Talk:League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry
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some more info (probably needs better wording and cleanup)
(From yahoo news & reading the opinions themselves)
- The plantiffs argument of this being an state wide unconstitional partisian gerrymander were rejected 7-2. Similar splinter to that seen in the case involving PA.
- The plantiffs argument that states can't redistrict more than once under the federal consitution or acts of US congress were explicity rejected. States can redistrict whenever they please.
- The challenge to Frost's old district being shattered was also rejected (7-2?) Noting that old 24 had three seperate communities to begain with (Anglos, Blacks, Latino) and Frost (An Anglo Democrat) never having been challenged in 22 years in a primary made it impossible to dispute the state legislative history that it was specificly created for an Anglo Democrat (specificy Frost).
- However, by a 5-4 margin, the court did find that new district 25 wasn't compact enough to be considered a qualifing Latino oppertunity district [it's latino majority not withstanding], old district 23 was a qualifing Latino district [indeed on the verge of throwing out the incumbent that wasn't of their choice] while new district 23 was in no shape or form a qualifying Lation district. Therefore by the same 5-4 margin, New District #23 is a section 2 violation and must be redrawn.
- By the same 5-4 margin, judgements on New District #25 are all vacated, because to fix #23, the sournding districts including #25 will have to change.
- The conservative blocks desents, especally Roberts notes that nowhere in The Voting Rights Act or legislative history is compactness of districts mentioned and that the majority is causing the judisprudence of section 2 to diverge more and more from the legislative history. Therefore new district #25 is more than an adequate replacement for #23, and indeed the majority accepts that new district #25 performed better for Latinos than old district #23.
Jon 20:43, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
- I've gone ahead and placed these into logical sections of the main article; there's already an external link in the article to the opinions themselves which I used as a primary source. I have however placed Cleanup tags on my own additions since I'm almost positive they need cleanup. I still recomend anyone really interested in this case to go and read the opinions, CJ Roberts had a particularly witty phrase in his, which unforuntely isn't very encyopledic. Jon 14:12, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
- I moved the Cleanup tag to the top. Multiple tags aren't necessary for a piece of this size.David Hoag 17:22, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
Lede needs work
The article at present states in the lede sentence: League of United Latin... is a notable Supreme Court of the United States case in which the Court ruled that only District 23 of the 2003 Texas redistricting violated the Voting Rights Act.
That's not the most important thrust of this case. That's not the precedential value. That's only a very narrowist interpretation of this decision. Remember, the importance of Supreme Court cases is more in their precedent than in the factual outcome of the immediate appeal at hand. For instance, Roe v. Wade isn't important because Ms. Roe was allowed to have an abortion; it's important because it established that a fundamental right to personal privacy prevents states from prohibiting certain abortions.
Putting on a law professor hat, what do we take away from the Perry case? Anyone? Anyone? Ferris? In broad terms: states may redistrict as often as they wish, and political motivations for redistricting are permissive. That's the importance of this case, much more so than the District 23 stuff. That's the lasting importance and thus primary importance of this case.
Thus, I think the lede needs to be reworked to underscore the precedential element of this case.207.69.137.200 21:15, 3 July 2006 (UTC)