Peter S. Wattson
Senate Counsel
State of Minnesota
Contents
I. Introduction
The purpose of this paper is to acquaint you with the major federal
cases that will govern the way you draw your legislative and congressional
redistricting plans following the 2000 census so that you may learn how
to draw redistricting plans that will stand up in court.
But, before I get into the cases, I think it is important to clarify some terms I will be using and to explain how the redistricting process works.
"Redistricting" is the process of changing the boundaries of legislative
districts. The number of members per district does not change, but the
districts' boundaries do.
The relationship between reapportionment and redistricting can most
easily be seen by examining the United States House of Representatives.
Every ten years the 435 seats in the House of Representatives are reapportioned
among the 50 states in accordance with the latest federal census. As the
population of some states grows faster than that of others, Congressional
seats move from the slow-growing states to the fast-growing ones. Then,
within each of the states that is entitled to more than one representative,
the boundaries of the congressional districts are redrawn to make their
populations equal. The state is redistricted to accommodate its reapportionment
of Congressmen.
Reapportionment, in the narrow sense in which I will be using it here,
is not a partisan political process. It is a mathematical one. The decennial
reapportionment of the United States House of Representatives is carried
out in accordance with a statutory formula, called the "method of equal
proportions," established in 1941. It is not subject to partisan manipulation,
except in determining who gets counted in the census. The decision of Congress
to use this particular formula, rather than another, has been upheld by
the Supreme Court. U.S.
Dept. of Commerce v. Montana, 503 U.S. 442 (1992).
Redistricting, on the other hand, is highly partisan. This is because,
in redrawing district boundaries, the drafter has such wide discretion
in deciding where the boundaries will run. Creative drafting can give one
party a significant advantage in elections, as I shall explain in a moment.
Like "reapportionment," the term "gerrymandering" has become so popular
that it has lost its original precision and is often used to describe any
technique by which a political party attempts to give itself an unfair
advantage.
Used in its narrow sense, to refer only to the practice of creating districts that look like monsters, there are basically just two techniques -- packing and fracturing. How do they work?
If the supporters of the minority party were distributed evenly throughout
the state, there would be no need to gerrymander. In a state where the
minority party had 49 percent of the vote, they would lose every seat.
But I suspect that political minorities are not evenly distributed in any state, so the persons drawing the redistricting plan try to determine where they are, and draw their districts accordingly: first packing as many of them into as few districts as possible and then, where they can't be packed, fracturing them into as many districts as possible. It is this process of drawing the district lines to first pack and then fracture the minority that creates the dragon-like districts called gerrymanders.
II. Draw Districts of Equal Population
Now, it is true that some legislatures have chosen to use data other
than the Census Bureau's population counts to draw their districts and
have had their plans upheld by federal courts. For example, back in 1966,
Hawaii used the number of registered voters, rather than the census of
population, to draw its legislative districts, and had its plan upheld
by the United States Supreme Court in the case of Burns
v. Richardson, 384 U.S. 73. But there the court found that the
results based on registered voters were not substantially different from
the results based on the total population count.
A state may conduct its own census on which to base its redistricting
plans. For example, a 1979 Kansas legislative redistricting plan based
on the state's 1978 agricultural census was upheld by a federal district
court in the case of Bacon v. Carlin, 575 F. Supp. 763 (D. Kan.
1983), aff'd 466 U.S. 966 (1984). And in 1986, a Massachusetts legislative
redistricting plan based on a state census was upheld by a federal district
court in the case of McGovern v. Connolly, 637 F. Supp. 111 (D.
Mass 1986).
Late in the decade, a federal court may find that local government estimates
are a more accurate reflection of current population than old census counts
and thus are an acceptable basis for developing redistricting plans before
the next census. Garza v. County of Los Angeles, Findings of Fact
and Conclusions of Law, No. CV 88-5143 KN (Ex) (C.D. Cal. June 4, 1990).
But generally, the federal courts will not simply accept an alternative
basis used by the states. Rather, they will first check to see whether
the districts are of substantially equal population based on Census Bureau
figures. If they are not, the courts will strike them down.
So if you want your plans to stand up in court, the easiest way is use official Census Bureau population counts.
In the 1990s, the main political fight over how to count the population
concerned how to compensate for the historic undercounting of racial and
ethnic minorities. In response to a suit by the City of New York and other
plaintiffs that sought to compel the Census Bureau to make a statistical
adjustment to the population data to account for people the Bureau failed
to count, the Bureau agreed to make a fresh determination of whether there
should be a statistical adjustment for an undercount or overcount in the
1990 census. The Bureau agreed to conduct a post enumeration survey of
at least 150,000 households to use as the basis for the adjustment. The
Bureau agreed that, by July 15, 1991, it would either publish adjusted
population data or would publish its reasons for not making the adjustment.
Any population data published before then, such as the state totals published
December 31, 1990, and the block totals published April 1, 1991, would
contain a warning that they were subject to correction by July 15. The
Bureau ultimately decided not to make a statistical adjustment to correct
for the undercount, and the Supreme Court found that its decision was reasonable
and within the discretion of the Secretary of Commerce, in whose Department
the Census Bureau is located. Wisconsin
v. City of New York, 64 U.S.L.W. 4153 (U.S. 1996).
For the 2000 census, the fight is over whether to use scientific sampling
techniques to conduct the census from the beginning, rather than adjusting
the population counts after they have been issued. The Census Bureau has
proposed that, in order to obtain information on at least 90 percent of
the households in each census tract, it will use statistical sampling techniques
to estimate the characteristics of the households that do not respond to
the first two mailings of a census questionnaire. In each census tract,
the fewer households that respond initially, the larger will be the size
of the sample enumerators will contact directly as part of their follow-up.
The addresses that will be included in the sample will be scientifically
chosen at random to insure they are statistically representative of all
nonresponding housing units in that census tract.
Some in Congress are concerned that the use of sampling will undermine the willingness of individuals to participate in the census and will cause a loss of confidence in the census count. Congress may legislate limits on the use of these sampling techniques.
Allocating overseas military personnel to the states caused one congressional district to be shifted from Massachusetts to Washington. Massachusetts sued the Secretary of Commerce, but the Supreme Court upheld the allocation. Franklin v. Massachusetts, 505 U.S. 788 (1992).
The standard for congressional plans is based on Article I, Section 2, of the United States Constitution, which says:
Representatives . . . shall be apportioned among the several States . . . according to their respective numbers . . . .The standard for congressional plans is strict indeed. In the 1964 case of Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S. 1, the United States Supreme Court articulated that standard as "as nearly equal in population as practicable."
Notice the choice of words. The Court did not say "as nearly equal as
practical."
The American Heritage Dictionary defines "practicable" as "capable
of being . . . done . . . ." It notes that something "practical" is not
only capable of being done, but "also sensible and worthwhile." It illustrates
the difference between the two by pointing out that "It might be practicable
to transport children to school by balloon, but it would not be practical."
How does a court measure the degree of population inequality in a redistricting
plan? Let me give you an example. Let's say we have a state with a population
of 1,000,000, and that it is entitled to elect ten representatives in Congress.
