This is CBSI in the World. I'm John Bachelors, the Supreme Court Decision at the

Allen versus Milligan involving the Voting Rights Act and the Alabama constituency

obliged by the Supreme Court Decision now to redraw the congressional districts in a way

that brings in the Voting Rights Act and also interpretation through several cases since

the 1960s. Richard Epstein, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, teaches law at NYU

and the University of Chicago, writing for Hoover in defining ideas, looking at Allen versus

Milligan from the point of view, my conclusion, of a case in 1986, five to four, the majority

written by Justice Brennan, Thornberg versus Gingles. Richard, a very good evening to you,

as I understand it, the Thornberg versus Gingles case was determinative of the way this case

was decided. Having to do with what is necessary in order to redraw congressional districts on

the basis of groups, groups, and there were three standards, if I understand Thornberg,

Gingles set up. One is that it has to be geographically consistent. In other words, the second is that

there has to be a political cohesion. And the third that the group on the other side is well

represented. In other words, not likely to be elbowed aside. If I understand those three groups,

the question now, do they apply to Allen versus Milligan? A very good evening to you, Professor.

Yeah, well, it turns out I think pretty clearly they do. There were several arguments about this and

this has to be, I think, first put into perspective. The original voting wise act of 1965 was going

after a very big target. And what it tried to do is to make sure that people would be systematically

excluded from the polls, how to write the vote. And they succeeded magnificently in getting the

level of registration up. And then by 1982, when the problem is much less serious than it was in 1964,

there was a second tier question, which is how do we organize the districts assuming that everybody

has equal access to the vote? This is a much more difficult question to solve. But the political

...