Yesterday the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in: Wittman v. Personhuballah, the challenge to a Virginia Congressional district. Lyle Denniston covered the oral argument.
For a little more than a year, the Supreme Court has been pondering what to do about a potentially significant case over the use of race in drawing new maps for election districts. But, at every step along the way, it has seemed troubled that maybe no one had a genuine legal stake remaining in the outcome, so maybe it did not have the authority to decide it as a “live” controversy.
That concern came fully into the open on Monday as the Court held a seventy-minute hearing on the case of Wittman v. Personhuballah — a congressional redistricting case that is supposedly focused on whether Virginia’s District 3, as drawn by the state legislature in 2012, was the result of an unconstitutional “racial gerrymander.” The hearing, though, revealed that the Court is actually deeply puzzled about what it means to protect incumbents — politicians already in office and looking to be reelected. If they don’t have a legal guarantee or right to assured reelection, and no one says they do, do they at least have some kind of legal claim not to have reelection made harder or, indeed, put out of their reach? If so, how is that different from a reelection promise enforceable in court?
CLICK HERE to read the review of the oral arguments.
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