Reply Brief — Benancio Garcia, III, Petitioner v. Steven Hobbs, Secretary of State of Washington, et al.

No. 25-901

In the

Supreme Court of the United States

BENANCIO GARCIA III,

Petitioner,

v.

STEVEN HOBBS, in his official capacity as Secretary of

State of Washington, et al.,

Respondents.

ON PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED

STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

REPLY BRIEF IN SUPPORT OF PETITION

FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI

Jason B. Torchinsky

Counsel of Record

HOLTZMAN VOGEL BARAN

TORCHINSKY & JOSEFIAK

PLLC

2300 N Street N.W.

Suite 643

Washington, DC 20037

(202) 737-8808

jtorchinsky@

holtzmanvogel.com

Andrew R. Stokesbary

CHALMERS, ADAMS, BACKER

& WALLEN, LLC

701 Fifth Avenue

Suite 4200

Seattle, WA 98104

(206) 813-9322

Jared S. Bauman

HOLTZMAN VOGEL BARAN

TORCHINSKY & JOSEFIAK

PLLC

1221 Broadway

Suite 2100

Nashville, TN 37203

(615) 647-8528

Counsel for Petitioner

i

QUESTION PRESENTED

Whether a plaintiff’s Equal Protection Clause

racial gerrymandering claim is rendered moot when

the challenged legislative district is replaced in a

different proceeding by a judicial remedy that

intensifies the plaintiff’s racial classification injury,

and which is subject to ongoing appellate review.

ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

QUESTION PRESENTED ..................................

i

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES ................................

iii

INTRODUCTION .................................................

1

ARGUMENT .........................................................

2

I.

THE MOOTNESS RULING BELOW

CANNOT BE RECONCILED WITH

COVINGTON OR MOORE .......................

2

A. Mr. Garcia’s Claim Is Not Moot

Under Covington Because His

Racial-Classification Injury Persists ..

3

B. Mr. Garcia’s Claim Is Not Moot

Under Moore Because Reversal in

Soto Palmer Would Restore LD-15 .....

5

PURPORTED CONSTITUTIONAL

AVOIDANCE CANNOT PROVIDE A

BASIS TO DENY REVIEW ......................

7

CONCLUSION......................................................

11

II.

iii

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

CASES

Page(s)

Alexander v. S.C. State Conf. of the

NAACP,

602 U.S. 1 (2024)........................................

3, 4

Already, LLC v. Nike, Inc.,

568 U.S. 85 (2013)......................................

5

Ashwander v. TVA,

297 U.S. 288 (1936) ...................................

8

Chafin v. Chafin,

568 U.S. 165 (2013) ...................................

5

Chem. Producers & Distribs. Ass’n v.

Helliker, 463 F.3d 871 (9th Cir. 2006) .....

4

City of Mesquite v. Aladdin’s Castle, Inc.,

455 U.S. 283 (1982) ...................................

5

Collins v. Yellen,

594 U.S. 220 (2021) ...................................

10

Fusari v. Steinberg,

419 U.S. 379 (1975) ...................................

4

Knox v. Serv. Emps. Int’l Union, Loc. 1000,

567 U.S. 298 (2012) .................................. 3, 5, 7

League of United Latin American Citizens

v. Perry,

548 U.S. 399 (2006) ...................................

9

Loper Bright Enters. v. Raimondo,

603 U.S. 369 (2024) ...................................

8

Louisiana v. Callais,

146 S. Ct. 1131 (2026) ...............................

2

iv

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES—Continued

Page(s)

Lyng v. Nw. Indian Cemetery

Protective Ass’n,

485 U.S. 439 (1988) ................................... 9, 10

McFadden v. United States,

576 U.S. 186 (2015) ...................................

8

Moore v. Harper,

600 U.S. 1 (2023)........................................ 3, 5-7

North Carolina v. Covington,

585 U.S. 969 (2018) ...................................

3, 4

Nw. Austin Mun. Util. Dist. No. One v.

