Evenwel vs. Abbott — On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously (8-0) rejected an effort to challenge the well-established principle of ‘one person, one vote’ in drawing election districts based upon total population.   This decision upholds or affirms the ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5^th Circuit; which also rejected the challenge. Read the Decision in its entirety, here.

The Low Down on Sue Evenwel & Edward Pfenninger: The Appellants, both Texas residents, were recruited by Edward Blum, the director of the Project on Fair Representation to challenge the ‘one-person, one-vote’ principle. Blum has earned the reputation of a crusader against civil rights and affirmative action laws. He refers to Evenwel and Pfenninger as his “clients”, although Blum himself, is not an attorney. Evenwel is a Texas GOP and tea party activist and Pfenninger, a self-proclaimed youtuber and defender of the KJB-perfect Bible in English. Ripe for the picking, pretty much sums up these two “clients”.

Background: In a political attempt to reduce the voting power of the nation’s urban Latino and African American population, the Appellants brought a challenge based on a claim that the Texas Senate redistricting boundaries of 2013 (which were based solely on the most recent census population figures from 2010) were unconstitutional and violated the ‘one person, one vote’ principle of the 14^th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause because the districts were not divided in a way that used voter population (i.e., only those registered to vote), rather than total population (i.e., all persons). The Appellants argued that using total population diluted their voting power because they each resided in a district that had a large number of people who were nonvoters, unregistered voters, teens, children, felons and noncitizens. The Appellants argued that only people like them, i.e., registered voters, should be taken into account when drawing districts.

Writing for the majority, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg stated, “This Court’s past decisions reinforce the conclusion that States and localities may comply with the one-person, one-vote principle by designing districts with equal total populations.” The Justice went on to argue that requiring districts to be divided only by counting those eligible to vote would upset an approach that all states and numerous jurisdictions have historically followed.   She went on to add that,

“Nonvoters have an important stake in many policy debates and in receiving constituent services. By ensuring that each representative is subject to requests and suggestions from the same number of constituents, total-population apportionment promotes equitable and effective representation.”

This was a clear victory for voting rights proponents. While the state of Texas wanted the option to choose either total population or voter population, the Court only decided that Texas’ current use of total population passed muster and it declined to rule on whether other methods of drawing boundaries could be used.  [click the Title for comments]