The Oyez Project: Civil Rights Issues - Reapportionment Decisions

Abate v. Mundt

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Associated Enterprises, Inc. v. Toltec District

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Avery v. Midland County

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Ball v. James

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Brown v. Thompson

Did the State of Wyoming violate the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by allocating one of its state House seats to a county with a population considerably lower than the average population per state representative?

The Court upheld the Wyoming apportionment scheme and found no Fourteenth Amendment violations. Justice Powell argued that using counties as legislative districts and assuring at least one representative per county supported "substantial and legitimate state concerns." Since the population variations in the Wyoming plan were the result of the consistent application of a nondiscriminatory and legitimate state policy, the plan was consistent with the Constitution. Any dilution of voting strength which the constituents of the other sixty-three representatives may have experienced as a result of Niobrara's relatively small population was minimal and irrelevant given the advantages of the Wyoming scheme.

Burns v. Richardson

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Bush v. Vera

Do the Texas redistricting plans violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?

Yes. In a 5-to-4 decision, the Court held that the Texas redistricting plans were unconstitutional. Supporting its "strict scrutiny" approach, the Court noted that the proposed districts were highly irregular in shape, that their computerized design was significantly more sensitive to racial data, and that they lacked any semblance to pre-existing race-neutral districts. The Court also held that the totality of the circumstances surrounding the proposed districts would deprive minority groups of equal participation in the electoral political processes. Thus, the proposed districts violated the Voting Rights Act's "results" test prohibiting activity that "results in a denial or abridgment of the right of any citizen to vote on account of race or color." Finally, with respect to proposed district 18, the Court held that Texas deliberately designed it to hamper the local African-American minority's ability to elect representatives of their choice. This violated the Voting Rights Act's "nonretrogression" principle, prohibiting state action from obstructing a minority's ability to elect representatives of their choice.

Chapman v. Meier

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Connor v. Finch

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Davis v. Mann

Did Virginia's apportionment scheme violate the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause?

Yes. In an 8-to-1 decision, the Court noted that under the Fourteenth Amendment all bicameral state legislatures must substantially apportion both seats of their houses on a population basis. In Virginia's case, neither of its legislative houses was apportioned on a population basis. Virginia's claim that the underrepresented counties were composed primarily of military personnel and their families, who often only resided in the state for relatively short periods of time, did not constitute a defense to its actions. Instead, this amounted to discrimination against a class of individuals merely because of the nature of their employment.

Dusch v. Davis

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East Carroll Parish School Bd. v. Marshall

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Ely v. Klahr

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Fortson v. Dorsey

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Fortson v. Morris

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Fortson v. Toombs

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Gaffney v. Cummings

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Gray v. Sanders

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Hunt v. Cromartie

Did a district court err in finding that North Carolina violated the Equal Protection Clause in its 1997 redrawing of its Twelfth Congressional District's 1992 boundaries?

Yes. In a 5-4 opinion delivered by Justice Stephen G. Breyer, the Court held that the District Court's conclusion that the state violated the Equal Protection Clause in drawing the 1997 boundaries is based on clearly erroneous findings. Justice Breyer wore for the Court that "the primary evidence upon which the District Court relied for its 'race, not politics,' conclusion is evidence of voting registration, not voting behavior; and that is precisely the kind of evidence that we said was inadequate the last time this case was before us." Justice Clarence Thomas's dissented, joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia and Anthony M. Kennedy.

Hunt v. Cromartie

Is the presence of "uncontroverted material facts," concerning the practice of racial gerrymandering, sufficient to sustain a summary judgment even prior to conducting an evidentiary hearing or discovery?

No. In a unanimous opinion, the Court held that despite strong evidence of racial gerrymandering, the North Carolina General Assembly's motivations were in dispute. As such, further inquiry was warranted on this alone. Moreover, since accusations of racial gerrymandering rise to the level of being constitutionally significant, they must be evaluated with strict scrutiny. Therefore, the dismissal of such serious accusations with a summary judgment was erroneous.

Karcher v. Daggett

Did the gerrymandering in the reapportionment plan violate Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution?

