The Ohio Supreme Court in a per curium decision found the challenged
Senate District 22 to be constitutional. In Ohio, each senate district
is comprised of three house of representatives districts. Each senate or
house of representatives district ideally represents equal populations;
a ratio of representation between the legislator and the number of
persons in the district. Section 4, Article XI of the Ohio Constitution
prohibits creation of a district containing less than 95 percent of the
ideal senate ratio of representation, and the district in question
deviated further, containing only 93.99 percent of the ideal senate
ratio. Section 9 of Article XI of the Ohio Constitution provides that
where the population of a county is at least 90 percent of a house of
representatives ratio of representation, "reasonable effort shall be
made to create a house district consisting of the whole county." Section
11 provides that "counties having less than one senate ratio of
representation, but at least one house of representatives ratio of
representation shall be part of only one senate district." The Ohio
Supreme Court held that Sections 4, 9, and 11 of Article XI of the Ohio
Constitution are coequal. When these provisions are irreconcilable, the
Ohio Apportionment Board has the duty to choose the proper course, and
the Ohio Supreme Court declined to require the Apportionment Board to
correct one constitutional violation by committing another.
Quilter v. Voinovich, 794 F. Supp. 695 (N.D. Ohio 1992)
The District Court held that section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of
1965 (hereafter "the Voting Rights Act") does not mandate the drawing of
majority-minority districts wherever there is a concentration of Black
voters. Because the Apportionment Board failed to conduct an adequate
totality of the circumstances analysis as is required by the Voting
Rights Act, the Apportionment Board made no reliable finding of a past
violation that would support the creation of majority-minority
districts. The District Court ordered the Apportionment Board to
reconsider the legislative apportionment plan. Unless the Apportionment
Board could show justification for the plan under the totality of the
circumstances test, the District Court would require the Board to submit
a revised plan.
Quilter v. Voinovich, 794 F. Supp. 756 (N.D. Ohio 1992)
After the Apportionment Board submitted additional documentation and
a revised plan, the District Court held that the Apportionment Board
failed to justify its wholesale creation of majority-minority districts
and so violated the Voting Rights Act. The District Court ordered a
special master be appointed to draw a constitutional apportionment plan
and enjoined any election for the Ohio General Assembly until the
special master drew a constitutional plan and the plan was approved by
the District Court. The District Court ordered that the 1992 primary
election be moved from May 5, 1992, to June 5, 1992.
Voinovich v. Quilter, 503 U.S. 979 (1992)
The United States Supreme Court stayed the 794 F. Supp. 756 District
Court order, pending final disposition of the appeal of the District
Court's judgment to the United States Supreme Court.
Quilter v. Voinovich, 794 F. Supp. 760 (N.D. Ohio Mar. 31, 1992)
The District Court rescheduled the 1992 primary date to September 8,
1992.
Quilter v. Voinovich, 794 F. Supp. 760 (N.D. Ohio May 5, 1992)
In this opinion, the District Court had to determine what
legislative districts Ohio should use for the 1992 elections. The
District Court held that the changes in the Apportionment Board's
revised plan were so extensive that it constituted a new plan (hereafter
"the 1992 plan"). The special master had submitted a plan that, because
of the pending appeal to the United States Supreme Court, was sealed but
not reviewed. The District Court concluded that the 1981 districts, the
districts under the 1991 plan, and the districts under the 1992 plan
were all inadequate. The District Court held that Ohio should use the
1992 plan until a legally flawless plan could be found. The District
Court ordered elections officials to truncate the deadlines in the
Elections Laws as needed to conduct the 1992 primary election using
June 2, 1992, as the primary date.
Voinovich v. Quilter, 507 U.S. 146 (1993)
The United States Supreme Court held that the 1991 plan did not
violate section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The District Court erred in
failing to determine the consequences of the plan before ruling on its
validity. The District Court also erred in placing the burden of proving
the validity of the 1991 plan on the proponents of the plan. The Voting
Rights Act places this burden on the opponents of the plan. While federal
courts cannot order the creation of majority-minority districts
without a Voting Rights Act violation, this prohibition does not apply
to the states. The District Court's holding that the 1991 plan violated
the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is erroneous;
the preference of the drafter of the plan for federal law over state law
when the two appeared to conflict demonstrated obedience to the
Supremacy Clause. Although the plaintiffs had established a prima facie
case that the disparity among the districts violated the Equal
Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the District Court used
an improper standard for determining whether the deviation from equal
population violated Equal Protection guarantees. The Supreme Court
remanded the case to determine whether the disparity is justified under
the appropriate standard.
