Supreme Court upholds 'one person, one vote'

[GMDino]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2016/04/04/supreme-court-voting-rights-texas-districts-population-scalia/81121876/

Quote:WASHINGTON — 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 it delivered a major victory for civil rights groups that opposed opening the door to drawing districts based on the number of voters, rather than total population. The unanimous ruling left intact Texas' method — followed by nearly all states — of counting residents when drawing state and local voting districts.

Challengers had argued only eligible voters should be counted, a method that would have allowed states to ignore non-citizens, children and others who do not vote. In most cases, that would have helped Republican candidates and hurt Democrats; diverse, inner-city districts would include more people and rural districts fewer, increasing the clout of white voters.

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 have been affected.
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USA TODAY

'One person, one vote' case could upend politics

[url=http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/12/07/supreme-court-voting-rights-hispanic-immigrant-children-evenwel/76692508/]
Six justices signed on to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's opinion, including Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy. Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, the most conservative members of the court, agreed to the result but not the reasoning.

"Adopting voter-eligible apportionment as constitutional command would upset a well-functioning approach to districting that all 50 states and countless local jurisdictions have followed for decades, even centuries," Ginsburg wrote.