Virginia: cert petition filed in congressional redistricting case
Gerry Hebert emails: attached is the cert petition that plaintiffs-appellants filed yesterday in the Supreme Court in Hall v. Commonwealth of Virginia--a section 2 challenge to the congressional districts in Virginia. The petition once again puts before the Court the issue of whether, in order to bring a section 2 suit, plaintiffs must be able to create an illustrative district in which they constitute a 50%+ arithmetic majority. Happy holidays to all.
The question presented is this: Whether minority plaintiffs challenging electoral districts under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1973(b), fail to state a vote dilution claim where they allege that members of their minority group have the ability to “elect representatives of their own choice” in a single-member district, but do not allege that their minority group constitutes an arithmetical majority of the population in that district.
And here is the file.