SCOTUS rules three-judge court must hear gerrymandering case in win for BigLaw associate
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that a federal judge should not have dismissed a redistricting challenge without referring it to a three-judge panel, as generally required by a federal law governing reapportionment cases.
Justice Antonin Scalia wrote the unanimous opinion (PDF) in Shapiro v. McManus. The decision was a victory for Mayer Brown associate Michael Kimberly, who argued the case on behalf of a group of Maryland voters challenging redrawn congressional districts.
The court’s opinion considered the interplay of two federal laws. One requires three-judge district courts to rule on suits challenging the constitutionality of reapportioned congressional and statewide legislative districts. The other, a 1976 amendment to the law, said the judge presented with such a suit “shall” refer the case to a three-judge panel “unless he determines that three judges are not required.”
Reapportionment cases heard by three-judge panels are automatically reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court. In the Maryland case, a judge dismissed the case rather than referring it to a three-judge panel, saying the plaintiffs had failed to state a valid claim for relief on the merits.
Scalia said the 1976 amendment “merely clarifies that a district judge need not unthinkingly initiate the procedures to convene a three-judge court without first examining the allegations in the complaint.”
Though the Supreme Court ruled in a 1973 case, Goosby v. Osser, that a three-judge panel wasn’t needed for a “constitutionally insubstantial claim,” the Maryland suit “easily clears Goosby’s low bar,” Scalia said.
The Maryland plaintiffs had alleged the reapportionment burdened their First Amendment right of political association based on a theory “put forward by a justice of this court and uncontradicted by the majority in any of our cases,” Scalia said.
