Amy Howe

Sep 12 2017

Justices stay lower-court rulings striking down Texas redistricting maps, ordering new ones

Just a few hours after it put an order by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit on hold in the litigation over President Donald Trump’s “travel ban,” the Supreme Court blocked two more lower-court orders, which had invalidated two of Texas’ federal congressional districts and the state’s maps for the lower house of the Texas legislature. The lower courts’ original orders, issued last month, had given the Texas governor three days to decide whether to call a special session of the legislature, and it directed the state to be ready to redraw the maps by early September. Tonight’s rulings by the Supreme Court put those orders on hold to give the state time to file its appeals; they will remain on hold until the justices rule on those appeals.

Texas’ request had gone first to Justice Samuel Alito, who – acting alone – temporarily blocked the lower-court rulings while the challengers responded to the state’s requests. Those responses were due last week. But once the briefing on the stay requests was finished, Alito referred the disputes to the full court, which acted tonight. Unlike tonight’s order in the travel ban case, four justices noted their disagreement with the court’s orders in the federal congressional and Texas House cases: Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan indicated that they would have denied the state’s applications.

Amy L Howe
Until September 2016, Amy served as the editor and reporter for SCOTUSblog, a blog devoted to coverage of the Supreme Court of the United States; she continues to serve as an independent contractor and reporter for SCOTUSblog. Before turning to full-time blogging, she served as counsel in over two dozen merits cases at the Supreme Court and argued two cases there. From 2004 until 2011, she co-taught Supreme Court litigation at Stanford Law School; from 2005 until 2013, she co-taught a similar class at Harvard Law School. She has also served as an adjunct professor at American University’s Washington College of Law and Vanderbilt Law School. Amy is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and holds a master’s degree in Arab Studies and a law degree from Georgetown University.
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