ScotusBlog outlines the expected arguments, which will include a challenge to the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The three cases under review are Perry v. Perez (11-713), on redistricting the state house, Perry v. Davis (11-714), on redistricting the state senate, and Perry v. Perez (11-715), on redistricting of seats in the U.S. House, expanded for Texas this year from 32 to 36 to account for expanded population in the state since 2000, especially among Hispanics. The dispute revolves around new districts that the state legislature fashioned earlier this year — in May for the two houses of the state legislature, and in June for the U.S. House seats.
Although the cases as they reached the Supreme Court are focused closely on the special requirements imposed on some states — mostly in the South — by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, their implications range well beyond that provision and raise fundamental questions about the division of power between state legislatures and federal courts in the crafting of new districts following each ten-year federal census, and about how far federal courts may go in that process to assure election opportunities for minority races or ethnic groups.
This dispute is, at its core, a fundamental test of historic questions about federalism — that is, the roles of federal vs. state governments in managing election processes.
