Content area
Full Text
Abstract
Redistricting cases offer a unique opportunity to test the effects of partisan favoritism in judging and to investigate when partisanship might influence decision making distinctly from ideology. How partisan are federal judges? In an analysis of federal district court cases from 1981 to 2007, this study finds that federal judges are neither neutral arbiters nor crass partisans. Instead, judging in redistricting cases can best be described in terms of constrained partisanship. When redistricting law is clear, judges eschew decision making that furthers their party's interests. However, where legal precedent is ambiguous, partisan favoritism exacts a strong influence on judicial behavior.
Keywords
Redistricting; judicial decision making; judicial behavior; federal district courts; partisan favoritism
It's a highly political process, and it's really difficult to take the politics out of it in federal court. . . . My impression is that it's difficult to have politically neutral judgments and standards.
-Federal district judge, commenting on redistricting cases to the author (2006)1
The fight over mid-decade redistricting in Texas received wide publicity across the country. After the political fight ended in 2003, a legal battle ensued in federal court. A three-judge federal district court (Session v. Perry 2004) convened to hear the dispute. With these federal judges cognizant of the attention surrounding the case, the majority opinion began its factual recount of events with this caveat: "We decide only the legality of Plan 1374C, not its wisdom. . . . We know it is rough and tumble politics, and we are ever mindful that the judiciary must call the fouls without participating in the game" (Session v. Perry 2004, 451). At the end of the day, this court's decision split two to one. The two Republican judges, while expressing concern about the legislature's choice of action, believed no foul had been committed by the Republican state legislature. The Democratic federal judge voted to strike down what he saw as an unconstitutional plan. On the surface, the Session v. Perry federal court resembles the partisan actions of a state legislature, but the question remains, is the apparently partisan behavior of this panel an aberration, or is it representative of federal courts' decisions in redistricting?
Previous researchers looking at this subject have characterized federal judges in redistricting in one...