Even though the population differences in the districts were slight, the Court held that they were unconstitutional because they "were not the result of a good-faith effort to achieve population equality." Justice Brennan upheld past Court decisions (Kirkpatrick v. Preisler, 1973, and Wesberry v. Sanders, 1964) and argued that relying on a strict numerical standard of populations to assess district equality would be misguided.

Kirkpatrick v. Preisler

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Lawyer v. Department of Justice

Did the District Court err in approving a remedial plan for the creation of a Florida state Senate district, which allegedly violated the Equal Protection Clause?

No. In a 5-4 opinion delivered by David H. Souter, the Court held that the State exercised the choice to which it was entitled under our cases, that Lawyer had no right to block the settlement, and that he failed to point out any unconstitutionality in the proposed plan. The Court found that Lawyer's agreement to the provisional settlement did not require the District Court to adjudicate the constitutionality of the plan before approving the settlement and that the court, in redrawing the district, did not subordinate Florida's traditional districting principles to race. Justice Souter wrote that "the evidence amply supports the trial court's views that race did not predominate over Florida's traditional districting principles....[Lawyer] has provided nothing that calls that conclusion into question, much less that points to any clear error." Justice Antonin Scalia, joined by Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony M. Kennedy, and Clarence Thomas, dissented.

Lockport v. Citizens For Community Action

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Lomenzo v. Wmca, Inc.

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Lucas v. Forty-Fourth General Assembly of Colorado

Is a majority-approved state apportionment plan that permits one house of its congress to be largely apportioned on the basis of factors other than population distribution in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause?

Yes. In a 6-to-3 opinion, the Court held that the Equal Protection Clause requires all districts to be substantially apportioned on a population bases. While noting that some deviation from strict population considerations may be permitted to offset minor underrepresentations of one group or another, the wholesale neglect of population considerations is unconstitutional. The Court added that although a majority of the Colorado electorate approved its apportionment scheme, this cannot override even a single individual's constitutionally protected right to cast an equally weighted vote. The apportionment of Colorado's Senate rendered population considerations virtually insignificant, and was therefore unconstitutional.

Mahan v. Howell

Was the Virginia reapportionment plan invalid under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?

The Court found that the plan was constitutional under the Equal Protection Clause as described in Reynolds v. Sims. The Virginia plan is not to be judged by the more stringent congressional standards in Section 2 of Article I. The Equal Protection Clause requires a state to make an "honest and good faith effort" to construct districts of as nearly equal population as practicable. Some deviations from the equal population principle are valid if based on legitimate considerations of a "rational state policy." The Virginia plan advanced the policy of reapportionment without sacrificing substantial equality.

Maryland Committee v. Tawes

Does Maryland's apportionment scheme violate the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause by mandating one senator per county and legislative district of Baltimore, regardless of population variances?

Yes. In an 8-1 opinion deliver by Chief Justice Earl Warren, the Court held that neither house of the Maryland Legislature is apportioned sufficiently on a population basis to be constitutionally sustainable, based on the Court's ruling in Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533 (1964). Finding that the validity of the apportionment of both houses of the Maryland legislature were before it, the Court found that neither house could be sustained under the Equal Protection Clause because of the gross disparities from population-based representation in the apportionment of Senate seats. "Maryland's plan is plainly insufficient under the requirements of the Equal Protection Clause as spelled out in our opinion in Reynolds," wrote Chief Justice Warren. Justice John M. Harlan dissented.

Miller v. Johnson

Is racial gerrymandering of the congressional redistricting process a violation of the Equal Protection Clause?

Yes. In some instances, a reapportionment plan may be so highly irregular and bizarre in shape that it rationally cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to segregate voters based on race. Applying the rule laid down in Shaw v. Reno requires strict scrutiny whenever race is the "overriding, predominant force" in the redistricting process.

New York City Bd. Of Estimate v. Morris

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Quinn v. Millsap

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Roman v. Sincock

Did Delaware's apportionment scheme violate the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause, by disregarding population as a basis for determining congressional districts?

Yes. In an 8-to-1 decision the Court held that Delaware's apportionment practices, as codified in its state constitution both before and after a 1963 amendment, violated the Due Process Clause. Delaware's system of having one upper house apportioned on a geographical basis and one lower house apportioned on population basis was unconstitutional since population is the only permissible guide to apportionment.