(That is not a realistic number, but it is easier to work with.) The "ideal"
district population would be 100,000. Let's say the legislature draws a
redistricting plan that has five districts with a population of 90,000
and five districts with a population of 110,000. The "deviations" of the
districts would be 10,000 minus and 10,000 plus, or minus 10 percent and
plus 10 percent. The "average deviation" from the ideal would be 10,000
or 10 percent. And the "overall range" would be 20,000, or 20 percent.
Most courts have used what statisticians call the "overall range" to measure
the population inequality of the districts before them, though they have
usually referred to it by other names, such as "maximum deviation," "total
deviation," or "overall deviation."
In 1983, in Karcher
v. Daggett, 462 U.S. 725, the United States Supreme Court struck
down a congressional redistricting plan drawn by the New Jersey Legislature
that had an overall range of less than one percent. To be precise, .6984
percent, or 3,674 people. The plaintiffs showed that at least one other
plan before the Legislature had an overall range less than the plan enacted
by the Legislature, thus carrying their burden of proving that the population
differences could have been reduced or eliminated by a good-faith effort
to draw districts of equal population.
In the 1980s, three-judge federal courts drawing their own redistricting
plans achieved near mathematical equality. For example, in Minnesota the
court-drawn plan had an overall range of 46 people (.0145 percent), LaComb
v. Growe, 541 F. Supp. 145 (D. Minn. 1982) aff'd sub nom. Orwoll
v. LaComb, 456 U.S. 966 (1982) (Appendix A, unpublished) (In its opinion,
the Court tells only the sum of all the deviations, 76 people, and
refers to it as the "total population deviation"), and in Colorado the
court-drawn plan had an overall range of ten people (.0020 percent),
Carstens
v. Lamm, 543 F. Supp. 68, 99 (D. Colo. 1982).
With the improvements in the census and in the computer technology used
to draw redistricting plans after the 1990 census, the degree of population
equality that was "practicable" was even greater than that achieved in
the 1980s. Many states drew congressional plans with an overall range of
either zero or one person. That is likely to be the standard for most plans
after 2000.
If you can't draw congressional districts that are mathematically equal in population, don't assume that others can't. Assume that you risk having your plan challenged in court and replaced by another with a lower overall range.
Any number of consistently applied legislative policies might justify some variance, including, for instance, making districts compact, respecting municipal boundaries, preserving the cores of prior districts, and avoiding contests between incumbent Representatives . . . . The State must, however, show with some specificity that a particular objective required the specific deviations in its plan, rather than simply relying on general assertions . . . . By necessity, whether deviations are justified requires case-by-case attention to these factors.462 U.S. at 740-741
So, if you intend to rely on these "legitimate state objectives" to
justify any degree of population inequality in a congressional plan,
you would be well advised to articulate those objectives in advance, follow
them consistently, and be prepared to show that you could not have achieved
those objectives in each district with districts that had a smaller
deviation from the ideal. Arkansas, Turner v. Arkansas, 784 F. Supp.
553 (E.D. Ark. 1991); Maryland, Anne Arundel County Republican Cent.
Committee v. State Administrative Bd. of Election Laws, 781 F. Supp.
394 (D. Md. 1991); and West Virginia, Stone v. Hechler, 782 F. Supp.
1116 (W.D. W.Va. 1992); all were able to meet that burden when congressional
plans drawn by the legislature were challenged in court in the 1990s.
Near the end of the decade, the Supreme Court upheld a court-drawn congressional plan with an overall range of 0.35 percent (about 2,000 people). Abrams v. Johnson, 65 U.S.L.W. 4478 (June 19, 1997) (No. 95-1425). But that was the lowest range of all the plans that met constitutional requirements, Georgia was able to show it had a consistent historical practice of not splitting counties outside the Atlanta area, and likely shifts in population since 1990 had made any further effort to achieve population equality illusory.
As Chief Justice Earl Warren observed in the 1964 case of Reynolds
v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, "mathematical nicety is not a constitutional
requisite" when drawing legislative plans. All that is necessary is that
they achieve "substantial equality of population among the various districts."
Id.
at 569.
"Substantial equality of population" has come to mean that a legislative
plan will not be thrown out for inequality of population if its overall
range is less than ten percent.
The ten-percent standard was first articulated in a dissenting opinion written by Justice Brennan in the cases of Gaffney v. Cummings, 412 U.S. 735, and White v. Regester, 412 U.S. 755, in 1973. In later cases, the Court majority has endorsed and followed the rule Justice Brennan's dissent accused them of establishing. See, e.g., Chapman v. Meier, 420 U.S. 1 (1975); Connor v. Finch, 431 U.S. 407 (1977); Brown v. Thomson, 462 U.S. 835, 842-43 (1983); Voinovich v. Quilter, 507 U.S. 146 (1993).
In Mahan
v. Howell, the Supreme Court upheld a legislative redistricting
plan enacted by the Virginia General Assembly that had an overall range
among House districts of about 16 percent. The Court took note of the General
Assembly's constitutional authority to enact legislation dealing with particular
political subdivisions, and found that this legislative function was a
significant and a substantial aspect of the Assembly's powers and practices,
and thus justified an attempt to preserve political subdivision boundaries
in drawing House districts.
Brown
v. Thomson, 462 U.S. 835 (1983), upholding a legislative plan with
an overall range of 89 percent, was decided by the Supreme Court on the
same day that it decided Karcher
v. Daggett, 462 U.S. 725 (1983), where it threw out a congressional
plan with an overall range of less than one percent. Reconciling these
two cases is not easy. Nevertheless, I shall try.
First, as I have noted, the constitutional standard for legislative
plans is different from the standard for congressional plans.
Second, it is important to understand that in Brown
v. Thomson the Court was faced with a reapportionment plan
rather than with a redistricting plan. The members of the Wyoming
House of Representatives were being reapportioned among Wyoming's
counties, rather than having new districts created for them. Because the
boundaries of the districts were not being changed, the opportunities for
partisan mischief were far reduced.
Third, Wyoming put forward a "rational state policy" to justify an overall
range of more than ten percent, and the Court endorsed it. Writing for
the Court, Justice Powell concluded that Wyoming's constitutional policy--followed
since statehood--of using counties as representative districts and insuring
that each county had at least one representative, was supported by substantial
and legitimate state concerns, and had been applied in a manner free from
any taint of arbitrariness or discrimination. He also found that the population
deviations were no greater than necessary to preserve counties as representative
districts, and that there was no evidence of a built-in bias tending to
favor particular interests or geographical areas. 462
U.S. at 843-46.
But Wyoming's policy of affording representation to political subdivisions
may have been less important to the result than was the peculiar posture
in which the case was presented to the Court. The appellants chose not
to challenge the 89 percent overall range of the plan, but rather to challenge
only the effect of giving the smallest county a representative. Justice
O'Connor, joined by Justice Stevens, concurred in the result but emphasized
that it was only because the challenge was so narrowly drawn that she had
voted to reject it. 462 U.S. at 850. The Court reaffirmed this narrow view
of its holding in Brown by later citing it as authority for the
statement that "no case of ours has indicated that a deviation of some
78% could ever be justified." Board of Estimate v. Morris, 489
U.S. 688, 702 (1989).
