Baker v. Carr (1962) 369 U.S. 186

Case Summary

Charles Baker, a resident of an urban neighborhood in Tennessee, filed suit in federal court against Joe Carr, then Secretary of State of Tennessee. Baker sought a court injunction to postpone elections until the State had fulfilled its duty to reapportion its legislative districts, which it had not done since 1901 (over 60 years). Though the Tennessee Constitution required that reapportionment be carried out every ten years, Baker’s claim was based on the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. Baker argued that because of population changes in the state, specifically migration to cities, his vote in an urban area had much less weight than that of a voter in a rural district, thus constituting a "debasement of [his] votes."

Ruling

After being dismissed at the district court level, the case was taken on appeal by the Supreme Court, which reversed the ruling, deemed the issue justiciable, and remanded. The Court found that plaintiffs had standing to sue, referencing Colegrove v. Green as precedent for granting “voters who allege facts showing disadvantage to themselves as individuals… standing to sue.” Reversing Colegrove, however, the Court went on to find that the courts were an appropriate source of relief for cases involving malapportionment. A major question before the Court was the issue of the political question doctrine, by which the district court and the Colegrove court had ruled issues involving reapportionment as nonjusticiable. The Supreme Court reversed, determining that because the claims were not derivative of the Guaranty Clause of Article IV, but rather the 14^th Amendment, that simply the implication of political rights did not render an issue inappropriate for judicial review. While the Court created a six-part test to determine if a case presented a political question, the most important fact for redistricting purposes was the determination that the voting inequities presented satisfied these requirements, including the judgment that courts can provide “discoverable and manageable standards” for granting relief.

Impact on Redistricting

Baker v. Carr opened the door to judicial review of the redistricting process, prompted a cascade of subsequent lawsuits, and sent shockwaves through the redistricting community. Though the opinion stopped short of addressing the shape relief should take in malapportionment cases, by recognizing unequal districts as creating real and justiciable injuries, it laid the groundwork for the rapid development of the “one-person one-vote” principle. It is no coincidence that by 1964, only two years later, 26 States had reapportioned their legislative districts, three under court-drawn plans, many more under judicial pressure. By 1966 that number rose to 46 states.

Gray v. Sanders, 372 U.S. 368 (1963)

Case Summary

In this case the Supreme Court struck down Georgia’s "county-unit” system for electing statewide officers.Under the unit system, out of a total of 410 County unit votes, the eight most populous counties had six unit votes each, thirty counties had four votes each, and 121 counties had two votes each. This gave the smallest counties a majority with 242 votes, though they only made up one third of the State’s population.

Ruling

The Court held that the system violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Douglas, writing for an 8-1 majority, asserted that, "The conception of political equality from the Declaration of Independence, to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, to the Fifteenth, Seventeenth, and Nineteenth Amendments can mean only one thing - one person, one vote."

Impact on Redistricting

Though it was unclear at the time how exacting the principle would be enforced, Gary v. Sanders set down the “one person, one vote” standard that still guides the redistricting process today. It also set the stage for Reynolds v. Simms and the Reapportionment Cases.

Lucas v. Forty-Fourth General Assembly of Colorado, 377 U.S. 713 (1964)

Case Summary

Andres Lucas, representing voters of urban Denver, challenged Colorado apportionment system on the basis that the Senate apportionment was not based on population, but a range of considerations that included population, natural boundaries and historical divisions.  Under his system, a one third minority of the population could successfully elect a majority to the Senate. Lucas raised Equal Protection Clause arguments relating to the dilution of his vote, similar to those raised in Reynolds v. Sims. Unique to this case, however, was the fact that though Colorado’s apportionment system was similar to those in other States, it had been approved by a majority vote of the electorate. The District Court ruled that in light of this fact, the plan satisfied the Fourteenth Amendment.  The case reached the Supreme Court on appeal.

Ruling

The Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the District Court, ruling that the fact that an apportionment system was approved by the popular vote does not allow it to deny any voters equal representation in both houses, per the Reynolds ruling.  Though the Court reiterated its position that State elections permit some slight degree of flexibility in drawing districts in order to protect certain groups, these deviations from purely population based apportionment cannot be significant. A majority vote of the people could not, in the Court’s judgment, justify the dilution of even one person’s vote.