Holder,

557 U.S. 193 (2009) ...................................

8, 9

Page v. Bartels,

248 F.3d 175 (3d Cir. 2001) ......................

10

Soto Palmer v. Hobbs,

686 F. Supp. 3d 1213

(W.D. Wash. 2023) ........................... 1-4, 7, 9, 10

Soto Palmer v. Hobbs,

No. 3:22-cv-05035, 2024 U.S. Dist.

LEXIS 50419 (W.D. Wash. Mar. 15,

2024) .......................................................... 1, 3, 4

Thomas v. Reeves,

961 F.3d 800 (5th Cir. 2020) .....................

6, 7

Thornburg v. Gingles,

478 U.S. 30 (1986)......................................

9

Trevino v. Hobbs,

No. 25-918...................................................

5, 7

Warger v. Shauers,

574 U.S. 40 (2014)......................................

8

v

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES—Continued

CONSTITUTION

Page(s)

U.S. Const. art. III.........................................

2, 8

STATUTES

28 U.S.C. § 2284 ............................................

10

COURT FILINGS

Appellee State of Washington’s Answering

Brief, Garcia v. Hobbs, No. 24-2603 (9th

Cir. Oct. 16, 2024), DE 23.1 ......................

7

Br. of Resp’t State of Washington, Trevino

v. Hobbs, No. 25-918 (U.S. June 2, 2026)

2

Closing Trial Brief by All Plaintiffs, Garcia

v. Hobbs, No. 3:22-cv-05152 (W.D. Wash.

July 12, 2023) .............................................

6

1

INTRODUCTION

Petitioner Benancio Garcia III (“Petitioner” or “Mr.

Garcia”) challenged Washington State’s Legislative

District 15 (“LD-15”) as an “unjustified and

unconstitutional racial gerrymander” that sorted him

on the basis of his Hispanic ethnicity. Pet. 9. After

trial, Mr. Garcia asked the three-judge panel that

heard his case to order a new map that would remedy

his constitutional injury and “not sort Washington

voters on the basis of their race or ethnicity.” Id.

Mr. Garcia never received that relief. Instead, a

majority of the three-judge panel dismissed his claim

as moot after one of the judges on the panel enjoined

the use of LD-15 in Soto Palmer v. Hobbs, a separate

challenge to the district by entirely different plaintiffs

under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act that was

heard alongside Mr. Garcia’s claim at a consolidated

trial. 686 F. Supp. 3d 1213 (W.D. Wash. 2023); see also

Pet. 10. After this Court vacated and the three-judge

panel amended its judgment, the U.S. Court of

Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed dismissal on

mootness. See Pet. 12.

But Mr. Garcia’s claim is not moot. As detailed in

his petition for certiorari, the Soto Palmer remedy did

not cure the racial sorting Mr. Garcia challenges.

Rather, it exacerbated his constitutional injury by

establishing a new legislative district—LD-14—that

was explicitly crafted to “unite the Latino community

of interest” in the region. Pet. 18–19 (quoting Soto

Palmer v. Hobbs, No. 3:22-cv-05035, 2024 U.S. Dist.

LEXIS 50419, at *10 (W.D. Wash. Mar. 15, 2024)).

And because a court can still order a map that does

not sort him by race or ethnicity—and because the

2

entire appellate process for Soto Palmer v. Hobbs has

yet to conclude—his claim remains very much alive.

Respondent

the

State

of

Washington

(“Respondent”) disagrees. Opp’n Br. 1. Although it

now concedes that this Court “should grant, vacate,

and remand the court of appeals’ opinion”—both in

this case and in its response to the petition for

certiorari filed by the Soto Palmer Intervenors—in

light of this Court’s recent decision in Louisiana v.

Callais, 146 S. Ct. 1131 (2026), it maintains that Mr.

Garcia’s petition “fails the Court’s ordinary standards

for certiorari.”1 Opp’n Br. 1–2; see also Br. of Resp’t

State of Washington, Trevino v. Hobbs, No. 25-918

(U.S. June 2, 2026).

