Perry v. Perez

Summary

The Supreme Court addresses interim congressional and state legislative redistricting maps adopted by a federal district court for Texas's 2012 elections while the State's enacted plans awaited Voting Rights Act preclearance. The Court held that the district court should use the recently enacted state plan as guidance, while avoiding provisions likely to violate the Constitution or the Voting Rights Act, and vacated and remanded the interim-map orders. Justice Thomas concurred in the judgment, reasoning that Texas's enacted plans should govern because he considered Section 5 unconstitutional.

Holdings

1. When a district court must draw an interim redistricting plan because the existing plan is unusable, the court should take guidance from the State's recently enacted plan and the legislative policies it embodies, to the extent those policies do not lead to violations of the Constitution or the Voting Rights Act.
2. A district court may depart from the State's enacted plan to avoid constitutional or Voting Rights Act §2 defects only to the extent the challenged aspects are shown to have a likelihood of success on the merits.
3. A district court drawing an interim plan must not prejudge the merits of a pending §5 preclearance proceeding; it should disregard the State's policy judgments only when the §5 challenge presents a reasonable probability of failure, meaning that the challenge is not insubstantial.
4. The Western District of Texas's interim-plan orders could not stand because it was unclear whether the court had followed the required standards, including appropriate deference to the enacted state plan and adequate findings concerning alleged legal defects.

Questions Presented

1. What standards must a district court apply when drawing interim redistricting plans for an upcoming election because a newly enacted state plan has not yet received §5 preclearance and the existing plan is unusable?
2. To what extent must a district court use the policy judgments embodied in a recently enacted but unenforceable state redistricting plan as guidance for an interim plan?
3. When may a district court depart from the enacted state plan based on alleged constitutional or Voting Rights Act §2 defects?
4. May a district court prejudge the merits of a pending §5 preclearance challenge or independently disregard the State's redistricting policies?

Disposition

vacated