Without a fairly fact intensive examination of the evidence D0J had in its possession at the time it reviewed the documents, plus about a month in the library, it'd be hard for me to say. Districting and what constitutes a validly drawn district is a quagmire for political scientists and lawyers alike.
That said, what I can do is provide the better judgment of several much more experienced individuals I've seen on a private election law forum. [Heavy edit: after reviewing the listserv quoting policy, I'm redacting the direct quotes. Linking to the comment threads should be permissible, and I'll get that up as soon as possible. I apologize for the inconvenient format of many of the links and can only say that I consider them worth reading: consider it the price of virtue. That said,] [s]everal points stand out from the commentary I've been seeing.
1) Career attorneys at the voting rights division of the Department of Justice have a reputation for being both impartial and good at their jobs.
2) The division between career attorneys and political appointees exists and is serious. It also seems to be fairly unique to this administration.
3) Under this administration, career attorneys have been barred from offering recommendations in major Voting Rights Act cases.
4) Given that political appointees are just that, one may draw one's own conclusions about the probability that the DOJ's career attorneys are correct that the districts violate the provisions of the VRA. Some other commentators note that the Supreme Court previously listed the Texas redistricting cases for decision six times, and are seeing something auspicious* in the conjunction of recent revelations about the Bush Administration's Justice Department and the final setting of the cases for argument. Again, caveat emptor: but that's pretty much all I've got. [Edit: that is, except for my own personal experience with the DOJ's voting rights division. Duh. Look for that in a new post after exams tomorrow.]
*In order to fully understand this e-mail note, it may be helpful, as it was for me, to familiarize oneself with (or re-visit) the opinion and particularly Justice Kennedy's concurrence in Vieth v. Jubelier, 541 U.S. 267 (2004). (Full text). If anyone needs or would like more of an introduction to Vieth, please let me know, and, like most bloviators, I will be happy to continue inflicting opinion upon you.
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3 comments:
Let this be a lesson to me: this should be the final version of the post, and if you checked in beforehand, the strong possibility exists that I gave you improper or incomplete information.
Thanks for the heads up. I'll re-read.
Basically what it boils down to is that Vieth more-or-less said that the Court wasn't going to review political gerrymanders: the decision was 4-1-4 with Kennedy providing a concurrence for the majority where he left open the possibility that some later standard might allow the Court to get back into the mix. Some commentators are speculating that he's made up his mind.
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