Texas v. United States

Issue: (1) Whether the district court erred and exacerbated the constitutional difficulties with Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by requiring Texas to increase the number of majority-minority congressional districts in response to population growth, by treating “coalition” and “crossover” districts as protected under Section 5, and by applying a “functional” definition of retrogression that fails to give covered jurisdictions fair notice of the redistricting decisions that will be deemed to violate Section 5; (2) whether the district court erred and exacerbated the constitutional difficulties with Section 5 by finding a discriminatory purpose under the new permissive standard adopted by Congress in the 2006 reauthorization in attempting to abrogate this Court’s decision in Reno v. Bossier Parish School Bd.; (3) whether the district court erred and exacerbated the constitutional difficulties with Section 5 by allowing private intervenors to challenge the Texas Senate map, even though the Department of Justice conceded that this map was entitled to preclearance; and (4) whether the 2006 reauthorization of Section 5, as so construed, is constitutional, to the extent that the district court did not err in construing Section 5.