The Oyez Project: Civil Rights Issues - Reapportionment

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

In apportioning its state legislative seats, the State of Wyoming made provisions to allocate to each county at least one state representative. With the state's total population and its sixty-four House seats, the ideal apportionment would have been 7,337 persons per representative. Given the guarantee of county representation, Niobrara County, with a population of less than half the ideal (2,924), was allocated a House seat.

Burns v. Richardson

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Bush v. Vera

Following the 1990 census, Texas planned the creation of three additional congressional districts. Following the redistricting, registered voters challenged the plans as racial gerrymandering. A three-judge federal district court found the plans unconstitutional. The case moved to the Supreme Court on appeal.

Chapman v. Meier

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Connor v. Finch

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Davis v. Mann

Acting on behalf of residents, taxpayers, and qualified voters in Arlington and Fairfax County, Virginia, Harrison Mann challenged Virginia's 1962 amended statutory apportionment scheme as unrepresentative. Harrison called for a redistribution of legislative representation among the counties and independent cities of the state "substantially in proportion to their respective populations." When Levin Davis appealed an adverse three-judge district court ruling on behalf of Virginia's Secretary and State Board of Elections, the Supreme Court granted certiorari.

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

In Shaw v. Hunt, the U.S Supreme Court found that North Carolina's legislature violated the Constitution by using race as the predominant factor in drawing its Twelfth Congressional District's 1992 boundaries. In 1997, after the State redrew those boundaries, the District Court found that the new boundaries had also been created with dominating racial considerations. In reversing, the Court found, in Hunt v. Cromartie, that the evidence was insufficient to show an unconstitutional race-based objective. On remand, the District Court again found that North Carolina's legislature had used race driven criteria in drawing the 1997 boundaries based on the district's shape, its splitting of towns and counties, and its heavily African-American voting population. The court newly found that the legislature had drawn the boundaries to collect precincts with a high racial, rather than political, identification. (Argued and decided with 99-1865, Smallwood v. Cromartie.)

Hunt v. Cromartie

Following the Supreme Court's decision in Shaw v. Hunt (517 US 899), declaring North Carolina's 12th district to have been unconstitutionally drawn, the state made a new districting plan in 1997. Acting on behalf of other residents, Martin Cromartie again challenged the new make-up of the 12th district as the product of racial gerrymandering. However, even before an evidentiary hearing, a three-judge District Court granted Cromartie summary judgment. Hunt appealed and the Supreme Court granted him certiorari.

Karcher v. Daggett

Democrats in control of the New Jersey Legislature designed a plan for congressional redistricting in the state which the outgoing Democratic governor signed into law. Even though the district populations differed by less than one percent from each other, they were clearly drawn to maximize Democratic power in the state.

Kirkpatrick v. Preisler

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Lawyer v. Department of Justice

Based on the 1990 census, the Florida Legislature adopted a reapportionment plan for State Senate and House districts. After the Justice Department refused to preclear the plan and it appeared as if the Governor, Senate President, and House Speaker would not convene a session, the Florida Supreme Court revised the redistricting plan itself. In 1995, C. Martin Lawyer, III, and other residents filed suit against state and federal parties, alleging that his district, Senate District 21, violated the Equal Protection Clause. The District permitted the State Senate and House of Representatives to intervene and ultimately, all the parties, but Lawyer, agreed to a settlement that revised District 21 under a new plan. The District Court rejected Lawyer's argument that the court had to find the original reapportionment plan unconstitutional, because race seemingly determined District 21's contours, before the settlement could be approved. The court approved the settlement.

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

Acting on behalf of several voters in the Denver area, Andres Lucas sued various officials connected with Colorado's elections challenging the apportionment of seats in both houses of the Colorado General Assembly. Under Colorado's apportionment plan, the House of Representatives was apportioned on the basis of population but the apportionment of the Senate was based on a combination of population and other factors (geography, compactness and contiguity, accessibility, natural boundaries, and conformity to historical divisions). Consequently, counties with only about one-third of the State's total population would elect a majority of the Senate; the maximum population-variance ratio would be about 3.6-to-1; and the chief metropolitan areas, with over two-thirds of the State's population, could elect only a bare majority of the Senate. When a three-judge District Court upheld the plan, stressing its recent approval by the electorate, the Supreme Court granted Lucas certiorari.

Mahan v. Howell

In 1971, the Virginia legislature reapportioned itself. The plan for the House of Representatives provided for 100 representatives from 52 districts with each House member representing an average of 46,485 constituents(with a variance between largest and smallest being 16.4 percent, compared to the ideal 3.89 percent). Henry Howell challenged the plan as unconstitutional because its population deviations were too large to satisfy the principle of "one person, one vote." This case was decided together with City of Virginia Beach v. Howell and Weinberg v. Prichard.

