We see more details this morning of the U.S. Supreme Court case involving North Carolina redistricting, this time from the Washington Post and New York Times.

From Jerry Markon at the Post:

Several conservative justices indicated
support for maintaining the “50 percent rule” supported by most lower
courts — that vote-dilution lawsuits can be filed only when minorities
can show that they would constitute more than half the population if
the district in question were redrawn again.


Justice Antonin Scalia
said North Carolina’s position would lead to more litigation and
“inject” the courts “into this very political game much more frequently
than we now are.”

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.
said the success of coalition districts in electing black candidates
“would be evidence that the Voting Rights Act has succeeded, rather
than evidence that you need to apply it more broadly.”

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy,
often the deciding vote when the court splits along ideological lines,
sarcastically referred to coalition districts as a “brave new world”
where “race is the key factor” in drawing political lines.

From Adam Liptak at the Times:

Christopher G. Browning Jr., North Carolina?s
solicitor general, defended the decision of officials there to violate
a state law in order to create a district that included about 39
percent of the black voting-age population, saying the Voting Rights
Act required the creation of the district to prevent the dilution of
the minority group?s ability to elect a representative of its choice.

The
fact that the district did not include a majority of black voters was a
virtue, Mr. Browning said. True, he said, minority voters would be able
to elect a representative of their choice only with the aid of voters
from other groups. ?Coalition districts help us in reaching the point
where race will no longer matter,? Mr. Browning said.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.
cut him off. ?How can you say,? the chief justice asked, ?that this
brings us closer to a situation where race will not matter when it
expands the number of situations in which redistricting authorities
have to consider race??

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy joined in, saying that Mr. Browning was ?proposing a brave new world of coalition districts.?

Nathaniel
Persily, a law professor at Columbia, said Justice Kennedy?s comments
were a good guide to the case?s probable outcome, as he has been the
swing vote in similar cases.

?Justice Kennedy seemed frustrated
with the potential slippery slope that the state was falling down,?
said Professor Persily, who attended the argument and had filed a
friend-of-the-court brief in the case supporting neither party. ?In
race and redistricting cases in particular, and in redistricting cases
in general, he has been the critical justice.?