Malkin should be aware of this well-known line of cases. Apparently she isn't.
Congressman Billybob
What is this "well known line of cases"? I am aware of a line of cases starting from 1993 holding just the opposite: the Court recognized a presumptively stigmatic harm ensuing from districts which were drawn for the "predominant" purpose of race and which could not be justified as a "narrowly tailored" effort to serve a "compelling state interest." Such districts are unconstitutional, according to the Court.
Please explain your post, and back it up with citations.
Malkin should be aware of this well-known line of cases. Apparently she isn't.
Yep.
U.S. Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers testified in a 1989 voting-rights case that Dallas needed to elect more black and Hispanic city council members, but she didn't like the idea of drawing districts with large minority populations to achieve that result.
[. . .]
Miers' comments were a brief moment in lengthy testimony during a lawsuit in federal district court in Dallas. Black leaders challenged the way city council members were elected in Dallas. Miers had been elected to the council in 1989, just as the battle over racially charged redistricting plans was heating up. The lawsuit led to a court-supervised redistricting plan that enlarged the council from 11 to 14 seats.
Miers testified that the city should keep some at-large seats whose members were elected by voters citywide, not just from small districts. Black leaders opposed at-large districts, viewing them as a tool to limit minority representation.
Miers said at-large members can consider the entire city's interests while politicians elected from local districts must also consider the interests of their own district.
Miers said, however, that one drawback of at-large seats was that many successful citywide candidates came from north Dallas, which is predominantly white and more affluent than south Dallas. (AP Newswire)
The wonder is Dallas held onto their at-large districts for as long they did. In San Antonio we gave up ours in 1977.