This position is incorrect. The lower court’s

egregious departures from this Court’s Article III

mootness

precedents

warrant

review,

and

Respondent’s attempted justifications do not move the

needle. This Court should grant certiorari.

ARGUMENT

I.

THE MOOTNESS RULING BELOW CANNOT BE

RECONCILED WITH COVINGTON OR MOORE.

The sole issue here is whether a racial

gerrymandering claim is rendered moot when the

challenged legislative district is replaced, in a

separate proceeding, by a judicial remedy that (1)

intensifies the plaintiff’s racial classification injury,

and (2) is subject to ongoing appellate review. The

lower courts answered yes, and certiorari is

1 Respondent Steven Hobbs, in his official capacity as

Secretary of State of Washington, “takes no position on the

merits of the petition.” Opp’n Br. 2.

3

warranted because that conclusion cannot be

reconciled with this Court’s decisions in North

Carolina v. Covington, 585 U.S. 969 (2018), and Moore

v. Harper, 600 U.S. 1 (2023).

A. Mr. Garcia’s Claim Is Not Moot Under

Covington

Because

His

RacialClassification Injury Persists.

As this Court noted in Covington, the injury in a

racial gerrymandering case “is the segregation of the

plaintiffs—not the legislature’s line-drawing as such.”

Covington, 585 U.S. at 976; see also Alexander v. S.C.

State Conf. of the NAACP, 602 U.S. 1, 38 (2024) (“The

racial classification itself is the relevant harm.”). As

such, so long as that constitutional injury persists, the

plaintiff’s claim will not become moot even if “new

district lines” are drawn around them. Covington, 585

U.S. at 976. This is because the plaintiff retains a

“concrete interest” in seeing their constitutional

injury remedied, which a court can still provide by

ordering a remedy that actually ends the relevant

unconstitutional sorting. Knox v. Serv. Emps. Int’l

Union, Loc. 1000, 567 U.S. 298, 307–08 (2012)

(internal quotations omitted).

That is exactly the case here. When crafting LD-14

during the remedial stage, the Soto Palmer court

layered additional race-based sorting on top of the

already racially-gerrymandered LD-15, with the

explicit goal of “unit[ing] the Latino community of

interest” in the Yakima Valley region. Pet. 18–19

(quoting Soto Palmer, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 50419,

at *10). This involved bringing in the “Latino

community of interest that stretches from East

Yakima, through the smaller Latino population

centers along the Yakima River, to Pasco,” and

4

resulted in an LD-14 that “resembled an octopus

slithering on the ocean floor.” Pet. 13 (quotations

omitted). Mr. Garcia is thus still sorted on the basis of

his ethnicity, which means his constitutional injury

persists even though the exact lines around him have

changed. See Covington, 585 U.S. at 976; Alexander,

602 U.S. at 38.

Respondent’s attempt to distinguish Covington as

“a starkly different scenario” is to no avail. Opp’n Br.

17. According to Respondent, the fact that LD-14 was

“selected by a different decisionmaker”—i.e., the Soto

Palmer court, as opposed to the Commission that drew

LD-15—makes it a “fundamentally different district.”

Id. This assertion, however, simply repeats the Ninth

Circuit’s reasoning, without even engaging with Mr.

Garcia’s arguments about the authorities upon which

it relied. Compare id. with Pet. 20–22 (discussing the

Ninth Circuit’s misplaced reliance on Fusari v.

Steinberg, 419 U.S. 379, 386–87 (1975), and Chem.

Producers & Distribs. Ass’n v. Helliker, 463 F.3d 871,

875 (9th Cir. 2006)). Indeed, Respondent does not, and

cannot, refute the assertion that it is the injury—not

the identity of the actor inflicting it——which is

dispositive. See Pet. 20–21.

Nor does Respondent attempt to answer Mr.

