Abbott v. Perez
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 25, 2018 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Decided
- June 25, 2018
- Term
- October Term 2017
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Alito
- Issue area
- Civil Rights
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice ALITO delivered the opinion of the Court. Before us for review are orders of a three-judge court in the Western District of Texas effectively directing the State not to conduct this year's elections using districting plans that the court itself adopted some years earlier. The court developed those plans for use in the 2012 elections pursuant to our directions in Perry v. Perez, 565 U.S. 388, 132 S.Ct. 934, 181 L.Ed.2d 900 (2012) (per curiam ). We instructed the three-judge court to start with the plans adopted by the Texas Legislature in 2011 but to make adjustments as required by the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act. Id., at 392-396, 132 S.Ct. 934. After those plans were used in 2012, the Texas Legislature enacted them (with only minor modifications) in 2013, and the plans were used again in both 2014 and 2016. Last year, however, the three-judge court reversed its prior analysis and held that some of the districts in those plans are unlawful. After reviewing the repealed 2011 plans, which had never been used, the court found that they were tainted by discriminatory intent and that the 2013 Legislature had not "cured" that "taint." We now hold that the three-judge court committed a fundamental legal error. It was the challengers' burden to show that the 2013 Legislature acted with discriminatory intent when it enacted plans that the court itself had produced.…
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