Wittman v. Personhuballah (14-1504)
argument 14-1504Wittman v. Personhuballah
Supreme Court of the United States
1h 11m
6 speakers
8 chapters
transcribed 6 days ago
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What alleged Shaw violation is being challenged in the Whitman v. Personhaballah case?
We'll hear argument first this morning in case fourteen fifteen oh four, Whitman versus Person Habala. Mr. Carvin.
Mr. Chief Justice, it may it please the court. The sum total of the alleged Shaw violation here is that the legislature treated Black Majority District Three the same way as it treated the ten majority white districts. It's undisputed that without respect to all of those districts, they preserved the cores of the districts and whatever minor injustice.
Is that is that undisputed? How did they preserve the core? When they shifted something like a hundred and eighty thousand people around?
Right. Um Your Honor, eighty three percent of the prior occupants of District Three were in the core. The plaintiff's alternative only had sixty nine thousand. Anybody who spent a minute in doing redistricting knows that simply because they're sixty-three thousand short, that doesn't mean you're going to move anywhere near sixty-three thousand, if I may explain. For example, District eleven in Virginia was sixty-four thousand short. They moved four hundred and eighty thousand people to fill that up. The district directly adjacent to district three was district two. That was the most underpost-
was there any holding that that preserved the core?
Yes. I mean uh obviously they said that core preservation was the most important. Uh interpretation. The district court found that incumbency protection and politics were inarguably motivating the district. The way they were protecting incumbents was through core preservation. And the key problem here is they never found that race subordinated incumbency protection or politics or that it was any way inconsistent.
How can we take politics when the drafter of the plan but rightly or wrongly the drafter of the plan represented To the court. I haven't looked at partisan performance. It was not one of the factors I considered in drawing districts. Now we have to take that That's what the drafter of the plan said. He didn't take into account partisan performance.
He said he didn't look at partisan performance statistics. In the face of that statement, the court found as a fact that politics inarguably motivated these districts. Every incumbent was reelected in the district. Suppose politics motivates
the change in district. That's that is the our objective. That is what we s we seek to do to preserve incumbency or whatever.
Right.
May we then use race to move people from one district to another simpl because that's the easiest way to do it. We know that this is a uh a a a race that votes uh strongly for a particular party, so we can use race for this ultimate neutral purpose?
You can't use race as a proxy, Justice Kennedy, and it is very important to note that they didn't say
just to be fair, because I understood your argument to be that. So perhaps you can correct It's
the difference between Cromarty II and using race as a proxy. Cromartie II tells the Federal Judiciary you can't use politics as a proxy for race. Here, when it's conceded by the plaintiffs that everything we did made perfect sense if everybody in District III was white, we know that they wouldn't have led to a dramatic exodus of Democratic voters into the four adjacent districts, all of which had re Republican incumbents, if all of those people We're what? And therefore, since they were pursuing exactly the same incumbency protection and political motivation with respect to uh District Three, they are not somehow disabled from doing that simply because the predominantly Democratic voters happen to be black.
That is why Cromarty II insisted that uh plaintiffs show meet the demanding burden of showing that race uh Traditional districting principles were subordinated to race rather than politics.
How do you show what the motive of the legislature was Is let's say you have ten percent of the uh uh legislators say this is because of race, that's their motive. Ten percent say it's because of partisanship, and eighty percent say nothing at all. What what what is the motive of that legislature?
Right.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What alleged Shaw violation is being challenged in the Whitman v. Personhaballah case?
0:01–8:36
2
How do the parties argue whether the legislature’s motive was race, partisanship, or incumbency protection?
8:36–15:53
3
What evidence is presented to show that the 55 % BVAP floor was a mechanical target rather than a racial intent?
15:53–25:04
4
Why do the justices discuss whether race can be used as a proxy for political advantage under Cromartie II?
25:04–35:04
5
How does the court evaluate the standing of individual members of Congress versus the state in redistricting challenges?
35:04–42:05
6
What role does the Voting Rights Act play in determining strict scrutiny for the district plan?
42:05–51:36
7
How do the parties use the concept of “incumbency protection” as a neutral redistricting principle?
51:36–1:01:14
8
What are the potential consequences if the Court allows a judicially‑crafted plan to override legislative districting decisions?
1:01:14–1:11:21