Quilter v. Voinovich, 857 F. Supp. 579 (N.D. Ohio 1994)
On remand, the District Court found that the population variations
were justified under established constitutional standards. The District
Court noted that whether a prima facie case of an Equal Protection
violation is established depends principally on deviation from
mathematical equality among legislative districts. A deviation of 0
percent to 10 percent is de minimis and no prima facie case of
an Equal Protection violation exists. When the deviation exceeds 10
percent, there is a prima facie case of an Equal Protection violation,
and the state must justify the legislative districts by: (1)
articulating a rational state policy justifying the deviations, (2)
explaining how the apportionment plan rationally advances the state
policy, and (3) showing that the deviation does not exceed
constitutional limits. The District Court concluded that the 1991 plan
did not violate the one-person, one-vote guarantee of the Equal
Protection Clause, as a genuine, rational state policy of preserving
county lines was advanced to justify deviation from population equality
among districts. The 1991 plan reasonably furthered that policy,
particularly as all whole counties within applicable population limits
had been preserved, and total deviation of 13.81 percent for house
districts and 10.54 percent for senate districts fell within
constitutional limits.
Quilter v. Voinovich, 157 F.R.D. 36 (N.D. Ohio 1994)
On the same day as the court issued the preceding opinion, the
District Court granted the plaintiffs' motion to file a second amended
complaint, noting that the plaintiffs may have a meritorious
constitutional claim under Shaw v. Reno, 509 U.S. 630 (1993).
Quilter v. Voinovich, 912 F. Supp. 1006 (N.D. Ohio 1995)
The District Court noted that under Shaw v. Reno, 509 U.S.
630 (1993), a plaintiff challenging an apportionment plan under the
Equal Protection Clause may state a claim of racial gerrymandering by
alleging that the plan, although race-neutral on its face, rationally
cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to separate voters
into different districts on the basis of race, and that the separation
lacks sufficient justification. An apportionment plan will be subjected
to strict scrutiny if the plaintiff shows that race was the predominant
factor motivating the legislature's decision to place a large number of
voters within or without a legislative district and that the legislature
subordinated traditional race-neutral districting principles
(compactness, contiguity, and respect for political subdivisions) to
racial considerations by either violating or abandoning traditional
districting principles in favor of racial motivations or by
substantially complying with traditional districting principles but
giving them less weight than racial considerations. Although a state
does not have to await a judicial finding that it has committed racial
discrimination before it voluntarily takes remedial action to eradicate
the discrimination, it must have a strong basis in evidence for its
conclusion that remedial action was necessary. The District Court
considered whether the 1991 plan, in creating "majority-minority" or
"packed" districts, created more "majority-minority" districts than
reasonably necessary to comply with the Voting Rights Act and whether
the "majority-minority" districts contained substantially larger
concentrations of minority voters than reasonably necessary to give
minority voters a realistic opportunity to elect representatives of
their choice in those districts. The District Court concluded that the
"majority-minority" districts contained in the 1991 plan contained
unnecessarily large concentrations of minority voters and that the 1991
plan had the reciprocal effect of reducing minority influence in other
districts. Because the state failed to provide a legally cognizable
justification for the "packing" of minorities in the "majority-minority"
districts, the 1991 plan failed strict scrutiny analysis. The District
Court ordered the "majority-minority" districts to be redrawn.
Voinovich v. Quilter, ___ U.S. ___, 116 S.Ct. 2542, 135 L.Ed.2d 1064 (1996)
The Supreme Court vacated the judgment of the District Court located
at 912 F. Supp. 1006 and remanded the case for further consideration in
light of Bush v. Vera, ___ U.S. ___, 116 S.Ct. 1941, 135 L.Ed.2d
248 (1996), and Shaw v. Hunt, ___ U.S. ___, 116 S.Ct. 1894, 135
L.Ed.2d 207 (1996).
Quilter v. Voinovich, ___ F. Supp. ___, 1997 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 17251, 1997 WL 687725 (N.D. Ohio Aug. 22, 1997)
On remand, the District Court held that the plaintiffs, including plaintiffs who were members of the Apportionment Board, did not have standing to challenge a number of the 1991 plan's districts because the plaintiffs neither resided in those districts nor produced specific evidence that they personally had been subjected to a racial classification in relation to the drawing of those districts. For the remaining districts, the District Court applied the analysis derived from Shaw v. Reno, 509 U.S. 630 (1993); Miller v. Johnson, 515 U.S. 900 (1995); Shaw v. Hunt, ___ U.S. ___, 116 S.Ct. 1894, 135 L.Ed.2d 207 (1996); and Bush v. Vera, ___ U.S. ___, 116 S.Ct. 1941, 135 L.Ed.2d 248 (1996), and found that, although race was a substantial factor in drawing the challenged districts, it was not a dominant and controlling rationale to which traditional districting principles (compactness, contiguity, and respect for political subdivisions) were subordinated. Race was a factor that was considered within the constraints of traditional districting principles, and so strict scrutiny of the challenged districts was not appropriate. Under rational basis scrutiny, the Apportionment Board had a rational basis for creating the challenged districts, and so there was no violation of the Equal Protection Clause.
State Contact
Lynda J. Jacobsen
Staff Attorney
Legislative Service Commission
77 South High Street, 8th Floor
Columbus, OH 43215
(614) 466-0632
(614) 644-1721 fax
Lynda_Jacobsen@lsc.state.oh.us