Scholarship@WashULaw

Shaw and the City

Document Type

Blog Posting

Language

English (en)

Publication Date

2022

Publication Title

Election Law Blog

Abstract

Under Shaw’s racial gerrymandering cause of action, if race predominates during the redistricting process, then the challenged district must survive strict scrutiny. Shaw claims first emerged in the 1990s as a tool to dismantle majority-minority districts. In the 2010s, Democratic and Black plaintiffs flipped the doctrine on its head and used it against districts that packed Black voters in the South. I’ve predicted in a recent article that, in the 2020 cycle, Democratic Party backed plaintiffs may seek to use Shaw against crossover districts to further spread out minority voters without endangering the constitutionality of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act—that is, because Section 2 does not mandate the creation of crossover districts.

Keywords

Redistricting, Voting Rights, Racial Gerrymandering, Shaw v. Reno, Voting Rights Act

Publication Citation

Travis Crum, Shaw and the City, Election Law Blog (Apr. 26, 2022), https://electionlawblog.org/?p=129005

Share

COinS