Maryland Committee v. Tawes

Under its 1867 Constitution, the State of Maryland's Senate has 29 seats, one for each of 23 counties and six for the City of Baltimore's legislative districts. The State's five most populous political subdivisions with over three-fourths of the 1960 population are represented by only slightly over one-third of the Senate's membership. In the House of Delegates, after temporary legislation in 1962, there existed a maximum population-variance ratio of almost 6-to-1. A group of residents, taxpayers, and voters brought suit, alleging that the legislative malapportionment violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Ultimately, the circuit court held that as to certain counties there was invidious discrimination in the apportionment of the House and that the senatorial apportionment was constitutional. The Maryland Court of Appeals affirmed.

Miller v. Johnson

Between 1980 and 1990, only one of Georgia's ten congressional districts was majority-black. According to the 1990 decennial census, Georgia's black population of 27% entitled blacks to an additional eleventh congressional seat, prompting Georgia's General Assembly to re-draw the state's congressional districts. After the Justice Department refused pre-clearance of several of the Assembly's proposed new districts, the Assembly was finally successful in creating an additional majority-black district through the forming of an eleventh district. This district, however, was called a "geographic monstrosity" because it extended 6,784.2 square miles from Atlanta to the Atlantic Ocean. In short, "the social, political, and economic makeup of the Eleventh District tells a tale of disparity, not community."

New York City Bd. Of Estimate v. Morris

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Quinn v. Millsap

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Roman v. Sincock

Following the Supreme Court's decision in Baker v. Carr (369 U.S. 186) Richard Sincock and several other New Castle County residents, taxpayers, and qualified voters, challenged the constitutionality of Delaware's apportionment scheme. The suit alleged that under Delaware's 1897 state constitution, no provisions existed for reapportionment that would reflect the changing demographic face of New Castle County and the City of Wilmington. On a appeal from a three-judge district court ruling against the state of Delaware, the Supreme Court granted Mabel Roman, Delaware's elections clerk, certiorari.

Sailors v. Board Of Education

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Salyer Land Co. v. Tulare Water District

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Shaw v. Hunt

Residents of North Carolina challenged a plan to create two congressional districts on the ground that the proposed districts were racially gerrymandered. On initial review, a three-judge District Court panel dismissed the action only to have its decision reversed and remanded to it by the Supreme Court. However, the Court's standard for review left very little room for racial engineering of congressional voting districts. On remand, the District Court found the redistricting plans to be racially tailored and, therefore, unconstitutional. Again, the matter was appealed to the Supreme Court.

Shaw v. Reno

The U.S. Attorney General rejected a North Carolina congressional reapportionment plan because the plan created only one black-majority district. North Carolina submitted a second plan creating two black-majority districts. One of these districts was, in parts, no wider than the interstate road along which it stretched. Five North Carolina residents challenged the constitutionality of this unusually shaped district, alleging that its only purpose was to secure the election of additional black representatives. After a three-judge District Court ruled that they failed to state a constitutional claim, the residents appealed and the Supreme Court granted certiorari.

Swann v. Adams

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United Jewish Org. of Williamsburgh v. Carey

Congress provided in Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act that reapportionment plans of several states were to be submitted to the U.S. attorney general or the District Court of the District of Columbia for approval. Several districts in New York were restructured to create districts with a minimum nonwhite majority of 65 percent. A Hasidic Jewish community was split in two by the reapportionment. The community claimed that the plan violated their constitutional rights because the districts had been assigned solely on a racial basis.

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

Under the Constitution's Census Clause, Congress is vested with the responsibility of conducting an "actual enumeration" of the American public every ten years, primarily for the purpose of aportioning congressional representation among the states. Congress delegated this responsibility to the Secretary of Commerce who, in the 1990 census, decided not to use a statistical correction, known as the post-enumeration survey (PES), to adjust an undercount in the initial population count. Acting on behalf of several citizens' groups, states, and cities, Wisconsin challenged the Secretary's decision not to use the PES; claiming that it resulted in an undercounting of certain identifiable minority groups.

Wise v. Lipscomb

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WMCA, Inc. v. Lomenzo

The WMCA, acting on behalf of several New York City registered voters, challenged the constitutionality of Article III, Sections 2-5 of the New York State constitution alleging that its apportionment formula resulted in unfair weighting of both state legislature houses by favoring lesser populated rural areas over densely populated urban centers. On appeal from a dismissal of their complaint by a three-judge district court, the Supreme Court granted the WMCA certiorari.

Wright v. Rockefeller

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