A trial was held in Harris v Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission March 25-29. This is the case brought by Arizona Republicans that argues the Independent Redistricting Commission improperly favored Democrats over Republicans when it drew the legislative district boundaries, following the 2010 census.
The three judges are Richard Clifton, a 9th circuit judge appointed by President George W. Bush; Neil Wake, a U.S. District Court Judge also appointed by George W. Bush; and Roslyn Silver, a President Clinton appointee. Before Wake was a federal judge, he was an Arizona attorney who handled Republican Party redistricting cases after the 2000 census and also after the 1990 census. Here is a story about the trial. The main issue is whether population deviations in the size of the districts are unconstitutionally large, or whether the deviations were for the legitimate purpose of helping to conform the maps to the Voting Rights Act. A side issue is whether the Commission’s procedures were fair.
The post-trial briefs are due April 10. Meanwhile, there is also an Arizona federal case over whether a state violates the U.S. Constitution when it lets redistricting commissions, instead of the legislature itself, draw U.S. House district boundaries. Last summer, the Arizona Redistricting Commission asked Judge Paul G. Rosenblatt to dismiss the case, and a decision could come out at any time. That case is Arizona State Legislature v Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, 2:12-cv-1211.
The second case is a little more subtle.
The US Constitution vests authority to prescribe the time, place, and manner regulation for congressional elections with the legislature of each state, subject to congressional override.
Provisions for election by district, and how the districts are drawn is a manner regulation. It is possibly also a place regulation, but that likely was intended to refer to the place of senate elections prior to the 17th Amendment, when the elective body was the legislature.
A legislature could draw the districts itself, or it could pass a law directing that some other body draw the districts. Congress could draw the districts itself, prescribe some other body, or could even direct the legislatures draw the district boundaries.
What the Arizona Constitution purports to do is to take manner regulation away from the Arizona legislature. The constitutional initiative said that was its explicit purpose.
A state constitution may prescribe how a legislature is constituted, and the process by which legislation is enacted. This, after all, is the fundamental purpose of a constitution. It may also proscribe the legislature from enacting legislation on certain topics (eg restricting free speech).
But it is dubious that a state constitution can take from a state legislature, legislative authority which comes not from the People of the State, but rather from the Constitution of the United States.
There is a 0.80 correlation between non-Hispanic White population and legislative district size. Is the 10% “safe harbor” valid for deliberate and systematic race-based vote dilution?
1/2 the votes in half the PACK/CRACK rigged gerrymander districts = 1/4 control.
Who has the *legislative POWER* in a State of the Union — ONLY the robot party hack gerrymander monarchs or the People (the employers of such party hacks) ???
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
What century will some folks get beyond 1787 and its EVIL ANTI-Democracy compromises ???
Again – see Smiley v. Holm, 285 U.S. 355 (1932).
How many State constitutions have restrictions on U.S. Rep. gerrymander districts — compact, etc. ???
#4 Why don’t you tell me how many State constitutions purport to prescribe the manner of congressional elections?
Again – Smiley v Holm does not apply. There is no question that a State constitution may prescribe the process by which legislation is enacted, including provisions for a veto by the governor, or a popular veto through the referendum process.
# 5 See the Levitt website about the zillion gerrymander cases – based on federal and/or State stuff.
http://www.moga.mo.gov/const/A03045.HTM
MO Const. Art. III, Section 45. When the number of representatives to which the state is entitled in the House of the Congress of the United States under the census of 1950 and each census thereafter is certified to the governor, the general assembly shall by law divide the state into districts corresponding with the number of representatives to which it is entitled, which districts shall be composed of contiguous territory as compact and as nearly equal in population as may be.
——
How *compact* is square ???
http://redistricting.lls.edu/cases.php
Levitt gerrymander cases website — a major effort to keep track of the EVIL minority rule cases.
Courts remain brain dead about 1/2 x 1/2 = 1/4 Stone Age gerrymander math.
#6,7,8. There are around 8 States where the State constitution purports to remove all congressional redistricting from the legislature. In other cases, the outside role is provided by statute.
Quickly reading through some of the opinions in the recent Missouri redistricting cases, I didn’t see anyone raising the issue whether the compactness standard was valid in the first place. The decision of the Missouri courts appeared to give a great deal of discretion to the legislature.
The Arizona initiative literally says its intent was to take the authority for congressional redistricting from the legislature.