Sailors v. Board Of Education

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Salyer Land Co. v. Tulare Water District

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Shaw v. Hunt

Does North Carolina's redistricting plan constitute racial gerrymandering in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause?

Yes. In a 5-to-4 opinion by Chief Justice Rehnquist, the Court first confronted the threshold question of "standing." It held that some of the appellants lacked proper standing to challenge the redistricting plan. Only those voters who resided in a congressional district alleged to have been created by racial gerrymandering had proper standing to challenge the constitutionality of that district's creation. Those voters who did not reside in one of the two allegedly racially gerrymandered districts, and who failed to provide evidence that they were assigned to their district of residence on the basis of race, lacked proper standing to participate in the racial gerrymandering claim. After noting the challenged district's unusually non-compact serpentine shape, and the appellants' admission that the districts' were primarily designed to create black voting majorities, the Court applied "strict scrutiny" to the facts at hand. Finding no narrowly tailored plans aimed at serving a compelling state interest that would justify the creation of racially gerrymandered districts, the Court concluded that the redistricting plans violated the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause.

Shaw v. Reno

Did the North Carolina residents' claim, that the State created a racially gerrymandered district, raise a valid constitutional issue under the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause?

Yes. The Court held that although North Carolina's reapportionment plan was racially neutral on its face, the resulting district shape was bizarre enough to suggest that it constituted an effort to separate voters into different districts based on race. The unusual district, while perhaps created by noble intentions, seemed to exceed what was reasonably necessary to avoid racial imbalances. After concluding that the residents' claim did give rise to an equal protection challenge, the Court remanded - adding that in the absence of contradictory evidence, the District Court would have to decide whether or not some compelling governmental interest justified North Carolina's plan.

Swann v. Adams

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United Jewish Org. of Williamsburgh v. Carey

Did the reapportionment plan violate the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendment rights of the Hasidic community?

The Court found that the reapportionment plan was valid under the Constitution. Neither the Fourteenth nor the Fifteenth Amendment prohibit per se use of racial factors in districting and apportionment. Also, a reapportionment plan does not violate the same Amendments by using numerical quotas to establish a certain number of black majority districts. Although New York deliberately increased nonwhite majorities in several districts, there was no "fencing out" of the white population in the county from electoral participation. The reapportionment did not underrepresent the whites relative to their share of the population. The Court found that New York could use apportionment plans to attempt to prevent racial minorities from being repeatedly outvoted at the expense of the white populations.

United States Department Of Commerce v. Montana

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Voinovich, Governor Of Ohio v. Quilter, Speaker Pro Tempore Of Ohio House Of Representatives

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Wells v. Rockefeller

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Whitcomb v. Chavis

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White v. Regester

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White v. Regester

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White v. Weiser

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Wisconsin v. New York

Did the decision of the Secretary of Commerce not to use the PES in the 1990 census violate the constitutional right of certain minorities to be counted?

No. The Court held that the decision not to use the PES-based statistical correction would not be reviewed under a strict scrutiny standard of "one person - one vote" because there was no showing of intentional discrimination by the Secretary of Commerce. The Secretary's decision was consistent with past census practices in which the promotion of distributive accuracy, rather than numerical accuracy, was the primary objective. This is because errors in numerical accuracy are less likely than errors in distributive accuracy to impact on the apportionment of representatives among the states. Moreover, the Court added that significant deference - regarding how best to conduct the census - must be accorded to the Secretary since he directly received such latitude from Congress which, in turn, received such latitude from the Constitution.

Wise v. Lipscomb

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WMCA, Inc. v. Lomenzo

Did the apportionment formula contained in Article III, Sections 2-5, of the New York State constitution violate the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause?

Yes. In a 7-to-3 decision, the Court began by noting that this case was property before it since no other political relief was available to the WMCA. The Court then held that New York's apportionment formula violated the Equal Protection Clause since it did not apportion the state's senate and assembly substantially on a population basis. Consequently, New York's legislative apportionment scheme significantly undervalued the weight of urban area voters as compared with their rural and less densely populated counterparts. This practice constituted a form of geographical discrimination that violated notions of equal protection.

Wright v. Rockefeller

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