There's been
some discussion of the recent Supreme Court opinion in
League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry, challenging the Texas redistricting. While there's a lot of good discussion of its ramifications, the opinion is so convoluted that many people are basing the discussion on an unclear view of what the opinion actually said, and which holdings had how many justices in favor.
So what I'm going to try to do here is keep the analysis to a minimum and just put together a moderately concise summary of how many justices supported each of the various claims in the slew of opinions. It took me a few hours just to come up with this relatively bare-bones summary, so it's no wonder nobody knows what the decision actually said.
Rather than break it down by the separate written opinions, which are much worse than usual with their partial concurrences, I'll break it down by going in decreasing order of support for specific parts of any opinion, although I'll note where these claims come from.
I give vote tallies, but note: 1) they don't always add up to 9, because not all justices gave opinions on all possible issues; and 2) there is some subjectivity in determining how many justices were opposed to a particular finding, since not all addressed each other claim directly.
Majority opinions
7-2: Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, Alito hold: The mere fact that redistricting takes place in mid-decade for partisan reasons is not enough to make it unconstitutional. There are three written opinions why, which partial concurrances break into four combinations of opinions. [Part II of the Kennedy opinion, Part I of the Scalia opinion, and the Roberts opinion.]
5-2: Kennedy, Breyer, Souter, Stevens, Ginsburg hold: Partisan gerrymandering is in principle a justiciable claim, not solely a political question (affirming a 1986 precedent). [Part II-A of the Kennedy opinion.]
5-4: Kennedy, Breyer, Souter, Stevens, Ginsburg hold: Based on a highly technical and complex analysis relying on "compactness" and the presence of two distinct Latino groups, the District 23 redrawing in particular violates the Voting Rights Act because it dilutes the voting strength of some sub-groups of the Latino population. [Part III of the Kennedy opinion.]
5-3: Kennedy, Roberts, Alito, Scalia, Thomas hold: The claim that African-American voting strength was diluted by creating District 25 fails. All but Kennedy find that the District Court adjudicated the matter properly. Kennedy considers the matter on its merits, and finds that African-American voting strength was not diluted (Roberts and Alito join his findings). [Part IV of the Kennedy opinion, and Part III of the Scalia opinion.]
5-0: Kennedy, Roberts, Alito, Stevens, Breyer note: Texas has a "sordid history" of Democratic Party gerrymandering, up through and including the 1991 Democratic-drawn map, which resulted in Democrats winning 17/30 Congressional seats despite getting only 44% of the vote. They split over more recent history (see below). [Part I of the Kennedy opinion and Part I of the Stevens opinion.]
Minority opinions
4-5: Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, Alito would have held: The redistricting does not dilute Latino voting strength under the Equal Protection Clause. They would have held that the District Court "did not commit clear error". Roberts and Alito further write that they would have rejected the claim had it been necessary to consider it on its merits, and they consider Voting Rights Act challenges as well. They argue that of the 7 districts in the region of contested District 23, the old plan had 5 Latino-majority districts, while the new plan has 6, which is clearly not a decrease. The majority errs in considering District 23 in isolation, but what's more, the district that primarily replaced District 23 itself still has a Latino majority. The majority's argument that there are two distinct Latino groups in that district is irrelevant in this case, because evidence shows they vote as a bloc, and therefore their interests are not diluted by the new arrangement. [Part III of the Scalia opinion and the Roberts opinion.]
3-2: Kennedy, Roberts, Alito note: The 2000 court-drawn map in many ways perpetuated the 1991 Democratic gerrymander, as Democrats won 17/32 Congressional seats despite getting only 40% of the vote. Therefore, the Republican redrawing of 2003 can be seen as a correction of an old partisan gerrymander. [Part I of the Kennedy opinion.]
2-3: Stevens, Breyer note: The court-drawn 2000 plan is not a continuation of the Texas tradition of Democratic gerrymanders, but is on the contrary a fair plan that repairs most of the problems with the 1991 plan, and any lingering apparent effects can be explained by incumbency advantages. [Part I of the Stevens opinion.]
2-5: Scalia, Thomas would have held: "Claims of unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering do not present a justiciable case or controversy." [Part I of the Scalia opinion.]
2-6: Souter, Ginsburg would have held: The permissibility of creating District 25 should be reconsidered by the appeals court in light of some highly technical clarification of Voting Rights Act jurisprudence. [The Souter opinion.]
2-7: Stevens, Breyer would have held: Mid-decade redistricting for purely partisan reasons violates "interests in orderly campaigning and voting" and "the fundamental duty of the sovereign to govern impartially", which they see as "protections embodied in the First and Fourtheenth Amendments". [Parts I and II of the Stevens opinion.]
2-7: Scalia, Thomas would have held: Appellants stated no legitimate vote-dilution claims with regards to the Voting Rights Act in District 23, because their claims have nothing to do with the Voting Rights Act's "purpose of ensuring minority voters equal electoral opportunities". Scalia does separately consider claims based on the Equal Protection Clause. [Part II of the Scalia opinion.]
1-5: Kennedy would have held: Diluting political rights is a potentially judiciable dispute, but in this particular case, plaintiffs have not shown that the representative rights of supporters of the Democratic Party have been unduly burdened. [Parts II-B and II-C of the Kennedy opinion.]
1-7: Stevens would have held: This particular redistricting unduly burdens the representative rights of supporters of the Democratic Party, which would itself be enough to make it impermissible. (Part III of the Stevens opinion.)
1-7: Stevens would have held: Creating District 25 was impermissible for a combination of reasons, relying partly on the Voting Rights Act, partly on a claim that political minorities should be protected as well as racial minorities, and partly on a principle that the less compact a district gets, the more suspect it gets. [Part IV of the Stevens opinion.]
1-8: Breyer would have held: Partisan gerrymandering is always unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause, regardless of when or how it takes place. States must therefore present some non-partisan reason for the way they've drawn their boundaries, which has not been done here. [The Breyer opinion.]