This story explains why boundaries for Texas U.S. House districts, and legislative districts, are not necessarily settled for the 2014 election. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
This story explains why boundaries for Texas U.S. House districts, and legislative districts, are not necessarily settled for the 2014 election. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
The San Antonio federal district court which drew the interim plan that was thrown out by the SCOTUS in 2012, as well as the current one, has never issued its opinion in the Section 2 case, although they were apparently prepared to do so. They had to hold off, waiting for the DC District Court to rule in the Section 5 case, which they did not do until August 2012, over a year after Texas had sought pre-clearance, and way to late to enable anything to be done for the 2012 election.
The DC Court does not have the authority to fashion a remedy. All they can do is say Yes or No on whether a plan goes into effect.
Meanwhile the San Antonio court was stuck with guessing how the DC Court would rule on the Section 5 issues, when, and if the DC Court ever could be bothered to rule.
The whole idea of Section 5 was to prevent States from making changes so frequently that the courts couldn’t keep up. But the Section 2 San Antonio court was clearly up to make a ruling. If not for Section 5, the SA Court would have already issued their opinion, been stayed by the 5th Circuit, and overturned by the Supreme Court.