The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a complicated beast that often makes strange bedfellows. Remember how partisan gerrymandering works. I did a simple demonstration in my last write-up on the topic, so I won't elaborate again here, but the basic point is that you pull off a partisan gerrymander by "packing" the other party's voters into a small number of districts with inefficiently large majorities. Efficiency is really at the core of Gill v. Whitford, so more on that when we get a ruling, but that's the subject for future posts.
Anyway, how do you make a district that is entirely or nearly all Democratic? Simple. Make it a "majority-minority" district. All racial or ethnic minorities. Republicans are basically a white people's party. It's just the truth these days. If you draw a district in which the overwhelming majority of the population consists of non-whites, you've got a district in which the Democrats have an overwhelming majority. A packed district.
And the 1965 Voting Rights Act, as conventionally interpreted, tells us that we are supposed to create majority-minority districts where possible and convenient. You know who benefits from that? Republicans. This interpretation of the VRA all but requires Republican partisan gerrymanders because it instructs states to pack Democrats inefficiently into a small number of districts.
Yes, Republicans love the requirement for majority-minority districts. If you have a district in which 90% of the population is African-American, that's a lot of Democrats who could have been spread out in more districts, giving the Democrats majorities in more districts.
So, Pennsylvania has a new map, undoing a Republican partisan gerrymander.
And you know who's challenging that map? Along with the NAACP... Republicans. Why? It reduces the number of majority-minority districts! VRA! For a quick write-up, see this post over at the Election Law Blog, and follow them more closely since Rick Hasen is always up on this stuff.
Will this challenge work? I doubt it. Still, it is a good reminder of the intrinsic tradeoffs in redistricting. Goo-goos like to pretend that this is a simple process corrupted by a few meanies, but... no. Do you want to have people in Congress who, ya' know, aren't white? You need majority-minority districts. That means Republican partisan gerrymanders. This stuff ain't easy, folks. Goo-goos just don't know how to think through the math.
Are the Republicans siding with the NAACP in the challenge doing so in good faith? Fuck no. That doesn't mean the underlying principle is entirely wrong. Policy is hard.
