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

20Using total population for one-person, one-votepurposes but CVAP for the purpose of analyzing Section2 thus creates intolerable conflict between the FourteenthAmendment and an important federal statute—Section 2of the VRA—that is supposed to enforce that Amendment.It cannot be the case that courts must look to CVAPfigures in finding a Section 2 violation, but may (or, worse,must) ignore CVAP figures entirely in assessing whetherthe new districts they are creating comply with the oneperson,one-vote requirement. A new district drawn asa remedy for a Section 2 violation must of course complywith the Fourteenth Amendment. Perry v. Perez, 132S. Ct. 934, 941-42 (2012). The Court has endeavored toavoid this type of confrontation between statutory andconstitutional standards if possible, and it should likewisedo so here. Miller v. Johnson, 515 U.S. 900 (1995); Georgiav. Ashcroft, 539 U.S. 461 (2003); Ricci v. DeStefano, 129S. Ct. 2658 (2009).This case illustrates the concern and potential forabuse. In the Section 2 litigation, Benavidez successfullyused CVAP figures to invalidate the City’s at-largeelectoral system. Yet the Chen decision precluded thedistrict court from using those same figures to ensurethat Benavidez’s proposed plan did not violate the equalprotectionrights of those voters who would reside in theother newly created districts. Courts should not adopta rule that permits litigants to rely on CVAP statisticsto form majority-minority districts and simultaneouslyuse total population figures to shield those districts fromconstitutional challenge. This is a recurring problem ofnational significance that the Court should address. See,e.g., Meza, 322 F. Supp. 2d at 61 n.11; United States v.Port Chester, 704 F. Supp. 2d 411, 421 (S.D.N.Y. 2010).