Filed January 4, 2012
Second, and more fundamentally, Plaintiffs have failed to allege that they have suffered any injury causally connected to the enacted Plans, or that a decision in their favor would redress any injury they have suffered. Because Plaintiffs have not alleged an undiluted alternative showing how the Plans ought to have been drawn, Plaintiffs cannot show, as they must to possess standing, that failure to draw the Plans in that way caused them any “injury in fact” or that there is “a causal connection between the injury and the conduct complained of,” Hays, 515 U.S. at 742-43 (internal quotation marks omitted). Likewise, without any alleged alternatives to guide the Court in crafting a remedy, it is not at all “likely, as opposed to merely speculative, that the injury will be redressed by a favorable decision.”
Filed August 15, 2011
Plaintiffs bear no resemblance to the unsuccessful Hays plaintiffs who challenged “a racially gerrymandered district” that they “d[id] not live in,” but Plaintiffs are directly analogous to the successful Shaw “plaintiff[s] [who] reside[d] in [such a] district” and therefore “ha[d] been denied equal treatment because of the legislature’s reliance on racial criteria.” Hays, 515 U.S. at 745. To repeat, the 2006 amendments “erect[] a barrier that makes it more difficult for” Plaintiffs and other non-minorities in Kinston personally “to obtain [the] benefit” of enacting their preferred changes to Kinston’s electoral practices, including the nonpartisan-elections referendum.
Filed August 15, 2011
Plaintiffs bear no resemblance to the unsuccessful Hays plaintiffs who challenged “a racially gerrymandered district” that they “d[id] not live in,” but Plaintiffs are directly analogous to the successful Shaw “plaintiff[s] [who] reside[d] in [such a] district” and therefore “ha[d] been denied equal treatment because of the legislature’s reliance on racial criteria.” Hays, 515 U.S. at 745. To repeat, the 2006 amendments “erect[] a barrier that makes it more difficult for” Plaintiffs and other non-minorities in Kinston personally “to obtain [the] benefit” of enacting their preferred changes to Kinston’s electoral practices, including the nonpartisan-elections referendum.
Filed August 18, 2010
And, of course, such preferential treatment does not become permissible when minorities are the putative beneficiaries. See Grutter, 539 U.S. at 330; Adarand, 515 U.S. at 226-27. CONCLUSION This Court should grant summary judgment to Plaintiffs, declare that the 2006 extension and expansion of Section 5 was unconstitutional, and enjoin the Attorney General from enforcing Section 5.
Filed November 17, 2016
Instead, Plaintiffs make a generalized grievance against the State of Michigan’s education system, which is insufficient. See Hayes, 515 U.S. at 743. Regarding traceability, standing is more difficult to establish when the injury is indirect.
Filed August 25, 2011
While the Supreme Court has recognized that certain racial classifications may cause representational injury in the limited context of redistricting, see generally Shaw v. Reno, 509 U.S. 630 (1993), this case, of course, does not concern redistricting: Kinston elects candidates on an at-large basis. Plaintiffs moreover fail “to demonstrate that [they], personally, ha[ve] been injured by that kind of racial classification,” Hays, 515 U.S. at 744. They aver no facts to support their view that elected officials under Kinston’s current election method have in the past or will in the future treat white persons differently from black persons.
Filed August 1, 2011
37-42, 44-45), they have not been personally denied equal treatment by those Amendments and thus lack standing. See Hays, 515 U.S. at 743-744 (“[E]ven if a governmental actor is discriminating on the basis of race, the resulting injury accords a basis for standing only to those persons who are personally denied equal treatment by the challenged discriminatory conduct.”) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Filed July 18, 2011
. Since appellees “have pointed to no evidence tending to show that they have suffered that injury, and our review of the record has revealed none,” they were “asserting only a generalized grievance against governmental conduct of which he or she does not approve.” U.S. v. Hays, 515 U.S. at 745. (emphasis in original)
Filed June 30, 2017
Those plaintiffs’ votes have not been diluted or diminished. Miller, 515 U.S. at 911. If a constitutional Shaw-Miller gerrymander claim were made in this case – and one is not asserted – only District 5 voters could assert that claim.
Filed June 16, 2017
Standing is a jurisdictional limitation, and must be considered by the federal courts even if the parties fail to raise it. United States v. Hays, 515 U.S. 737, 742 (1995). Standing to sue is governed by federal law, even in cases – such as this – arising under the Court’s diversity jurisdiction.