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petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to grant ... - Election Law Blog

petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to grant ... - Election Law Blog

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3The <strong>Court</strong> should <strong>grant</strong> <strong>the</strong> petition and finally decidewhe<strong>the</strong>r <strong>to</strong>tal population or voter population “should beused for determining whe<strong>the</strong>r <strong>the</strong> population is equallydistributed among <strong>the</strong> districts.” Id. As this case shows,<strong>the</strong> time has come <strong>to</strong> decide this important question.Changing immigration patterns and federal policieshave converted a problem that once impacted only a fewjurisdictions in<strong>to</strong> a national concern. This issue now affectsstate and local jurisdictions spanning from New York, <strong>to</strong>Maryland, <strong>to</strong> North Carolina, <strong>to</strong> Illinois, <strong>to</strong> Texas, and <strong>to</strong>California. Fur<strong>the</strong>r, it causes significant financial injuryas billions of dollars of federal appropriations often shiftaway from rural communities <strong>to</strong> urban centers with highconcentrations of residents who are ineligible <strong>to</strong> vote.Delaying resolution will exacerbate this growing problemand cause fur<strong>the</strong>r harm.Finally, <strong>the</strong> importance of this petition is onlyheightened by <strong>the</strong> confl ict that using <strong>to</strong>tal populationcreates between <strong>the</strong> one-person, one-vote principle andSection 2 of <strong>the</strong> Voting Rights Act (“VRA”). In Section 2cases, courts use Citizen Voting Age Population (“CVAP”)<strong>to</strong> evaluate whe<strong>the</strong>r a majority-minority district shouldbe formed. Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U.S. 30, 50 n.17(1986). Indeed, CVAP was used <strong>to</strong> form <strong>the</strong> district indispute here even though that metric was simply ignoredin evaluating <strong>the</strong> one-person, one-vote implications of<strong>the</strong> revised City districting plan. The <strong>Court</strong> has alwaysunders<strong>to</strong>od <strong>the</strong> importance of avoiding such conflict,especially in <strong>the</strong> civil rights setting where federal statutesand <strong>the</strong> Fourteenth Amendment are supposed <strong>to</strong> workin tandem—not at cross-purposes. See, e.g., Miller v.Johnson, 515 U.S. 900 (1995).

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