SC strikes down NC gerrymander 5 - 3, Thomas joins liberal majority

[Torie]

This decision will have very limited impact. The map drawers thought they needed a 50% BVAP, to conform to the VRA, so they used race. That mistake will not happen again. You just instruct the map drawers to ignore race, and focus on voting patterns. If one does that, and the BVAP stays near 50%, one should be OK under this decision I would think. Prudence would dictate however, that the gerrymanderers make a conscious effort to find white Dems to put in a CD. Another protection would be to try to avoid chopping cites, particularly where the only Dems in the city to speak of are black.

So if the Pubs want to gerrymander in southeast Virginia, make darn sure that a black CD includes all the white Dem voter precincts in Richmond (a few precincts in that city so qualify). It would really look bad if black Dem precincts were chosen, when it could have been white Dem precincts as well to get the partisan gerrymander done.

The legally safest gerrymanders of all, are those that try whenever possible to chopping counties or subdivisions of counties. Typically gerrymanders can be effected without doing much extra chopping.

[Torie]

Weird that Kennedy wasn't on the majority side, somewhat surprising that Thomas was.

Thomas thinks that VRA districts are unconstitutional, so he kills them whenever he sees them.

In his concurring opinion, he said that Section 2 of the VRA does not apply to redistricting.

Had Gorsuch participated it would be a 4:4:1 decision, with Thomas likely writing the majority opinion.

There would be no majority opinion, and apparently there is no majority opinion, just a majority result. I doubt Thomas would have voted the way he did, if the Pubs had just focused on voting behavior. Thomas' vote can be explained by the Pubs misunderstanding of Section 5. In that sense, the decision is a "one-off." This fact pattern will not appear again.