Who’s funding voter suppression?

*This case becomes more important in light of the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. But aside from the case itself, the thing to look for is where the funding comes from to fight this case. It’s one of several. The same man who is pushing the redistricting case all the way to the Supreme Court has also funded the effort to challenge affirmative action in college admissions. VL

By Amadou Diallo, Al Jazeera America (6 minute read)

In June the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule on whether states will be forced to redraw their electoral maps on the basis of only eligible voters rather than total population, as has been the standard for more than 50 years. A win for the plaintiffs in the case, Evenwel v. Abbott, would result in a dramatic shift in electoral power, upending the notion of one person, one vote. Densely populated urban areas with large numbers of children, immigrants and the formerly incarcerated would lose representation, and rural areas, which have smaller populations but much greater percentages of voting-age eligible residents, stand to see their electoral power increase.

Supporters of Evenwel typically frame the case as one of philosophical fairness, aiming to ensure that one resident’s vote carries the same weight as another’s. “When you look at the court’s cases in explaining the genesis and purpose of the one person, one vote doctrine, it was always about equalizing vote weight,” said attorney Andrew Grossman who wrote an amicus brief in support of the plaintiffs. “This case is a request for very modest relief,” he said, adding that should the plaintiffs win, “You wouldn’t see immediate disruption in the way things currently operate.”

The driving force behind the Evenwel case is Ed Blum, whose Project on Fair Representation is adept at matching plaintiffs with lawyers in cases designed to end up in the Supreme Court. Another case that Blum has shepherded, which argues against affirmative action admissions policies (Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin), was also heard by the Supreme Court this term.

Click HERE to read the full story. (6 mins.)