National Association Of Attorneys General Gives A.G.’s Office Award For Best Legal Brief Filed By A State In The Supreme Court

Brief Urged Court To Uphold The States’ Universal Practice Of Including Both Voters And Nonvoters In Drawing State Legislative Districts

Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman announced that his office received the “Best Brief Award” for the current Supreme Court term in recognition of legal excellence in advocacy by the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG). The non-partisan organization presented this award for the Attorney General’s friend-of-the-court brief in the case of Evenwel v. Abbott.

“I’m incredibly proud of my office for their tireless efforts to stand up for equal and fair representation for all people,” said Attorney General Schneiderman. “Many congratulations to Barbara Underwood, Steven Wu and Judith Vale for their work to uphold states’ practices of drawing legislative districts on total population, rather than eligible voters, to ensure all citizens’ right to vote. The bedrock principle of one-person-one-vote is vital to ensuring the American ideals of justice and equality.”

The brief successfully urged the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the states’ practice of including both voters and nonvoters in drawing state legislative election districts. That practice had been challenged in Texas by plaintiffs who argued that Texas was required to draw its state senate districts based on the number of “eligible voters” rather than the total number of people living in the state.

New York’s amicus brief argued that adoption of plaintiffs’ theory “would fundamentally upend the states’ redistricting practices” and force them to abandon their use of total population in favor of an ‘eligible voter’ count—one that no existing source of data reliably provides. As the brief explained, the states have built “a unique and long-running collaboration” with the Census Bureau over the past 40 years that “ensures that states have accurate, useful, and neutral total-population counts on which to base redistricting.” Because the Census’s decennial enumeration does not provide states with any counts of voters, accepting plaintiffs’ theory would “throw state redistricting across the country into chaos.”

New York’s amicus brief further argued that the states’ universal practice of redistricting based primarily on total population is “consistent with the principle that ‘equal representation for equal numbers of people’ ensures the ‘fair and effective representation’ of all persons served and affected by state government—including both voters and nonvoters.” The brief explained that the total-population model of redistricting both preserves equality among voters and recognizes the interests of many nonvoting groups in receiving representation—including children, adults not yet registered to vote, the mentally incompetent, noncitizens, people with past felony convictions, and incarcerated individuals. Further, states’ reliance on total population is consistent with the undisputed and constitutionally-mandated rule that representation in the federal House of Representatives must be divided based on the Census’s count of the total population in each state.

On April 4, 2016, the Supreme Court unanimously agreed with the position supported by Attorney General Schneiderman and held that the states are permitted to draw their legislative districts based on total population.

The brief was filed on behalf of 21 states. It was chosen for the award by a panel of experienced private-sector Supreme Court litigators.

The states joining the brief in addition to New York were Alaska, California, Delaware, Hawai‘i, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington.

NAAG is a non-partisan organization founded in 1907 to foster interstate cooperation on legal and law enforcement issues, conduct policy research and analysis of issues, and facilitate communication between the states’ chief legal officers and all levels of government. NAAG’s “Best Brief Award” is presented based on the decision of a panel consisting of appellate experts from major private law firms throughout the United States.

The award will be presented on June 23 in Burlington, Vermont, to Solicitor General Barbara Underwood, Deputy Solicitor Steven C. Wu, and Assistant Solicitor General Judith N. Vale.

A copy of the Attorney General’s award-winning brief is available here.