In Voinovich
v. Quilter, 507 U.S. 146 (1993), the Supreme Court reversed a decision
of the federal district court striking down Ohio's legislative plan because
the overall range of the House plan was 13.81 percent and the overall range
of the Senate plan was 10.54 percent. The Court pointed out that preserving
the boundaries of political subdivisions was a "rational state policy"
that might justify an overall range in excess of ten percent.
There may not be any other "rational state policies" that will justify
a legislature in exceeding the ten-percent standard. But with the multitude
of plans that are likely to be submitted to you for your consideration,
you may wish to adopt other policies to govern plans that are within the
ten-percent overall range.
Three-judge courts, who are called upon to draw redistricting plans
when legislatures do not, often have adopted criteria for the parties to
follow in submitting proposed plans to the court. These criteria are not
required by the federal constitution, and have not been used to justify
exceeding the ten-percent standard, but they have helped the three-judge
courts to show the Supreme Court that they were fair in adopting their
plans. These criteria often have included:
The Supreme Court has begun to refer to these criteria (including respecting the boundaries of political subdivisions) as "traditional districting principles." See, e.g., Shaw v. Reno, 509 U.S. 630, ___ (1993) (slip op. at 6-17); Miller v. Johnson, 115 S. Ct. 2475, 2489-90 (1995); Shaw v. Hunt, 116 S. Ct. 1894, ____ (1996) (slip. op. at 6); Bush v. Vera, 116 S. Ct. 1941, ____ (1996) (slip op. at 2-23); Abrams v. Johnson, 65 U.S.L.W. 4478, ____ (June 19, 1997) (slip op. at 8-12, 16).
III. Don't Discriminate Against Racial or Language Minorities
In a democracy, "power to the people" means the power to vote. Section
2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, coded as amended at 42
U.S.C. 1973, attempts to secure this political power for racial and
language minorities by prohibiting states and political subdivisions from
imposing or applying voting qualifications; prerequisites to voting; or
standards, practices, or procedures to deny or abridge the right to vote
on account of race or color or because a person is a member of a language
minority group.
Section 2
has been used to attack reapportionment and redistricting plans on the
ground that they discriminated against Blacks or Hispanics and abridged
their right to vote by diluting the voting strength of their population
in the state.
Until the United States Supreme Court case of City
of Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U.S. 55, in 1980, the courts generally
considered whether a particular redistricting plan had the effect
of diluting the voting strength of the Black population. In Bolden,
Black residents of Mobile, Alabama, charged that the city's practice of
electing commissioners at large diluted minority voting strength. The Supreme
Court, however, refused to throw out the at-large plan. The Court interpreted
section 2 as applying only to actions intended to discriminate against
Blacks, and since the plaintiffs had failed to prove that it was adopted
with an intent to discriminate against Blacks, the Court concluded
that the plan did not violate section 2.
Congress quickly rejected the Court's interpretation by amending section 2. Pub.L. No. 97-205, 3, June 29, 1982, 96 Stat. 134. As enacted, it had prohibited conduct "to deny or abridge" the rights of racial and language minorities. 42 U.S.C. 1973 (1981). The 1982 amendments changed that to prohibit conduct "which results in a denial or abridgement" of those rights. 42 U.S.C. 1973. Congress also decided to codify the pre-Bolden case law by adding:
A violation of [section 2] is established if, based on the totality of the circumstances, it is shown that the political processes leading to nomination or election in the State or political subdivision are not equally open to participation by members of a class of citizens protected by [section 2] in that its members have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice. The extent to which members of a protected class have been elected to office in the State or political subdivision is one circumstance which may be considered: Provided, That nothing in this section establishes a right to have members of a protected class elected in numbers equal to their proportion in the population.42 U.S.C. 1973 (b).
1) that the minority is sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a majority in a single-member district;478 U.S. at 50-51.2) that it is politically cohesive; and
3) that, in the absence of special circumstances, bloc voting by the white majority usually defeats the minority's preferred candidate.
The Court has since held that the three preconditions also apply to section 2 challenges to single-member districts. Growe v. Emison, 507 U.S. 25, 40-41 (1993).
1) the extent of the history of official discrimination touching on
the class participation in the democratic process;
2) racially polarized voting;
3) the extent to which the State or political subdivision has used unusually
large election districts, majority vote requirements, antisingle-shot provisions,
or other voting practices that enhance the opportunity for discrimination;
4) denial of access to the candidate slating process for members of
the class;
5) the extent to which the members of the minority group bear the effects
of discrimination in areas like education, employment, and health, which
hinder effective participation;
6) whether political campaigns have been characterized by racial appeals;
7) the extent to which members of the protected class have been elected;
8) whether there is a significant lack of responsiveness by elected
officials to the particularized needs of the group; and
9) whether the policy underlying the use of the voting qualification,
standard, practice, or procedure is tenuous.
478
U.S. at 36-37.
In Gingles, Court threw out all of the challenged multimember districts, except one where Black candidates had sometimes managed to get elected.
Under section
2, that depends on "the totality of the circumstances." In other words,
there is no fixed rule that applies to all cases.
The Supreme Court, in the case of United Jewish Organizations of
Williamsburgh, Inc. v. Carey, 430
U.S. 144, 164 (1977), upheld a determination by the Justice Department
that a 65 percent nonwhite population majority was required to achieve
a nonwhite majority of eligible voters in certain legislative districts
in New York City.
The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, in the case of Ketchum v. Byrne, 740 F.2d 1398 (1984), endorsed the use of a 65 percent Black population majority to achieve an effective voting majority in the absence of empirical evidence that some other figure was more appropriate.
Ketchum involved the redistricting of city council wards in the city of Chicago after the 1980 census. The Court of Appeals found that "minority groups generally have a younger population and, consequently, a larger proportion of individuals who are ineligible to vote," and that therefore, voting age population was a more appropriate measure of their voting strength than was total population. Further, because the voting age population of Blacks usually has lower rates of voter registration and voter turn-out, the district court should have considered the use of a super-majority, such as 65 percent of total population or 60 percent of voting age population when attempting to draw districts the Blacks could win. The Court of Appeals noted that:
[J]udicial experience can provide a reliable guide to action where empirical data is ambiguous or not determinative and that a guideline of 65% of total population (or its equivalent) has achieved general acceptance in redistricting jurisprudence.Id. at 1415.
. . . This figure is derived by augmenting a simple majority with an additional 5% for young population, 5% for low voter registration and 5% for low voter turn-out . . . .
But the Court of Appeals in Ketchum also noted that "The 65%
figure . . . should be reconsidered regularly to reflect new information
and new statistical data," id. at 1416. In redistricting following
the 1990 census, several courts found that, in view of rising rates of
voter registration and voter participation among minority groups, a minority
voting age population of slightly more than 50 percent was sufficient to
provide an effective voting majority.
