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Virginia House of Delegates v. Bethune-Hill

Facts of the Case

Provided by Oyez

This civil action first arose in 2014, when 12 Virginia voters alleged racial gerrymandering in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. That case ultimately went before the US Supreme Court, and in 2017, the Court held that a lower court had applied the wrong legal standard in evaluating the challengers’ claims of racial gerrymandering. The Court upheld one of the districts and remanded the case for the lower court to reconsider the districting in the remaining 11 districts.

In June 2018, the lower court struck down the 11 districts as unconstitutional, finding that race was the main factor used to determine the boundaries for the districts. The court found that the legislature failed to prove that the districts as drawn, which attempted to put the exact same percentage of African American adults in each district, were necessary to comply with federal voting-rights laws.

The Virginia House of Delegates appealed the district court’s decision to the Supreme Court, and the Court agreed to review the case, as well as the preliminary question whether the House of Delegates has judicial standing to appeal.

Questions

    1. Did the district court err in holding that the plaintiffs provided sufficient evidence that race predominated over traditional districting factors in the construction of the 11 remaining challenged districts?
    2. Did the district court err in holding that the Virginia House of Delegates did not satisfy its burden to show that the legislature’s use of race was narrowly tailored to achieve the compelling state interest of compliance with Section 5 of the VRA, 52 U.S.C. § 10304?
    3. Does the Virginia House of Delegates have standing to file this appeal with the Court?

Conclusions

  1. The Virginia House of Delegates lacks standing to file this appeal, either representing the state’s interests or in its own right. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg authored the opinion for a 5-4 majority.

    To bring a suit (or appeal) in federal court, the litigant must have judicial standing. That is, the litigant must show (1) a concrete and particularized injury, that (2) is fairly traceable to the challenged conduct, and (3) is likely to be redressed by a favorable decision. To appeal a decision that the primary party does not challenge, as here, an intervenor must independently demonstrate standing. Here, the primary party, Virginia, does not appeal the decision of the district court, but an intervenor, the House of Delegates, does. As such, the House of Delegates must demonstrate standing, which it does not.

    First, the Court considered whether the House of Delegates had standing to represent the state’s interests. Under Virginia law, the authority for representing the state’s interests in civil litigation lies exclusively with the state attorney general. Thus, the House of Delegates cannot and does not displace this authority.

    Then, the Court considered whether the House of Delegates had standing in its own right, concluding again that it does not. The Court has never recognized that a judicial decision invalidating a state law inflicts a cognizable injury on the parts of the state government that were involved in the law’s passage, and it declined to do so here. Given that the state manifests an intent to end the litigation—as evidenced by its decision not to appeal the district court’s decision—the House of Delegates alone cannot carry on the litigation against the will of the state.

    Justice Samuel Alito filed a dissenting opinion in which Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Stephen Breyer and Brett Kavanaugh joined. The dissent would find that the House of Delegates does have standing because the new redistricting plan would inflict harm on the House by changing each representative’s constituents.