Jurisdictional statement - About Redistricting - Loyola Law School

14
eral Assembly’s purpose was dramatically truncated
by three of the lower court’s contested procedural and
evidentiary rulings. First, the court decided to compress
the trial of this important and complex case
into two days of live testimony. Second, the panel
would not permit any direct evidence regarding
legislators’ purposes or motives in drafting and approving
the 2011 plan, even though allegations of
discriminatory purpose formed the foundation of the
plaintiffs’ case. Third, although the panel insisted
that much of the evidence regarding legislative intent
be presented as legislators’ affidavits, the court also
ruled that critical parts of these affidavits were inadmissible
hearsay, even though the panel admitted
live testimony from some legislators about other
legislators’ statements. See e.g., App. at 71a-72a.
Despite these temporal and evidentiary limitations,
plaintiffs presented essentially uncontested evidence
that the General Assembly was motivated at least
in part, by the purpose of increasing the BVAP in districts,
for racial reasons, even when those districts
were already electing black candidates. The legislators’
affidavits and Rep. Sellers’ testimony regarding
Republican leaders’ insistence on a minimum BVAP
were uncontradicted at trial. In addition, plaintiffs
presented expert testimony from Dr. Michael P.
McDonald, Associate Professor of Government and
Politics at George Mason University, that the pattern
of legislative decisions regarding 21 House districts
could best be explained as racial decision-making. In
ruling that this testimony was insufficient to show
unconstitutional use of race in the classification of
voters, the lower court “grant[ed] Dr. McDonald the
inference that race must have been a factor in
changes involving exchanges of areas of low BVAP for
areas of high BVAP” but nonetheless held that such