The Seventh Circuit in Ketchum warned that "provision of majorities
exceeding 65%-70% may result in packing." Id. at 1418. But the Court
of Appeals for the First Circuit upheld a redistricting plan for the city
of Boston where, of two districts where Blacks were a majority, one district
had a Black population of 82.1 percent. Latino Political Action Committee
v. City of Boston, 784 F.2d 409 (1st Cir. 1986). The Court found that
this packing of Black voters did not discriminate against Blacks because
there was only a moderate degree of racial polarization. As the Court said,
"[T]he less cohesive the bloc, the more "packing" needed
to assure . . . a Black representative (though, of course, the less polarized
the voting, the less the need to seek that assurance.)" Id. at 414.
And, the Black population was so distributed that, even if fewer Blacks
were put into these two districts, there were not enough Blacks to create
a third district with an effective Black majority. Id.
So, if you face a charge of a section 2 violation, you had better be prepared with empirical data show what is "reasonable and fair" under "the totality of the circumstances," because your plan may be invalidated for putting either too few or too many members of a minority group into a given district.
In the 1990s round of redistricting, the natural desire of some minority groups to be grouped together in districts they could win coincided with the desire of some plan drafters to pack them. Since African-Americans and Hispanics have tended to vote Democratic, Republican plan drafters were more than willing to accommodate their desire to have districts drawn for them. When new redistricting plans were drawn in preparation for the 1991 and 1992 elections, the Justice Department was controlled by Republicans. As states like North Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas presented their plans to the Justice Department for approval, the Justice Department insisted that they create additional majority-minority districts wherever the minority populations could be found to create them. This insistence was not limited by any concern that the districts be "geographically compact." The States' plans were first denied preclearance and then, after majority-minority districts were added, the plans were precleared. These plans have now all been struck down by the courts. Shaw v. Hunt, 116 S. Ct. 1894 (1996); Johnson v. Miller, 864 F. Supp. 1354 (S.D. Ga. 1994), aff'd sub nom. Miller v. Johnson, 115 S. Ct. 2475 (1995); Hays v. Louisiana, 936 F. Supp. 360 (W.D. La. 1996); Vera v. Richards, 861 F. Supp. 1304 (S.D. Tex. 1994), aff'd sub nom. Bush v. Vera, 116 S. Ct. 1941 (1996).
The 12th Congressional District in North Carolina was one of the most
egregious racial gerrymanders ever drawn. You've all heard about it. The
"I-85" district, stretching 160 miles across the State, for much of its
length no wider than the freeway, but reaching out to pick up pockets of
African-Americans all along the way. It was first attacked in federal district
court as a partisan political gerrymander. That attack failed. Pope
v. Blue, 809 F. Supp. 392 (W.D. N.C. 1992). The district court's dismissal
of the action was summarily affirmed by the Supreme Court. 113 S. Ct. 30
(1992).
The second time, the plan was attacked as a racial gerrymander. That
attack also failed in the district court, Shaw v. Barr, 809 F. Supp.
392 (W.D. N.C. 1992), but the legal theory on which the attack was based
was endorsed by the Supreme Court. Shaw
v. Reno, 509 U.S. 630 (1993). The Supreme Court did not actually
rule that the plan was invalid. It only ruled that a racial gerrymander
may, in some circumstances, violate the Equal
Protection Clause. The case was remanded to the district court to determine
whether the districts had been drawn on the basis of race and, if so, whether
the racial gerrymander that resulted was "narrowly tailored to further
a compelling governmental interest." 509 U.S. 630, ____ (slip
op. at 26).
The five-to-four majority opined that "reapportionment is one area in which appearances do matter." 509 U.S. 630, ____ (slip op. at 15.) As Justice O'Connor said in her opinion for the Court:
A reapportionment plan that includes in one district individuals who belong to the same race, but who are otherwise widely separated by geographical and political boundaries, and who may have little in common with one another but the color of their skin, bears an uncomfortable resemblance to political apartheid. It reinforces the perception that members of the same racial group--regardless of their age, education, economic status, or the community in which they live--think alike, share the same political interests, and will prefer the same candidates at the polls . . . . By perpetuating such notions, a racial gerrymander may exacerbate the very patterns of racial bloc voting that majority-minority districting is sometimes said to counteract.509 U.S. 630, ____ (slip op. at 15-16)
The Court said that a redistricting plan that is so bizarre on its face
that it is unexplainable on grounds other than race demands the same strict
scrutiny given to other state laws that classify citizens by race. 509
U.S. 630, ____ (slip op. at 12).
The Court did not say that race-based redistricting is always unconstitutional. The Court recognized that:
[R]edistricting differs from other kinds of state decisionmaking in that the legislature is always aware of race when it draws district lines, just as it is aware of age, economic status, religious and political persuasion, and a variety of other demographic factors. That sort of race consciousness does not lead inevitably to impermissible race discrimination. . . . [W]hen members of a racial group live together in one community, a reapportionment plan that concentrates members of the group in one district and excludes them from others may reflect wholly legitimate purposes. The district lines may be drawn, for example, to provide for compact districts of contiguous territory, or to maintain the integrity of political subdivisions.509 U.S. 630, ____ (slip op. at 14)
But, when a state concentrates a dispersed minority population in a
single district by disregarding "traditional districting principles such
as compactness, contiguity, and respect for political subdivisions" the
state is drawing a racial gerrymander that is subject to strict scrutiny.
509 U.S. 630, ____ (slip
op. at 15).
.
To survive strict scrutiny, a racial classification must be narrowly
tailored to serve a compelling governmental interest. The Court acknowledged
that eradicating the effects of past racial discrimination was a compelling
governmental interest. But the Court warned that the State must have "a
strong basis in evidence for concluding that remedial action is necessary,"
509 U.S. 630, ____ (slip
op. at 24), and that "race-based districting, as a response to racially
polarized voting, is constitutionally permissible only when the State employs
sound districting principles, and only when the affected racial group's
residential patterns afford the opportunity of creating districts in which
they will be in the majority." 509 U.S. 630, ____ (slip
op. at 25) (internal citations and quotations omitted). The Court anticipated
that the State might assert on remand that complying with section
5 of the Voting Rights Act was a compelling governmental interest that
justified the creation of District 12. But the Court warned that "A reapportionment
plan would not be narrowly tailored to the goal of avoiding retrogression
if the State went beyond what was reasonably necessary to avoid retrogression."
509 U.S. 630, ____ (slip
op. at 23). The Court also noted that the State had asserted that the
race-based district was necessary to comply with section
2 of the Voting Rights Act, but left the arguments on that question
open for consideration on remand. 509 U.S. 630, ____ (slip
op. at 23-24).
On remand, the federal district court in North Carolina found that the
Legislature had intentionally drawn the plan to create two districts where
Blacks were an effective voting majority. Shaw v. Hunt, 861 F. Supp.
408, 473-74. The Court then applied strict scrutiny to the plan and found
that it was narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling state interest. Eradicating
the effects of past racial discrimination was not a compelling state interest
in this case, because that was not actually the reason the State created
District 12. But complying with section
5 and section
2 of the Voting Rights Act were compelling state interests, and the
district court found the plan was necessary to comply with both of those
sections.