Garcia’s arguments about how, even if the identity of

the decisionmaker were relevant, his injury was still

caused and entrenched by the same Defendants—the

Secretary of State and the State of Washington. See

Pet. 21 (noting that these parties continue to enforce

and implement the racial gerrymander, and that it

was only because the State refused to act that the Soto

Palmer court “was compelled to step in” and draw LD14 (quoting 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 50419, at *15–16)).

5

This omission is telling, and betrays the “kind of logic

[that] should make us wonder if this case is really

moot.” Pet. App. 33 (VanDyke, J., dissenting).

Respondent cannot simply engineer a change in

decisionmaker by refusing to act and then invoke that

change to defeat Mr. Garcia’s claim. Cf. Already, LLC

v. Nike, Inc., 568 U.S. 85, 91 (2013) (criticizing

defendants who attempt to “automatically moot a case

simply by ending its unlawful conduct once sued”

(citing City of Mesquite v. Aladdin’s Castle, Inc., 455

U.S. 283, 289 (1982))).

B. Mr. Garcia’s Claim Is Not Moot Under

Moore Because Reversal in Soto Palmer

Would Restore LD-15.

Respondent’s arguments about Moore v. Harper,

600 U.S. 1 (2023), the holding of which provides an

independent basis for rejecting mootness (and which

the Ninth Circuit failed to address below), are

similarly misguided. Under Moore, a challenge to an

invalidated districting plan is not moot so long as

reversal on appeal could cause the plan to “again take

effect.” 600 U.S. at 15. In that circumstance, the “path

to complete relief runs through this Court,” and the

parties “continue to have a ‘personal stake in the

ultimate disposition of the lawsuit.’” Id. at 15–16

(quoting Chafin v. Chafin, 568 U.S. 165, 172 (2013)).

Such is the case here—this Court may grant certiorari

in Trevino and reverse, which would end the

injunction against LD-15 and resuscitate the map

that led to Mr. Garcia’s claim in the first place. This

means that, until the “ultimate disposition” of LD-15’s

fate before this Court, Mr. Garcia’s path to relief

remains ongoing. Id.; see also Knox, 567 U.S. at 307.

6

Respondent, however, asserts that Moore does not

control because Mr. Garcia “already obtained the

relief he originally requested: the district he

challenged will not be used in future elections.” Opp’n

Br. 18–19. This misses the point. As a threshold

matter, the relief Mr. Garcia “originally requested”

was not just to get rid of LD-15; rather, it was for the

three-judge panel to find that “LD-15 was an

unjustified and unconstitutional racial gerrymander,”

and to order a new map that would “not sort

Washington voters on the basis of their race or

ethnicity.” Pet. 9 (quoting Closing Trial Brief by All

Plaintiffs, Garcia v. Hobbs, No. 3:22-cv-05152 (W.D.

Wash. July 12, 2023), DE 79). Contrary to

Respondent’s assertion, Mr. Garcia never received

that relief. If anything, LD-14 exacerbated his

underlying constitutional injury. See supra Part I.A.

Moreover, even if the injunction against LD-15

technically freed Mr. Garcia from the legislative

district that initially caused his injury, Moore’s focus

is on “the path to complete relief” and the “ultimate

disposition” of the claims. 600 U.S. at 15–16. Indeed,

this reflects a principle that other courts have

recognized when holding that a case becomes moot

only once it is “undisputed” that the “district lines will

neither be used nor operate as a base for any future

election.” Thomas v. Reeves, 961 F.3d 800, 801 (5th

Cir. 2020) (en banc) (emphasis added); see also Pet. 24

n.1 (collecting analogous cases from other circuits).

Respondent, however, does not address these cases,

and only cites Reeves once—albeit without including

the key qualification that there was no dispute over

whether the map could snap back into effect in that

case. See Opp’n Br. 16–17.

7

It stands to reason that this omission is because it

is not, in fact, “undisputed” that LD-15 “will neither

be used nor operate as a base for any future election.”

