The Voting Rights Act Asymmetry Comes For Staten Island

The VRA allow Democrats to challenge Republican districts, but does not allow Republicans to challenge Democratic districts.

I have described the Voting Rights Act as asymmetrical. As a practical matter, the law provides a bonus to Democrats, and penalizes Republicans. The VRA is no longer trying to stop actual racial discrimination. In most cases, the VRA operates in the South where Republican legislatures try to create as many Republican districts as possible. But the VRA has little impact in the North where Democratic legislatures try to create as many Democratic districts as possible.

Alas, enter Mark Elias.

The Eleventh Congressional District in New York covers Staten Island (my hometown) and parts of Brooklyn. The Eleventh District is represented by Nicole Malliotakis, the only Republican member in New York City.

The Elias Law Group has filed a state Voting Rights Act challenge, arguing that the Eleventh District "provides Black and Latino Staten Islanders less opportunity than other members of the electorate to elect a representative of their choice." The upshot here is clear: Democrat voters are asking the court to eliminate a Republican district in New York City. There is no credible allegation that the overwhelmingly-Democratic New York legislature drew this map to dilute the votes of Black and Hispanic voters. Rather, this district was drawn as part of a series of messy political compromises. And even after those compromises, in which Republicans were almost gerrymandered out of the existence, the VRA can empower a court to eliminate that sole district to further help Democrats.

This is where the law is: in a district where Democratic voters cannot elect a Democrat, they can bring a VRA claim, even in an overwhelmingly democratic state where there is not even a scintilla of evidence of racial discrimination. But in a district where Republican voters cannot elect a Republican in an overwhelmingly republican state, they cannot bring a VRA claim.

This sort of asymmetry should not stand. Callais, hopefully, will put an end to this madness for the federal VRA. And as Rick Hasen pointed out, a ruling for Louisiana would also impact state VRAs.