On the plan's third trip to the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court reversed
the district court for a second time. Shaw
v. Hunt, 116 S. Ct. 1894 (1996). In an opinion by Chief Justice
Rehnquist, the Supreme Court again assumed without deciding that complying
with section
5 and section
2was a compelling state interest, but found that the plan was not narrowly
tailored to serve that interest.
North Carolina had not previously had any Black-majority districts.
The first plan drawn by the State had included one Black-majority district.
A second Black-majority district was not necessary in order to avoid retrogression
under section
5. 116
S. Ct. at 1904.
To make out a violation of section 2, a plaintiff must show that a minority population is "sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a majority in a single member district." The Court noted that District 12 had been called "the least geographically compact district in the Nation." 116 S. Ct. at 1901. There may have been a place in North Carolina where a geographically compact minority population existed, but the shape of District 12 showed that District 12 was not that place. Since District 12 did not encompass any "geographically compact" minority population, there was no legal wrong for which it could be said to provide the remedy. 116 S. Ct. 1906.
In Georgia, the Court was faced with a congressional district that, while perhaps uncouth, was "not among those on a statistically calculated list of the 28 most bizarre districts in the United States." Miller v. Johnson, 115 S. Ct. 2475, 2504 (1995) (Ginsburg, J., dissenting).
Georgia's 11th Congressional District stretched from Atlanta to the
sea, but not in the 60-mile-wide swath cleared by General Sherman. Rather,
it began with a small pocket of Blacks in Atlanta, spread out to pick up
the sparsely populated rural areas, and narrowed considerably to pick up
more pockets of Blacks in Augusta and Savannah, 260 miles away. 115
S. Ct. at 2484. It had not been included in either of the first two
plans enacted by the Legislature and sent to the Department of Justice
for preclearance. Both of those plans had included two Black-majority districts.
The Justice Department had rejected them for failure to create a third.
This rejection had occurred notwithstanding that the 1980 plan had included
only one Black-majority district and that there was no evidence the Georgia
Legislature had intended to discriminate against Blacks in drawing the
1990 plan. The new district was drawn to meet the Department's requirement
that the State maximize the number of Black-majority districts, and it's
inclusion in the third plan was sufficient to obtain preclearance from
the Justice Department. 115
S. Ct. at 2483-84.
In Miller
v. Johnson, 115 S. Ct. 2475 (1995), the Supreme Court shifted its
focus away from the shape of the district, saying that plaintiffs challenging
a racial gerrymander need not prove that a district has a bizarre shape.
The shape of the district is relevant, not because bizarreness is a necessary
element of the constitutional wrong, but because it may be persuasive circumstantial
evidence that race was the Legislature's dominant motive in drawing district
lines. Where district lines are not so bizarre, plaintiffs may rely on
other evidence to establish race-based redistricting. 115
S. Ct. at 2486.
In Georgia's case, the Legislature's correspondence with the Justice
Department throughout the preclearance process demonstrated that race was
the dominant factor the Legislature considered when drawing the 11th District.
The Court found that the Legislature had considered "traditional race-neutral
districting principles," such as compactness, contiguity, and respect for
political subdivisions and communities of interest, but that those principles
had been subordinated to race in order to give the 11th District a Black
majority. 115
S. Ct. at 2489-90.
Since the district had been proved to be a racial gerrymander, it was
subject to strict scrutiny. It could be sustained only if narrowly tailored
to achieve a compelling state interest. Assuming that complying with the
Voting Rights Act might be considered a compelling state interest, the
Court found that drawing a third Black-majority district was not necessary
to comply with section
5's nonretrogression requirement. The plan for the previous decade
had included only one Black-majority district. The two previous plans enacted
by the Georgia Legislature after the 1990 census had included two Black-majority
districts, thus improving on the status quo. Without evidence that the
Georgia Legislature had enacted the plans with an intent to discriminate
against Blacks, and without any other evidence that the plans had a discriminatory
effect, the plans were sufficient to comply with section
2. Adding a third Black-majority district was not necessary and thus
not narrowly tailored to achieve the State's interest in complying with
the Voting Rights Act. 115
S. Ct. at 2490-94.
On remand, the federal district court first allowed the Georgia Legislature
an opportunity to draw a new plan. When the Legislature failed to agree
on a plan, the district court found that Georgia's Second Congressional
District was also an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. Johnson v.
Miller, 922 F. Supp. 1552 (S.D. Ga., Dec. 1, 1995). The district court
reasoned that, since the enacted plan was the product of improper pressure
imposed by the Justice Department, it did not embody the Legislature's
own policy choices and therefore should not be used as the basis for the
court's remedial plan. The district court then imposed an entirely new
plan with only one African-American majority district. Johnson v. Miller,
922 F. Supp. 1556 (S.D. Ga., Dec. 13, 1995). The court's plan was used
for the 1996 election, but the district court's decision was appealed to
the Supreme Court on the ground that the court failed to give due deference
to the Legislature's policy choices.
The Supreme Court affirmed. Abrams v. Johnson, 65 U.S.L.W. 4478 (June 19, 1997) (No. 95-1425). It found that neither the Legislature's 1991 plan, rejected by the Justice Department because it contained only two Black-majority districts, nor the 1992 plan, with three Black-majority districts, embodied the Legislature's own policy choices because of the improper pressure imposed by the Justice Department. It found the district court was within its discretion in deciding it could not draw two Black-majority districts without engaging in racial gerrymandering. Since the last valid plan, the 1982 plan, contained only one Black-majority district, the district court's one-district plan did not retrogress in violation of section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.
| Congressional District 30 | Congressional District 18 | Congressional District 29 |
 |
 |
 |
The Justice Department precleared the plan under section
5 of the Voting Rights Act and it was used in the 1992 election.
Plaintiffs challenged 24 of the State's 30 congressional districts as
racial gerrymanders. The federal district court struck down three, Districts
18, 29, and 30, Vera v. Richards, 861 F. Supp. 1304 (S.D. Tex. 1994),
but the decision was stayed pending appeal, so the plan continued in use
for the 1994 election.
In June of 1996, the Supreme Court affirmed the district court's decision
throwing out those three districts. Bush
v. Vera, 116 S. Ct. 1941 (U.S. 1996). The Court, in a plurality
opinion written by Justice O'Connor, found that the plan was subject to
strict scrutiny. She repeated what the Court had said in Shaw
v. Reno, 509 U.S. 630 (1993), that strict scrutiny does not apply
merely because redistricting is performed with consciousness of race. She
added that strict scrutiny does not apply in all cases of intentional creation
of majority-minority districts, such as the compact districts created by
a state court in California. But strict scrutiny does apply where race
was the predominant factor in drawing district lines and traditional, race-neutral
districting principles were subordinated to race. 116
S. Ct. at 1951.
The State argued that the bizarre shape of District 30 in Dallas County
was explained by the drafters' desire to unite urban communities of interest
and that the bizarre shape of all three districts was attributable to the
Legislature's efforts to protect incumbents of old districts while designing
the new ones. The Supreme Court upheld the district court's finding to
the contrary, holding that race was the predominant factor. 116
S. Ct. at 1959-60.
The Court again assumed without deciding that complying with section
2 of the Voting Rights Act was a compelling state interest, 116
S. Ct. 1960, but found that the districts were not narrowly tailored
to comply with section
2 because all three districts were bizarrely shaped and far from compact
as a result of racial manipulation. To the extent there was political manipulation,
race was used as a proxy for political affiliation. It was race that predominated.
