Wednesday round-up
As Lyle reported for this blog, yesterday a three-judge U.S. district court in Washington relied on Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act – the constitutionality of which the Court is expected to address in the upcoming Term – to deny clearance for Texas’s new election maps. The court’s ruling will not affect this year’s elections in Texas, which are governed by “interim” maps crafted by a separate three-judge district court in San Antonio after the Supreme Court rejected an earlier “interim” substitute last Term in Perry v. Perez. Additional coverage of the decision comes from Jess Bravin of The Wall Street Journal, Joe Palazzolo of The Wall Street Journal Law Blog, and Jeremy Leaming of ACSblog; Rick Hasen analyzes the decision in more detail at his Election Law Blog.
Briefly:
- At the blog Sentencing Law and Policy, Douglas Berman discusses a recent report in the Sacramento Bee regarding the “implementation challenges for California’s prison realignment” in the wake of the Court’s decision in Brown v. Plata.
- At Balkinization, Stephen Griffin provides a “skeptical take” on Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, which is scheduled for oral argument in October.
- At this blog, Lyle Denniston reports on the supplemental briefs filed – at the Court’s request – in Lozman v. City of Riviera Beach, also scheduled for oral argument in October; all of the parties agree that the Court should decide the case, notwithstanding that the houseboat at issue in the case was sold and subsequently destroyed. [Disclosure: Goldstein & Russell, P.C., whose attorneys contribute to or work for this blog in various capacities, is among the counsel to the petitioner in this case.]
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