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

9aAppendix Bpopulation or a measurement of potential voters must beleft to the legislative body. See Daly v. Hunt, 93 F.3d 1212,1227 (4th Cir. 1996).Plaintiffs try to distinguish Chen from this case byarguing in a footnote that the variance between populationand voters in Chen is considerably less than the variancein this case. They contend the “City of Houston had notdiluted the vote of citizens by approximately half, as theCity of Irving has done here. Rather, the Chen courtsimply noted that the ‘maximum variance’ of CVAPbetween the City of Houston’s districts ‘exceeds [a] tenpercent threshold.’” (Docket # 25 at 15 n. 18.) Plaintiffsinfer the City of Houston’s variance between populationand eligible voters was just slightly more than tenpercent, whereas here, the variance is considerably higher.Plaintiffs then contend the Chen court called the CVAPvote dilution claim “extremely close and difficult.” (Docket# 25 at 15 n. 18.)First, the inference Plaintiffs make -- that themaximum variance in Chen was close to ten percent -- isnot supported by the actual evidence. The petition forwrit of certiorari in Chen states that, when measured byCVAP, the maximum deviation between districts in thechallenged Houston plan was 32.5%. Appellate Pet. Chenv. City of Houston 532 U.S. 1046, 121 S. Ct. 2020, 149 L.Ed. 2d 1017, 2000 WL 34014393 at *3.Second, the Fifth Circuit did not characterize itsCVAP decision as a close call. It described the racialgerrymandering claim (Shaw claim) as ‘’extremely closeand difficult.” Chen, 206 F.3d at 505. Later in the opinion,