116
S. Ct. at 1961.
Justice O'Connor further noted that:
[B]izarre shape and noncompactness cause constitutional harm insofar as they convey the message that political identity is, or should be, predominantly racial. . . . [C]utting across pre-existing precinct lines and other natural or traditional divisions, is not merely evidentially significant; it is part of the constitutional problem insofar as it disrupts nonracial bases of identity and thus intensifies the emphasis on race.116 S. Ct. at 1962.
The court pointed out that, if the minority population is not sufficiently
compact to draw a compact district, there is no violation of section
2; if the minority population is sufficiently compact to draw a compact
district, nothing in section
2 requires the creation of a race-based district that is far from compact.
116
S. Ct. at 1961.
How compact must a race-based district be? Reasonably compact.
A 2 district that is reasonably compact and regular, taking into account traditional districting principles such as maintaining communities of interest and traditional boundaries, may pass strict scrutiny without having to defeat rival compact districts designed by plaintiffs' experts in endless "beauty contests."116 S. Ct. at 1960.
The Court found that the district lines were not justified as an attempt
to remedy the effects of past discrimination since there was no evidence
of present discrimination other than racially polarized voting. Since racially
polarized voting only served to make a case for a violation of section
2, and the plan was not narrowly tailored to remedy a section
2 violation, the bizarre shapes were not justified.
The Court found that creation of District 18, the reconfigured African-American district in the Houston area, was not justified as an attempt to avoid retrogression under section 5, since it actually increased the African-American voting population from 40.8 percent to 50.9 percent.
The federal district court in Florida had deferred action on a challenge to the Third Congressional District pending the Supreme Court's decision in the Georgia case. Johnson v. Smith, 1994 WL 907596 (N.D. Fla. Jul. 18, 1994). Following the decision, the Florida court found that the Third District was drawn for predominantly race-based reasons and therefore subject to strict scrutiny. Johnson v. Mortham, 915 F. Supp. 1529 (N.D. Fla. 1995). Applying strict scrutiny, the court found that the State did not have a compelling interest in drawing a race-based plan. The African-American population in the district was not sufficiently compact to make out a violation of section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, nor was there sufficient evidence of present discrimination to provide a "strong basis in evidence" that a race-based district was needed to remedy the effects of past discrimination. Johnson v. Mortham, 926 F. Supp. 1460 (N.D. Fla. Apr. 17, 1996).
Following the Supreme Court's decision in Shaw
v. Reno, 509 U.S. 630 (1993), plaintiffs in Illinois attacked the
"ear muff" Fourth Congressional District in Chicago. The district had been
drawn by a federal district court to create an Hispanic-voting-majority
district without diminishing the African-American voting strength in three
adjacent districts with African-American majorities. When forced to review
the prior decision in the light of Shaw I and Miller, another
panel of the district court found that the compactness requirement of Gingles
applied
only in determining whether a section
2 violation had occurred, not in drawing a district to remedy the violation.
It found that the ear muff shape was necessary in order to provide Hispanics
with the representation that their population warranted without causing
retrogression in African-American representation. It held that the Fourth
District survived strict scrutiny. King v. State Board of Elections,
No. 95 C 827, 1996 WL 130439 (N.D. Ill. Mar 15, 1996).
Plaintiffs appealed. The Supreme Court vacated the judgment and remanded to the district court for further consideration in light of its decisions in the North Carolina and Texas congressional district cases. King v. Illinois Board of Elections, 1996 WL 442640 (U.S., Nov 12, 1996) (No. 96-146).
Section 2
of the Voting Rights Act included a proviso, added through the efforts
of Senator Dole in 1982, that "nothing in this section establishes a right
to have members of a protected class elected in numbers equal to their
proportion in the population." 42
U.S.C. 1973 (b). In other words, section 2 did not mandate proportional
representation. So, how could it be construed by the Justice Department
to require that a minority group be given the maximum number of
elected representatives?
In Johnson
v. DeGrandy, 114 S. Ct. 2647 (1994), the Supreme Court found that
it could not be so construed. The Florida Legislature had drawn a House
plan that created nine districts in Dade County (Miami) where Hispanics
had an effective voting majority. Miguel DeGrandy and the Justice Department
attacked the plan in federal court, alleging that the Hispanic population
in Dade County was sufficient to create 11 House districts where Hispanics
would have an effective voting majority. The district court agreed, imposing
its own plan (based on one submitted by DeGrandy) that created 11 Hispanic
districts. The Supreme Court reversed, saying that maximizing the number
of majority-minority districts was not required. As Justice Souter said
in his opinion for the Court, "Failure to maximize cannot be the measure
of 2." 114
S. Ct. at 2660. Indeed, even a failure to achieve proportionality does
not, by itself, constitute a violation of section
2. 114
S. Ct. at 2656-57.
The nine districts provided for in the Legislature's plan were roughly
proportional to the number of Hispanics in Dade County's voting-age population.
But the Court refused to draw a bright line giving plan drafters a safe
harbor if they created minority districts in proportion to the minority
population. That, the Court said, would ignore the clear command of the
statute that the question of whether minority voters have been given an
equal opportunity to elect representatives of their choice must be decided
based on "the totality of the circumstances," rather than on any single
test. It would encourage drafters to draw majority-minority districts to
achieve proportionality even when they were not otherwise necessary, and
would foreclose consideration of possible fragmentation of minority populations
among other districts where they were not given a majority. 114 S. Ct.
at 2660-61. However, after reviewing the totality of circumstances in the
Dade County area and not finding evidence that the plan discriminated against
Hispanics in other ways, the Supreme Court concluded that affording Hispanics
a proportional number of districts was sufficient in this case to provide
them with an equal opportunity to elect representatives of their choice.
114
S. Ct. at 2658-59.
In the Georgia congressional redistricting case, Miller v. Johnson, 115 S. Ct. 2475 (1995), the Supreme Court scolded the Justice Department for having pursued its policy of maximizing the number of majority-minority districts. As the Court said:
Although the Government now disavows having had that policy . . . and seems to concede its impropriety . . . the District Court's well-documented factual finding was that the Department did adopt a maximization policy and followed it in objecting to Georgia's first two plans . . . . In utilizing 5 to require States to create majority-minority districts wherever possible, the Department of Justice expanded its authority under the statute beyond what Congress intended and we have upheld.115 S. Ct. at 2492-93.
Beer was a challenge to the 1971 redistricting of the city council
seats for the city of New Orleans. Since 1954, two of the seven council
members had been elected at large; five others had been elected from single-member
wards last redrawn in 1961. Even though Blacks were 45 percent of the population
and 35 percent of the registered voters in the city as a whole, Blacks
were not a majority of the registered voters in any of the wards, and were
a majority of the population in only one ward. No ward had ever elected
a council member who was Black. Under the 1971 redistricting plan, one
ward was created where Blacks were a majority of both the population and
of the registered voters, and one ward was created where Blacks were a
majority of the population but a minority of the registered voters. The
Supreme Court held that the plan was entitled to preclearance since it
enhanced,
rather than diminished, Blacks' electoral power.
