Attorneys in the federal lawsuit regarding Arizona’s legislative map are asking the Courts to retroactively apply the recent US Supreme Court ruling on the Voting Rights Act. In a briefing filed in federal court on Friday GOP attorneys David Cantelme and Mike Liburdi argued that the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on Shelby County v. Holder, should be applied retroactively in the suit against the Independent Redistricting Committee’s legislative map.
Arizona was still subject to DOJ preclearance in 2011-2012, Shelby County v. Holder struck down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act thereby making moot the preclearance provisions of Section 5.
Cantelme and Liburdi argued that the high court’s 2009 ruling in Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. One v. Holder, in which the court said the coverage formula in Section 4 of the VRA “raises serious constitutional questions,” gave the IRC ample notice that the preclearance requirement might be struck down by the Supreme Court, according to the Yellow Sheet. They attorneys wrote that the Committee should have known that “Shelby County cuts the line between Arizona and Section 5, and thereby destroys the IRC’s already insupportable rationale for deliberately under populating Democrat-dominated districts and overpopulating Republican districts. Shelby County applies retroactively.”
They advised the Court that whether the rulings apply, the population deviation in many districts is unconstitutional still stands on its own regardless of the high court’s opinion in Shelby, and the maps should be redrawn as a result, reported the Yellow Sheet. According to the attorneys some majority-minority districts meet the standards under Section 2 or Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act because they do not include a minority citizen voting-age population of more than 50 percent.
IRC attorney Mary O’Grady argues that the IRC still had to get preclearance for its maps in 2012 before the new districts could be put in place, according to the Yellow Sheet. She claimed that the states have to rely on the law in place at the time. The IRC will present its arguments in its formal response, due on Aug. 2.