Reeves, 961 F.3d at 801. That Respondent now also

asks this Court to grant, vacate, and remand

alongside Trevino confirms this, as the very premise

of that request is that LD-15’s “ultimate disposition”

is still unknown. Moore, 600 U.S. at 15–16. And while

Respondent

presents

that

request

as

an

“[a]lternativ[e]” to its mootness arguments, it made

the same concession in the proceedings below, where

it agreed that, if an appellate court “were to reverse

the liability ruling in Soto Palmer, so that the

originally enacted LD 15 came back into effect, then

Garcia’s claim would present a live controversy.” Pet.

25 (quoting Appellee State of Washington’s

Answering Brief at 21, Garcia, No. 24-2603 (9th Cir.

Oct. 16, 2024), DE 23.1).

As such, Respondent is unable to refute Moore’s

applicability or the principles it reflects. Nor can it

refute the logic of Mr. Garcia’s consistent argument

that mootness is binary—a case is either moot or not

moot—despite Respondent’s claims to the contrary.

See Pet. 25–26 (quoting Knox, 567 U.S. at 307).

Certiorari is therefore warranted to review the lower

court’s egregious departures from this Court’s

precedents.

II. PURPORTED

CONSTITUTIONAL

AVOIDANCE

CANNOT PROVIDE A BASIS TO DENY REVIEW.

Respondent further argues that the decision below

should be left undisturbed because the sequence of

events that led to the mootness dismissal was a

faithful exercise of constitutional avoidance, as

opposed to an example of docket manipulation. Opp’n

8

Br. 19. That argument misunderstands both the

canon of constitutional avoidance and what happened

below.

Properly understood, the canon of constitutional

avoidance has no application to Mr. Garcia’s case.

Under the precedents of this Court, “this canon ‘is a

tool for choosing between competing plausible

interpretations of a provision,’” McFadden v. United

States, 576 U.S. 186, 197 (2015) (quoting Warger v.

Shauers, 574 U.S. 40, 50 (2014)), as well as between

“alternative” constitutional and non-constitutional

grounds to resolve the case, see Nw. Austin Mun. Util.

Dist. No. One v. Holder, 557 U.S. 193, 206 (2009);

Ashwander v. TVA, 297 U.S. 288, 347 (1936)

(Brandeis, J., concurring). It “has no application,”

however, “in the interpretation of an unambiguous

statute,” McFadden, 576 U.S. at 197 (internal

quotation omitted), nor can it be applied when

resolving the constitutional question is “necessary to

a decision of a case,” in that the case cannot “be

decided on either of two grounds, one involving a

constitutional question, the other a question of

statutory construction or general law.” Ashwander,

297 U.S. at 347 (Brandeis, J., concurring).

Accordingly, the canon has no place where—as

here—a case involves neither questions of statutory

interpretation nor alternative constitutional and nonconstitutional claims. This makes sense, and it

balances the principles of judicial restraint with the

federal judiciary’s

Article III constitutional

“responsibility and power to adjudicate ‘Cases’ and

‘Controversies’—concrete disputes with consequences

for the parties involved.” Loper Bright Enters. v.

Raimondo, 603 U.S. 369, 384 (2024). Respondent, by

9

contrast, oversimplifies the canon, presenting it as a

free-standing justification for the three-judge district

court to “declin[e] to reach Garcia’s constitutional

claim” because, in other redistricting cases, courts

have addressed statutory VRA claims without ruling

on alternative constitutional claims. Opp’n Br. 20.

The other cases that Respondent cites, however, do

not support its proposed application of the canon to

this case. Unlike Mr. Garcia, the plaintiffs in League

of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry, 548 U.S.

399 (2006), and Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U.S. 30

(1986), brought both constitutional and statutory VRA

challenges against the relevant voting districts. This

Court could thus clearly apply the canon to those

cases (although it did not do so explicitly), choosing to

resolve the statutory claims without needing to

“reach[] constitutional questions in advance of the

necessity of deciding them.” Lyng v. Nw. Indian

Cemetery Protective Ass’n, 485 U.S. 439, 445 (1988).

