Tag Archives: Evenwel v. Abbott

U.S. Supreme Court Upholds One Man One Vote

Leave a reply

In a unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a challenge by two Texas citizens that would have upended the doctrine of One Man, One Vote.  The case, Evenwel v. Abbott, was masterminded by highly successful Supreme Court lawyer Ed Blum and his erroneously named Project for Fair Representation.  Blum and the plaintiffs claimed that Texas State Senate districts were unconstitutional because they were drawn on the basis of total population instead of the number of eligible voters.  The argument was a clever ploy to redirect political power from more liberal urban areas to more conservative rural areas who have higher numbers of eligible voters as a percentage of total population.   Although the U.S. Constitution mandates that congressional districts be drawn on the basis of population, there is no such mandate for state legislative districts.  Alas, the ploy failed and the Court held that Texas could legally apportion its legislative districts on the basis of total population.

Adopting voter-eligible apportionment as constitutional command would upset a well-functioning approach to districting that all 50 States and countless local jurisdictions have followed for decades, even centuries . . . Appellants have shown no reason for the Court to disturb this longstanding use of total population.

Unfortunately, the Court left open the question of whether a state could use some other basis to draw its districts.  Expect another run at this naked attempt for the Republicans to maintain their stranglehold on Texas politics.    Right now, the population difference between the largest and smallest districts in Texas is about 8 percent. If the State were to change and instead use the number of eligible voters in each district for apportionment, there would be about a 40 percent difference between the largest and the smallest districts.  That would be a remarkable shift of power back to more conservative rural areas and result in unbelievable redistricting battles.

What Happens Next at the Supreme Court?

Leave a reply

The death of Justice Antonin Scalia may deadlock several critical Texas cases now pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.  Red would argue that the most important is Evenwel v. Abbott  a case in which the justices heard arguments last year.   The case involves a diabolical plan by ultra right-wing conservatives to take control of state elections through the Court rather than through free and fair elections.  In a twist of the “One Man One Vote” doctrine, the plaintiffs have argued that their voting power is limited by the way Texas draws its state legislative districts.  The claim is that districts for state representatives and senators should be based on the number of eligible voters in each district and not on population.

This would be in direct contrast to Congressional districts which are required to be based on population by the Constitution. The Evenwel case specifically challenges Texas Senate districts.  A ruling in favor of the plaintiffs would allow states to draw districts using eligible voters and exclude children, legal and undocumented aliens, persons who have had voting privileges suspended and others.  This would result in a massive shift of representation away from urban areas to more conservative rural and small town districts.

A decision in that case is pending, but if the justices don’t want to rule on a case in which review has already been granted, they can announce that the cert petition was “improvidently granted,” which means lower court ruling holds.  Another alternative, would be to hold over the case until a new justice is appointed at which time they can rehear oral arguments.  No one knows the fate of this case yet, but it is probably the most important case that the Court will decide this year.

Representative Democracy Under Fire

Leave a reply

The Texas Election Law Blog  examines the possible destructive effect on American democracy should the Supreme Court rule in favor of the petitioners in Evenwel v. Abbott.

The plaintiff argues that Texas should not base state redistricting on the distribution of its population, but rather on the distribution of its voters. The motivation for the case is to strip power from urban areas in favor of the rural conservatives.

Central to the conservative argument is that apportionment of representation by population size “dilutes” the power afforded to voters by distributing representation based on both the voting population and all the other people (kids, foreigners, prisoners, non-voters) who happen to live in a state House or Senate district.

In other words, the plaintiff believes that government representatives do not serve all the people in their district. The plaintiff believes that government representatives serve only the people who vote, and everyone else can suck eggs.

The potential impact of this case dwarfs the recent decisions upholding the Affordable Care Act and legalizing same-sex marriage.  While those cases have sex-appeal to the general public, a case about apportionment of legislative seats must seem dull in contrast.  But, if the Supreme Court bites on the argument that only voters should count for apportionment purposes, there will be a fundamental shift in political power that will make the Republicans current gerrymandering of their way into entrenched legislative power seem like weak tea indeed.  There would be a massive shift of representation away from urban populations to rural areas and older white voters would exert an even more outsized influence on the body politic.  This could cement extreme right-wing control of state and federal legislative bodies for another 40 or 50 years.