U.S. Supreme Court Rules on Evenwel v. Abbott
Today the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously upheld the lower court in Evenwel v. Abbott. In October of last year, BHDA Attorneys Bob Heath and Gunnar Seaquist submitted an amicus brief on behalf of Harris County in support of the position the Supreme Court adopted today.
The issue in Evenwel v. Abbott involved whether one-person, one-vote requirements of the U.S. Constitution permitted districts to be balanced on total population or, instead, whether a voter-eligible base should be used. If a voter-eligible base were used, it would exclude children and resident non-citizens from consideration and would cause many urban areas to lose representation.
Our firm’s brief and the Supreme Court opinion are linked below: