The Voting Rights Act and the curious case of three-judge district court panels

Abstract

A major avenue through which Voting Rights Act (VRA) cases are adjudicated is three-judge district court panels. These panels mix district and circuit court judges and exist in federal law to force certain important legal questions to be decided in a multimember environment. Using an original dataset of VRA cases decided by three-judge district court panels, we find that these panels do not operate as intended. We find that the circuit court judges on these panels vote their own preferences consistently, unmoved by strategic or collegial considerations. District court judges, on the other hand, appear to defer to their circuit court brethren.