Race, Politics, and Redistricting in a Post-Callais World

ABOUT THIS EVENT

In last term’s landmark ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, the Supreme Court fundamentally altered how Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act applies to districting schemes. In doing so, the Court amended long-standing doctrine that protected “majority-minority” districts, in which a politically and geographically-cohesive minority population was given the ability to elect its candidate of choice, from the political machinations of the redistricting process. This panel will discuss the Callais decision and its changes to how the Voting Rights Act functions, the political consequences of those changes, and the tensions between different principles (partisan fairness, compactness, protecting communities of interest, competitive districts) that undergird the redistricting process

Speakers

Moderated by Jerry Goldfeder, Senior Counsel at Cozen O'Connor, Director of the Fordham Law School’s Voting Rights and Democracy Project, Chair of the ABA Standing Committee on Election Law

Panelists:

• Mark Gaber, Senior Director, Redistricting, Campaign Legal Center (CLC)
• Spencer Overton, Patricia Roberts Harris Research Professor of Law, George Washington University
• Thomas Saenz, President and General Counsel, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF)
• Leah Wong, Voting Rights Director at the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF)

For more information, contact

Jacob Rasch

Jacob.Rasch@americanbar.org

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