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The Senate's presiding officer typically does not have responsibility for pro-actively ensuring that matters under consideration comply with the rules. Instead, Senators may enforce the Senate's legislative rules and precedents by making points of order whenever they believe that one of those rules or precedents is, or is about to be, violated. This report briefly discusses the process by which a point of order is raised and ruled upon.

Includes index. ; "December 1986". ; At head of title: 99th Congress, 2d session. Committee print. ; Mode of access: Internet.

The surprising
and flawed U.S. Supreme Court decision in Allen v.
Milligan not only might have an impact on Louisiana's congressional
districts, but also could affect its state legislative maps – in both cases not
immediately but eventually, if at all.

Recently issued regarding Alabama's division of
seven congressional districts that left just one majority-minority district
where about two-sevenths of the population is black – defined as when somebody
claims any black ancestry on the census – the ruling said because a number of
jurisdictions nationwide had reapportioned on the basis of interpreting the
Voting Rights Act as amended and reauthorized to draw the proportion of M/M
districts roughly similar to that of the population, that they should despite
the actual wording of the VRA that forbids such a practice. In other words,
apply bad law long enough and it magically becomes acceptable due to an
unsupportable undue reliance on precedent.

Louisiana
has a similar situation where its population is almost a third black (31.2
percent) but of its six districts only one was made M/M. It has a pair of cases
addressing this presently in the hands of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals
and an offshoot where a lower court had arrogated its appealed decision against
the state to the Fifth Circuit into an attempt to draw its own map. The Supreme
Court placed a stay on all of this activity pending the Alabama decision.

From here, several things could happen once the
Court releases its stay. The Fifth Circuit could hear the cases and issue a
ruling, which whether directly or more circuitously will end up back in Louisiana's
Middle District. Any order to redraw will be appealed, first on the basis of the
Alabama decision – which may well succeed given the important differences between
that case and Louisiana's – but if that doesn't succeed then on other legal or
constitutional bases.

These potential appeals have a good chance of
success, when all is considered. Constitutional challenges, as brought up by
Assoc. Justice Clarence Thomas in his dissent, present a substantial impediment
that would invalidate the Alabama case's interpretation. Even without that, the
interpretation could be conditioned by other voting rights statutory jurisprudence,
such as extension of Shelby County v.
Holder that established the concept of staleness in using race as a
criterion for reapportionment, in that instance addressing federal government preclearance
– a concept the Court seems poised to invoke outside the sphere of voting rights
over affirmative action's use in college admissions.

It's important to understand the place that race,
jockeying with several other criteria for reapportionment among which often is
conflict, now has as a result of this decision. The special interest plaintiffs
argued that race should matter above all else, or that where M/M districts
could be drawn, they should be. The state defending argued that race could have
no more prominence among the criteria than any other.

The Court majority decided instead to give race a
preferred position, but could not go so far as to make it dominant because that
would violate the Constitution. Thus, race could play a prime role in a plan,
but if it ran roughshod over other criteria – a sentiment first defined in Shaw v Reno
and applied in Louisiana through Hays v.
Louisiana and its successors – that was an impermissible use.

So, going forward, courts will have to define
instrumentally what is the preferred position that passes constitutional muster
(if and until that concept isn't voided by a constitutional challenge) and then
determine its application to Louisiana's current congressional map. Add to that
the Court's Purcell
principle, where it doesn't want undue disruption to elections, practically
meaning that unless a decision to change boundaries doesn't come at least a
couple of months prior to the start of the process for candidates to qualify
for the offices in question, the Court will not allow such changes until after
the election in question.

When taking this into consideration, and then the
separate constitutional challenges that inevitably will appear if the Middle
District insists on a plan that includes two M/M districts, it is unlikely that
resolution of the controversy will come in time for the 2024 national elections.
This makes hasty a call for a special session of the Legislature to deal with reapportionment
in case the district court gets insistent, because there's a long way to go
before a final judicial resolution that might well have the effect of affirming
the maps in the place will take place.

For the same reason, Nairne
v. Ardoin, a case brought shortly after legislative reapportionments
became law last year, also has no chance affecting this fall's election and any
impact it would have would not resonate until the 2027 cycle. As with similar
cases, it argues that wherever M/M districts can be drawn, they should be, in
its estimation adding at least six to nine such House districts to the 29 in
the plan to be used first this fall and three such Senate districts to the 11
in the Senate.

Note this means that for the House the plaintiffs
argue for 33.3 to 36.2 percent of districts and 35.9 percent of districts in
the Senate to be M/M, where the state has just the 31.2 percent identifying with
any black ancestry. That would equate to 33 House and 12 Senate seats if, as
the ruling may suggest all else held equal these would be the appropriate
numbers – +4 M/M districts for the House and +1 for the Senate.

Of course, all things may not be equal. If the
state can show resulting districts producing these changes have really convoluted
shapes or really butcher longstanding communities of interest while connecting historically
disparate ones, the M/M numbers go down. Also note that this doesn't
necessarily mean that fewer Republican-leaning districts would result. For
example, House Districts 91 and 98 currently held by white Democrats easily
could have one, or even both, flipped into black majority districts without the
rearranging of district boundaries to lose any Republican districts. As the GOP
will control any reapportionment process in the near future, that's what would
happen.

Thus, when reviewing the outcome from this Court
ruling any changes to either Louisiana congressional or legislative
reapportionment are at least two election cycles away. Further, creation of an
additional M/M congressional district is uncertain, and for the Legislature
addition of a small number of M/M House districts that the ruling might produce
– again, the whole scheme may be declared illegal or unconstitutional – hardly
will change the partisan balance in that chamber and almost certainly would not
in the Senate.

Explores elections and fundraising, record numbers of women in the House and Senate, political parties, policy impact, media and public opinion; 1990s; 9 articles. Partial contents: Early fundraising by nonincumbent female congressional candidates, by Peter L. Francia; Electoral context, issues, and voting for women in the 1990s, by Kathleen Dolan; The political glass ceiling: gender, strategy, and incumbency in US House elections, 1978-1998, by Barbara Palmer and Dennis Simon; Do differences matter? women members of Congress and the Hyde amendment, by Dena Levy and others; Speaking out: an analysis of Democratic and Republican woman-invoked rhetoric of the 105th Congress, by Colleen J. Shogan; "How does she have time for kids and Congress?": views on gender and media coverage from House offices, by David Niven and Jeremy Zilber.

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