Mr. Garcia, by contrast, only advanced a

constitutional claim, with the statutory VRA

challenge to LD-15 coming instead from the plaintiffs

in Soto Palmer, a separate case. Cf. Nw. Austin Mun.

Util. Dist. No. One, 557 U.S. at 205–06 (applying the

canon where the plaintiff “expressly describe[d] its

constitutional challenge . . . as being ‘in the

alternative’ to its statutory argument”).

Further, unlike here, the relief that the plaintiffs

in League of United Latin American Citizens and

Gingles sought—essentially, a districting plan that

increased minority representation—was effectively

identical for both their statutory and constitutional

claims. This is not the case for Mr. Garcia, who seeks

a map that does not sort voters by race or ethnicity at

10

all, and the Soto Palmer plaintiffs, who seek more

racial sorting. See supra Part I.A. Thus, even if these

separate claims sufficiently presented “alternative”

grounds to dispose of Mr. Garcia’s lawsuit for

constitutional avoidance purposes, doing so would

have left his constitutional injury wholly unredressed,

if not worsened. And as Lyng instructs, constitutional

avoidance “require[s] the courts below to determine,

before addressing the constitutional issue, whether a

decision on that question could have entitled

respondents to relief beyond that to which they were

entitled on their statutory claims.” 485 U.S. at 446. “If

no additional relief would have been warranted, a

constitutional decision would have been unnecessary

and therefore inappropriate.” Id. (emphasis added).

This is precisely the asymmetry that Judge

VanDyke identified in his dissent below: a ruling for

Mr. Garcia on his Equal Protection claim would have

mooted the Soto Palmer VRA claim because an

unconstitutional map is void from its enactment, but

a ruling for the Soto Palmer plaintiffs could not, by

definition, eliminate Mr. Garcia’s constitutional

injury. See Pet. 11, 27–28; Pet. App. 31–36 (VanDyke,

J., dissenting); Collins v. Yellen, 594 U.S. 220, 259

(2021) (“[A]n unconstitutional provision is never

really part of the body of governing law.”). In this

sense, the most prudential order of operations here

would have been to decide Garcia first. But the threejudge panel instead opted to “forcefully pull[] the plug

on a case” that was “presented in the first instance to

a district court with a non-discretionary obligation to

adjudicate it.” Pet. App. 53, 36 (VanDyke, J.,

dissenting); see also 28 U.S.C. § 2284; Page v. Bartels,

248 F.3d 175, 191 (3d Cir. 2001) (cautioning against

“thwarting the expressed congressional policy of

11

requiring a specialized three-judge court for the

disposition of such singularly important matters”).

At a minimum, this sequence raises the specter of

docket manipulation that Mr. Garcia identified, and

Respondent offers nothing to dispel it. And even

setting

semantics

about

“manipulation”

or

“avoidance” aside, the questions this issue raises are

of substantial and recurring importance. See Pet. 28–

30 (discussing these implications and collecting

cases). Respondent does not address these concerns,

which are worthy of this Court’s review and guidance.

CONCLUSION

This Court should grant the petition for writ of

certiorari.

12

Respectfully submitted,

Jason B. Torchinsky

Counsel of Record

HOLTZMAN VOGEL BARAN

TORCHINSKY & JOSEFIAK

PLLC

2300 N Street N.W.

Suite 643

Washington, DC 20037

(202) 737-8808

jtorchinsky@

holtzmanvogel.com

Andrew R. Stokesbary

CHALMERS, ADAMS,

BACKER & WALLEN, LLC

701 Fifth Avenue

Suite 4200

Seattle, WA 98104

(206) 813-9322

Jared S. Bauman

HOLTZMAN VOGEL BARAN

TORCHINSKY & JOSEFIAK

PLLC

1221 Broadway

Suite 2100

Nashville, TN 37203

(615) 647-8528

JUNE 10, 2026

Counsel for Petitioner