The justices of the U.S. Supreme Court today agreed to hear yet another election law case, this time from Texas and concerning the “one-person one vote” principle of the 14th Amendment.
That’s the rule requiring that to the extent possible voting districts be drawn with same-sized populations — so that one person’s voting power is roughly equivalent to another person’s within a state.
Here’s more from Rick Hasen at the Election Law Blog:
In a surprise move, the Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal from a three judge court in Evenwel v. Abbott, a one-person, one vote case involving the counting of non-citizens in the creation of electoral districts. Ed Blum, the force behind the Fisher anti-affirmative action case and the Shelby County case striking down a key portion of the Voting Rights Act is also behind this case. The question involves whether Texas can draw districts using total population rather than total voters, an issue especially important given non-citizen Latinos living in parts of Texas. The claim is that representatives from these areas with non-citizens get too much moving power. A ruling in favor of the challengers would be a boost for areas with fewer numbers of non-citizens living there.
LayintheSmakDown
May 26, 2015 at 1:30 pm
This is interesting, whether we include the illegal immigrant population is a good question. Since these are the primary democrat voting bloc we probably need to be able to consider them when drawing the electoral lines so we can pack them all together as much as possible.
Frank Henry
May 27, 2015 at 2:11 am
Lets hope that equal population per district means “equal population of
US citizens aged 18 and up…who have their domicile therein”….
Jim Wiseman
May 27, 2015 at 1:30 pm
As opposed to “one person, multiple votes” and “one corpse, one vote.”
LayintheSmakDown
May 27, 2015 at 7:39 pm
Both very good points as well!