The U.S. Supreme Court has put Citizens for Fair Representation v Padilla, 18-123, on its September 24 conference. This is the case in which plaintiffs argue that the population of California legislative districts are so huge that, effectively, ordinary Californians have no chance to communicate or interact with their state legislators. State Senators have almost 1,000,000 constituents, and Assemblymembers have almost 500,000.

The plaintiffs had asked for a 3-judge court. Initially the U.S. District Court said she was granting the motion for a 3-judge court. Then later she changed her mind, apparently because the chief judge of the Ninth Circuit told her not to do give the case a 3-judge court. Plaintiffs are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that it is not proper for the U.S. District Court Judge, who has presumably read the evidence and briefs, to let another judge (who presumably has not read the briefs or participated in any oral argument) to make this decision. This is a very arcane point.