To defend against a charge that your plan will make members of a racial
or language minority group worse off than they were before, you will want
to have at least a ten-year history of the success of the minority at electing
representatives.
In 1987, the Justice Department announced that, notwithstanding the
retrogression test employed by the courts when considering preclearance
under section
5, the Justice Department would apply the stricter standards of section
2 when deciding whether to preclear a plan under section
5. Supplemental Information, 52 Fed. Reg. 487 (1987). This practice
too has now been discredited by the Supreme Court. See Reno
v. Bossier Parish School Bd., (U.S., May 12, 1997) (No. 95-1455).
The Bossier Parish (Louisiana) School Board had redrawn its 12 single-member
districts following the 1990 census, using the same plan already precleared
for use by its governing body. In doing so, it rejected a plan proposed
by the NAACP that would have created two majority-Black districts. The
Justice Department refused to grant preclearance on the ground that the
NAACP plan demonstrated that Black residents could have been given more
opportunity to elect candidates of their choice and that therefore their
voting strength was diluted in violation of section
2. The Supreme Court rejected this argument, saying that preclearance
under section
5may not be denied solely on the basis that a covered jurisdiction's
new voting "standard, practice, or procedure" violates section
2. The Court pointed out that sections 2 and 5 were designed to combat
two different evils, and that section
5 was only directed at effects that are retrogressive.
Even though your plan doesn't make racial or language minorities any worse off than they were before, and therefore gets precleared by the Justice Department, don't think that you are immune from a challenge under section 2. The Justice Department made it clear in 1987 that "Section 5 preclearance will not immunize any change from later challenge by the United States under amended Section 2." Supplemental Information, 52 Fed. Reg. 487 (1987). After Bossier Parish, a subsequent attack by the Justice Department against a precleared plan seems even more likely.
IV. Don't Go Overboard with Gerrymandering
Modern technology, while making it practicable to draw districts that
are mathematically equal, has also allowed the majority to draw districts
that pack and fracture the partisan minority in such a way as to minimize
the possibility of their ever becoming a majority.
While the federal courts have not yet developed criteria for judging
whether a gerrymandered redistricting plan is so unfair as to deny a partisan
minority the equal protection of the laws, the Supreme Court has held,
in Davis
v. Bandemer, 478 U.S. 109 (1986), that partisan gerrymandering
is a justiciable issue. What this means is that you must be prepared to
defend an action in federal court challenging your redistricting plans
on the ground that they unconstitutionally discriminate against the partisan
minority.
Davis v. Bandemer involved a legislative redistricting plan adopted by the Indiana Legislature in 1981. Republicans controlled both houses. Before the 1982 election, several Indiana Democrats attacked the plan in federal court for denying them, as Democrats, the equal protection of the laws.
The plan had an overall range of 1.15 percent for the Senate districts
and 1.05 percent for the House districts, well within equal-population
requirements. The plan's treatment of racial and language minorities met
the no-retrogression test of the Voting Rights Act.
The Senate was all single-member districts, but the House included 9
double-member districts and 7 triple-member districts, in addition to 61
that were single-member. The lower court found the multimember districts
were "suspect in terms of compactness." Many of the districts were "unwieldy
shapes." County and city lines were not consistently followed, although
township lines generally were. Various House districts combined urban and
suburban or rural voters with dissimilar interests. Democrats were packed
into districts with large Democratic majorities, and fractured into districts
where Republicans had a safe but not excessive majority. The Speaker of
the House testified that the purpose of the multimember districts was "to
save as many incumbent Republicans as possible."
At the 1982 election, held under the challenged plan, Democratic candidates
for the Senate received 53.1 percent of the vote statewide and won 13 of
the 25 seats up for election. (Twenty-five other Senate seats were not
up for election.) Democratic candidates for the House received 51.9 percent
of the vote statewide, but won only 43 of 100 seats. In two groups of multimember
House districts, Democratic candidates received 46.6 percent of the vote,
but won only 3 of 21 seats.
The Supreme Court, in an opinion by Justice White, held that the issue of fair representation for Indiana Democrats was justiciable, but that the Democrats had failed to prove that the plan denied them fair representation. The Court denied that the Constitution "requires proportional representation or that legislatures in reapportioning must draw district lines to come as near as possible to allocating seats to the contending parties in proportion to what their anticipated statewide vote will be," since, if the vote in all districts were proportional to the vote statewide, the minority would win no seats at all. Further, if districts were drawn to give each party its proportional share of safe seats, the minority in each district would go unrepresented. Justice White concluded that:
[A] group's electoral power is not unconstitutionally diminished by the simple fact of an apportionment scheme that makes winning elections more difficult, and a failure of proportional representation alone does not constitute impermissible discrimination under the Equal Protection Clause.478 U.S. at 132-33.. . . Rather, unconstitutional discrimination occurs only when the electoral system is arranged in a manner that will consistently degrade a voter's or a group of voters' influence on the political process as a whole. (Emphasis added.)
. . . Such a finding of unconstitutionality must be supported by evidence of continued frustration of the will of a majority of the voters or effective denial to a minority of voters of a fair chance to influence the political process.
Merely showing that the minority is likely to lose elections held under the plan is not enough. As the Court pointed out, "the power to influence the political process is not limited to winning elections. . . . We cannot presume . . . , without actual proof to the contrary, that the candidate elected will entirely ignore the interests of those voters [who did not vote for him or her]." 478 U.S. at 132.
When California Republicans attacked the partisan gerrymander enacted by the Democratic legislature to govern congressional redistricting, the Supreme Court summarily affirmed the decision of a three-judge court dismissing the suit on the ground that the Republicans had failed to show that they had been denied a fair chance to influence the political process. Badham v. March Fong Eu, 694 F. Supp. 664 (N.D. Cal. 1988), aff'd, 109 S. Ct. 829 (1989). As the lower court said:
Specifically, there are no factual allegations regarding California Republicans' role in 'the political process as a whole.' [citation omitted] There are no allegations that California Republicans have been 'shut out' of the political process, nor are there allegations that anyone has ever interfered with Republican registration, organizing, voting, fundraising, or campaigning. Republicans remain free to speak out on issues of public concern; plaintiffs do not allege that there are, or have ever been, any impediments to their full participation in the 'uninhibited, robust, and wide-open' public debate on which our political system relies. [citation omitted]694 F. Supp. at 670.
Further, the Court took judicial notice that Republicans held 40 percent of the congressional seats and had a Republican governor and United States senator.
Given also the fact that a recent former Republican governor of California has for seven years been President of the United States, we see the fulcrum of political power to be such as to belie any attempt of plaintiffs to claim that they are bereft of the ability to exercise potent power in 'the political process as a whole' because of the paralysis of an unfair gerrymander.694 F. Supp. at 672.
