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Constitutional Law Keyed to Choper
Abbott v. Perez
Citation:
585 U.S. ___ (2018)Facts
Following the 2010 census, Texas gained four congressional seats and redrew its congressional and state legislative districts. These 2011 maps were immediately challenged in federal court as violating Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and the Equal Protection Clause. Because Texas was then subject to Section 5 preclearance requirements, it sought approval from the D.C. District Court. While that process was pending, the Western District of Texas created interim maps for the 2012 elections following the Supreme Court’s guidance in Perry v. Perez. In August 2012, the D.C. court denied preclearance of the 2011 maps. After the Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County v. Holder invalidated the coverage formula for Section 5 preclearance, the Texas Legislature, in a special session in 2013, adopted the court’s interim maps (with minor modifications) as permanent. In 2017, after multiple trials, the District Court found that the 2013 Legislature had acted with discriminatory intent by adopting these maps, concluding that the Legislature had not “cured” the discriminatory taint from the 2011 maps. The court invalidated several districts in both the congressional and state house plans.
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