cking strategy in Gerryland might look something like this.
Stacking is when the minority community is concentrated into a small number of districts so that their votes are wasted in a district that their preferred candidate will win by an overwhelming margin. The packing strategy in Gerryland might look something like this, where the minority community is concentrated into one district.When Must a Minority Opportunity District Be Draw?
In practice, things are more complicated than the simple Gerryland example. Communities do not fit into nice squares, so the federal courts are fairly lenient on what minorities districts may look like. Some of the ugliest looking district ducklings are beautiful swans in the eyes of the courts. For example, the Illinois 4th Congressional District drawn in the 2000's decade is often called the "earmuff" district for obvious reasons. The western portion of this district actually travels along the northbound lane of Interstate 294! But, this district has a very important purpose. It was initially created in the 1990s to elect the first Latino representative to Congress from the Midwest.
The 4th congressional district has its funny shape because there is an African-American community sandwiched between two Latino communities. The African-American community is represented by the 7th Congressional district, which is designed to elect an African-American candidate of choice. The 4th district was wrapped around the 7th district so that both African-American and Latino communities could have congressional representation.
The ideal district has just the right percentage of minorities to elect a minority candidate of choice. The percentage of minorities cannot be too low, lest cracking occurs, and cannot be too high, lest packing occurs. Determining the legally acceptable minority percentage requires the following steps:
The most accessible population data to assess when a minority opportunity district must be drawn is voting-age population. The Census Bureau releases two types of data: total population, used to ensure districts are of equal population, and voting-age population, to ensure compliance with the Voting Rights Act. In the DistrictBuilder software, we have made available the voting-age population data by race and ethnicity. (The issue of citizen-voting age population is a complicated one; more on this soon.)
There are two important sections of the Voting Rights Act that apply to the creation of minority opportunity districts, Section 2 and Section 5.
Section 2 applies nationally. Essentially, Section 2 requires that if there is racially polarized voting and if a minority opportunity district can be drawn, then it must be drawn. (There is a further consideration, known as the "totality of the circumstances," which involves the history of past discrimination in the jurisdiction in question.)
Section 5 applies only to covered jurisdictions. These jurisdictions must clear any electoral change -- from moving a polling place to redistricting -- with the Department of Justice or the District Court of DC before it can take effect. (The Department of Justice is the overwhelming pathway of choice.) This federal oversight is intended to ensure that a change does not have a discriminatory effect. In the context of redistricting, Section 5 requires that the number of minority opportunity districts cannot decrease during redistricting. This is called retrogression.
The Department of Justice has 60 days to review a redistricting plan to ensure compliance with Section 5. It may request another 60 days for additional review. If a redistricting plan is not cleared in a timely manner, or worse it is rejected and the state or locality has insufficient time to correct deficiencies, courts may impose their own plans for use in the next election. State law may allow or forbid a subsequent "re-redistricting." Because Section 5 only applies to covered jurisdictions, federal courts are not required to clear their plans before they take effect.
The Department of Justice has released "Guidance Concerning Redistric