SEVERAL RECENT SUPREME-COURT DECISIONS AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS FOR POLITICAL REDISTRICTING IN VOTING-RIGHTS ACT CONTEXT

This paper focuses on four recent United States Supreme Court decision s which have profound implications for political redistricting. These cases are Holder v. Hall, Johnson v. De Grandy, Shaw v. Reno and Mille r v. Johnson. Each of these cases place limits on the scope of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act when conducting a political redistricting or fashioning a remedy for a Section 2 violation. These cases have res olved a number of important issues in redistricting while creating yet new issues to be resolved. Although demographers are not in the busin ess of practicing law, they must clearly understand the legal requirem ents and often subtle nuances imposed by the case law. The paper concl udes that the combined force of these cases does not yet spell the end of race conscious redistricting and therefore, effectively repeal the Voting Rights Act but does require that more weight be given to tradi tional redistricting criteria when designing districts that will withs tand legal challenges.