Scotuscast

On May 22, 2017, the Supreme Court decided Cooper v. Harris, formerly known as McCrory v. Harris. In this case, the Court considered a redistricting plan introduced in North Carolina after the 2010 census. Plaintiffs argued that North Carolina used the Voting Rights Act’s “Black Voting Age Population” requirements as a pretext to place more black voters in two particular U.S. House of Representatives districts in order to reduce black voters’ influence in other districts. A three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina determined that the redistricting plan was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander that violated the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause because race was the predominant factor motivating the new plan. -- Appellants contend the lower court decision against them erred in five critical ways: (1) presuming racial predominance from North Carolina's legitimate reliance on Supreme Court precedent; (2) applying a standard of review that required the