Scotus Voting Rights Case

© J. Scott Applewhite, AP

Supreme Court upholds 'one person, one vote' - The Supreme Court refused Monday to change the way state and municipal voting districts are drawn, denying an effort by conservatives that could have increased the number of rural, mostly white districts at the expense of urban, largely Hispanic ones.

The "one person, one vote" case was among the most consequential of the high court's term, and once again the court's liberal wing won out. The ruling left intact Texas' method -- followed by all states -- of drawing districts with roughly equal numbers of residents.

Challengers had argued only eligible voters should be counted, a method that would have allowed states to ignore non-citizens and others who do not vote, including children. In most cases, that would have helped Republican candidates and hurt Democrats.

If the court had ruled that districts should be based on eligible voters rather than total population, states with large numbers of non-citizens would have seen the biggest change -- Texas, California, New York, New Jersey, Arizona and Nevada among them. Cities such as Chicago and Miami also would be affected.

Six justices signed on to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's decision, and Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas -- the most conservative members of the court -- concurred in the judgment.

"Total-population apportionment meets the equal protection demand, by rendering each representative alert to the interests and constituent-service requests of all who dwell in the representative's district," Ginsburg said.

Because challengers had sought to force a change to counting only eligible voters, the court did not rule on a lesser possibility -- that states merely be allowed to switch to voters. But no states currently do so, partly because of the difficulty in counting voters rather than all people.

Thomas and Alito agreed that Texas cannot be forced to switch to using only eligible voters in drawing districts, but they said the Constitution does not require that approach.

"The choice is best left for the people of the states to decide for themselves how they should apportion their legislature," Thomas wrote.

"Whether a state is permitted to use some measure other than total population is an important and sensitive question that we can consider if and when we have before us a state districting plan that, unlike the current Texas plan, uses something other than total population as the basis for equalizing the size of districts," Alito wrote.

During oral argument in December, a majority of justices appeared to agree that the standard by which election districts are drawn is imperfect. But they couldn't come up with a better way.

Debating a case that threatened to upend the political balance in the nation from New York to California, the more conservative justices indicated they were open at least to incorporating voter population into the mix. The more liberal justices opposed going to eligible voters, which would render non-citizens invisible when drawing districts — along with children, prisoners, some ex-felons and some people with intellectual disabilities.

Those justices warned that focusing on both total and voter population likely would jeopardize other goals, such as drawing compact districts and respecting municipal boundaries. They also noted that congressional seats, which would not be affected, are apportioned based on population, and that survey data on eligible voters is less reliable.

Perhaps most important, they said, is the need to keep districts relatively equal in terms of population so that all residents have the same access to their elected officials. "There is a voting interest," Justice Sonia Sotomayor acknowledged. "But there is also a representation interest."

The challengers' argument boils down to this: Texas' population-based system puts more voters in districts with fewer non-citizens and others who cannot vote, thereby diluting the weight of their votes. In heavily Hispanic districts or others with large numbers of non-voters, the remaining residents' votes carry greater weight.

The equal protection clause of the Constitution is supposed to guarantee each person the same political power. The problem is that the Supreme Court has never decided who should be counted — all people, or just voters.

The case has pitted scores of civil rights organizations, who want to protect the interests of minorities, against a lesser number of conservative and libertarian groups who want the metric changed so that voting comes before representation.

It's the brainchild of Edward Blum, director of the Project on Fair Representation, which has filed several Supreme Court challenges to racial and ethnic preferences in voting and higher education.

Blum brought the challenge to the University of Texas affirmative action plan that also came before the justices in December, as well as a challenge to the Voting Rights Act that resulted in the court's 2013 decision striking down the requirement that mostly Southern states and municipalities get federal approval for any changes in voting practices.