During the 1990s, the Virginia state house plan and the North Carolina
congressional plan were attacked as partisan political gerrymanders, but
both attacks failed. Republican Party of Virginia v. Wilder, 774
F. Supp. 400 (W.D. Va. 1991); Pope v. Blue, 809 F. Supp. 392 (W.D.
N.C. 1992).
In a democracy, the majority does not need to have the leaders of the
opposition shot, or jailed, or banished from the country, or even silenced.
They do not need to shut the minority out of the political process--they
simply out vote them.
If the members of the majority party in your State are prepared to let
the minority party participate fully in the process of drawing redistricting
plans, and simply out vote them when necessary, your State should be prepared
to withstand a challenge that the plans unconstitutionally discriminate
against the partisan minority.
So long as you don't go overboard, you may continue to gerrymander and
still have your redistricting plans stand up in court.
Cases:
Abrams
v. Johnson, 65 U.S.L.W. 4478 (June 19, 1997) (No. 95-1425)
Anne Arundel County Republican Cent. Committee v. State Administrative
Bd. of Election Laws, 781 F. Supp. 394 (D. Md. 1991)
Bacon v. Carlin, 575 F. Supp. 763 (D. Kan. 1983), aff'd
466 U.S. 966 (1984)
Badham v. March Fong Eu, 694 F. Supp. 664 (N.D. Cal. 1988), aff'd,
109 S. Ct. 829 (1989)
Beer
v. United States, 425 U.S. 130 (1976)
Board
of Estimate v. Morris, 489 U.S. 688 (1989)
Brown
v. Thomson, 462 U.S. 835 (1983)
Burns
v. Richardson, 384 U.S. 73 (1966)
Bush
v. Vera, 116 S. Ct. 1941 (1996)
Carstens v. Lamm, 543 F. Supp. 68 (D. Colo. 1982)
Chapman
v. Meier, 420 U.S. 1 (1975)
Citizens Committee for Fair Congressional Redistricting, Inc. v.
Tawes, 253 F. Supp. 731 (D. Md. 1966) aff'd sub nom. Alton
v. Tawes, 384 U.S. 315 (1966)
City
of Lockhart v. U.S., 460 U.S. 125 (1985)
City
of Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U.S. 55 (1980)
Connor
v. Finch, 431 U.S. 407 (1977)
David v. Cahill, 342 F. Supp. 463 (D. N.J. 1972
Davis
v. Bandemer, 478 U.S. 109 (1986)
Dunnell v. Austin, 344 F. Supp. 210 (E.D. Mich. 1972)
Franklin
v. Massachusetts, 505 U.S. 788 (1992)
Gaffney
v. Cummings, 412 U.S. 735 (1973)
Garza v. County of Los Angeles, No. CV 88-5143 KN (Ex) (C.D.
Cal. June 4, 1990)
Growe
v. Emison, 507 U.S. 25 (1993)
Hays v. Louisiana, 936 F. Supp. 360 (W.D. La. 1996)
Johnson
v. DeGrandy, 114 S. Ct. 2647 (1994)
Johnson v. Miller, 864 F. Supp. 1354 (S.D. Ga. 1994), aff'd
sub nom. Miller
v. Johnson, 115 S. Ct. 2475 (1995)
Johnson v. Mortham, 915 F. Supp. 1529 (N.D. Fla. 1995)
Johnson v. Smith, 1994 WL 907596 (N.D. Fla. Jul. 18, 1994)
Karcher
v. Daggett, 462 U.S. 725 (1983)
Ketchum v. Byrne, 740 F.2d 1398 (1984)
King v. State Board of Elections, No. 95 C 827, 1996 WL 130439
(N.D.
Ill. Mar 15, 1996), vacated sub nom. King v. Illinois Board of Elections,
1996 WL 442640, 65 U.S.L.W. 3086 (Nov. 12, 1996) (No. 96-146) (mem.)
LaComb v. Growe, 541 F. Supp. 145 (D. Minn. 1982) aff'd sub
nom. Orwoll v. LaComb, 456 U.S. 966 (1982)
Latino Political Action Committee v. City of Boston, 784 F.2d
409 (1st Cir. 1986)
Mahan
v. Howell, 410 U.S. 315 (1973)
McGovern v. Connolly, 637 F. Supp. 111 (D. Mass 1986)
Miller
v. Johnson, 115 S. Ct. 2475 (1995), on remand sub nom. Johnson
v. Miller, 922 F. Supp. 1552 (S.D. Ga. 1995), aff'd sub nom. Abrams
v. Johnson, 65 U.S.L.W. 4478 (June 19, 1997) (No. 95-1425)
Pope v. Blue, 809 F. Supp. 392 (W.D. N.C. 1992), aff'd 113
S. Ct. 30 (1992) (mem.)
Preisler v. Secretary of State, 341 F. Supp. 1158 (W.D. Mo. 1972)
Reno
v. Bossier Parish School Bd., (U.S., May 12, 1997) (No. 95-1455)
Republican Party of Virginia v. Wilder, 774 F. Supp. 400 (W.D.
Va. 1991)
Reynolds
v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533 (1964)
Shaw
v. Hunt, 116 S. Ct. 1894 (1996)
Shaw
v. Reno, 509 U.S. 630 (1993)
Shayer v. Kirkpatrick, 541 F. Supp. 922 (W.D. Mo. 1982) aff'd
sub nom. Schatzle v. Kirkpatrick, 456 U.S. 966 (1982)
Skolnick v. State Electoral Board, 336 F. Supp. 839 (N.D. Ill.
1971)
South Carolina State Conference of Branches of the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People v. Riley, 533 F. Supp 1178 (D.
S.C. 1982)
Stone v. Hechler, 782 F. Supp. 1116 (W.D. W.Va. 1992)
Thornburg
v. Gingles, 478 U.S. 30 (1986)
Turner v. Arkansas, 784 F. Supp. 553 (E.D. Ark. 1991)
U.S.
Dept. of Commerce v. Montana, 503 U.S. 442 (1992)
United
Jewish Organizations of Williamsburgh, Inc. v. Carey, 430 U.S.
144 (1977)
Vera v. Richards, 861 F. Supp. 1304 (S.D. Tex. 1994), aff'd
sub nom. Bush
v. Vera, 116 S. Ct. 1941 (1996), on remand sub nom. Vera v.
Bush, 933 F. Supp. 1341 (S.D. Tex. 1996)
Voinovich
v. Quilter, 507 U.S. 146 (1993)
Wesberry
v. Sanders, 376 U.S. 1 (1964)
White
v. Regester, 412 U.S. 755 (1973)
Wisconsin
v. City of New York, 64 U.S.L.W. 4153 (U.S. 1996)
United States Constitution:
Fourteenth Amendment (Equal
Protection Clause)
Voting Rights Act of 1965:
Section 2, coded as amended at 42 U.S.C. 1973
Section 5, coded as amended at 42
U.S. C. 1973c
Regulations:
52 Fed. Reg. 487 (1987)
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Update: November 14, 1998.
If you see any errors on this page, please e-mail us at sc&r@senate.leg.state.mn.us.