districts 23 & 25

By a 5-4 vote the majority ruled that:

Old district 23 was a qualified protected majority-minority Latino district (indeed in 2002 on the verge of throwing out the incumbent that wasn't of their choice).
New district 23 was in no shape or form a qualifying Latino district, largely due to moving 100,000 Latinos into neighboring district 28.
New district 25 wasn't compact enough to be considered a qualifying replacement majority-minority Latino district (its Latino majority not withstanding).
And therefore new District 23 is a section 2 violation of the Voting Rights Act and must be redrawn.
There is no need to rule on whether or not new district #25 is itself a racial gerrymander in violation of section 2 because the changes to district 23 will of necessity affect district 25 and it is therefore moot. However, the lower court decision that it was not in violation of section 2 is vacated.
The case is remanded for further proceedings.

[edit] Dissent on Districts 23 & 25

Justices Roberts, Alito, Scalia, Thomas dissented:

Nowhere in The Voting Rights Act or legislative history is compactness of districts mentioned and that the majority is causing the jurisprudence of section 2 to diverge more and more from the legislative history.
New district 25 is more than an adequate replacement for old 23 (if necessarily), and indeed the majority accepts that new district 25 performed better for Latinos in 2004 than old district 23 from 1992—2002.

[edit] Practical Result

Ordered by the justices to remedy this situation, a federal panel on Aug. 4 adjusted the lines of the 23rd and four other districts — the 28th (represented by Democrat Henry Cuellar), 25th (Democrat Lloyd Doggett), 15th (Democrat Ruben Hinojosa) and 21st (Republican Lamar Smith) — all of which held new primary elections on November 7. Cuellar, Doggett, Hinojosa, and Smith were all reelected, while Henry Bonilla, the Republican representative for the 23rd District, was defeated by Democrat Ciro Rodriguez in a newly 61% Latino district.