Justices Likely to Reject GOP Appeal Over Virginia Districts

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Monday in a case that could determine if members of Congress can interject themselves in legal disputes over the borders of neighboring districts.

A lower court threw out the map, concluding that lawmakers illegally packed black voters into one district to make adjacent districts safer for Republican incumbents.

WASHINGTON (AP) – The Supreme Court is signaling it probably will reject a Republican appeal over congressional districts in Virginia.

The legislatures plan sanctions the impermissible use of race as a proxy to achieve partisan gains, the groups wrote.Janis, along with current and past Republican congressmen who are challenging the lower courts decision, contends the plan adopted after the 2010 Census simply preserved the status quo by retaining the cores of the states existing congressional districts.

Lawyer Michael Carvin, representing the congressional Republicans, said the court ruling was wrong because the legislature was trying to protect incumbents, not dilute black voting strength. If the Supreme Court upholds the new boundaries, the elections would be unaffected. This is in a state that hasnt elected a Republican to statewide office since 2009, where both USA senators are Democrats and where voters twice chose President Obama. They had asked the high court to delay preparing for this year’s election until it ruled on their challenge.

The 3rd is represented by Bobby Scott, a Newport News Democrat and the only black person elected to Congress from Virginia since the 19th century.

The Constitution does not require the Senate to hold hearings on Supreme Court nominees or even to consider every nominee, and it allows the Senate to block a nominee for essentially any reason, or even to impeach a justice for anything short of “good behavior”. As an example, one of the proposed maps would increase the percentage of Democrats in District 4 – now represented by Forbes – from 48 percent to 60 percent.

The court found the state drew lines to have at least 55 percent black voters in District 3, which was not based on voter patterns but the legislature viewed as a way of obtaining preclearance from the Justice Department under the Voting Rights Act.

But Marc Elias, representing voters who originally sued over the map, said, “Voters choose candidates”.

The case is Wittman v. Personhuballah, 14-1504.