Impact on Redistricting

Lucas made it clear that, however popular, geographically based apportionment systems in State legislatures could not be enacted (short of a Federal Constitutional Amendment). The Reynolds decision was reinforced and its application broadened to include plans that the public had approved.

Reynolds v. Simms, 377 U.S. 533 (1964)

Case Summary

Voters from Jefferson County, Alabama challenged the apportionment structure of their State House and Senate, which required each county to have at least one representative, regardless of size. This system failed to take population size into account, leading to huge discrepancies between district populations, in some cases on the order of 41 to 1. Senators were also apportioned under a system that incorporated geography into its formula, leading again to the under-representation of those in urban counties and over-representation of those in small and rural counties. Under this system Jefferson County, with a population of over 600,000, received only 1 senator and 7 representatives, while  other counties with populations as low as 15,417 also received one senator, along with one Representative. In light of these discrepancies, the District Court found that there was an equal protection violation. The Court chose to allow the legislature the opportunity to solve the problem itself, but upon finding the newly proposed apportionment plans were still unsatisfactory, it ordered a new temporary apportionment plan created by the Court itself for use in the upcoming 1962 general election. The State appealed the decision, arguing that it was not prohibited from using geography in it apportionment formulation and that the District Court had overstepped its power in drafting its own apportionment plan. The case came before the Supreme Court.

Ruling

The Court struck down Alabama’s apportionment system as unrepresentative, reaffirming its ruling in Baker and Gray that the debasement or dilution of one’s vote in State elections constitutes a justiciable violation of the Equal Protection Clause. The majority opinion, written by Chief Justice Warren, went further than these cases by expounding what the Court meant by “discoverable and manageable standards for use by lower courts [when] determining the constitutionality of a state legislative apportionment scheme.” The Court declared that “The Equal Protection Clause demands no less than substantially equal state legislative representation for all citizens," which it had determined in Gary v. Sanders should aim to achieve the ideal of “one person, one vote.” The court did note, however, that more flexibility might be permissible in State apportionment than for congressional districts. Furthermore, giving voice to political subdivisions might in some cases justify a degree of deviation from purely population based apportionment. Also, "a State may legitimately desire to construct districts along political subdivision lines to deter the possibilities of gerrymandering."  Similarly, reapportionment might not necessarily have to take place every ten years, though longer periods between reapportionment would be treated as suspect. In explaining the Court’s position, Chief Justice Warren included the famous line, "Legislators represent people, not trees or acres.” The Court also dismissed the claim that states' apportionment systems could mirror that of the Federal Senate, claiming that the unique political needs that required that system of apportionment were not applicable on the state level. The Court also ruled that the District Court had acted properly in issuing its own, temporary apportionment plan.

Impact on Redistricting

Reynolds would have huge repercussions for State governments, a fact immediately recognized around the country. The reaction to this decision was so powerful that a constitutional amendment was unsuccessfully proposed to allow States to have unequal districts. To many, the idea that the Federal government could have a geographically based apportionment system but that states could not seemed illogical. Regardless, the decision stood, and State governments around the country would be forced to change their apportionment systems to approximate the one-person one-vote principle. The case also set an important precedent for allowing Courts to step in and enforce their own redistricting plans when they found the legislature’s plans to be objectionable.

Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S. 1 (1964)

Case Summary

Wesberry, a voter of the 5^th District of Georgia, filed suit on the basis that his Congressional district had a population 2-3 times larger than other districts in the State, thereby debasing his vote. Plaintiffs sought an injunction to prevent any further elections until the legislature had passed new redistricting laws to bring the districts in line with population distribution. The case was dismissed at the district level, but reached the Supreme Court on appeal.

Ruling

The Court found that, as in Baker, the malapportionment of districts gave plaintiffs standing and presented a justiciable issue. The Court further found that Section 2, Article 1 of the Constitution requires that, to the extent possible, one person’s vote should be equal to any others when electing Representatives of Congress. Specifically, Justice Black’s majority opinion determined that the clause "by the People of the several States" “means that as nearly as is practicable one man's vote in a congressional election is to be worth as much as another's.” The differences between Georgia’s districts thus represented a violation of this principle. The case was reversed and remanded, with the Supreme Court explicitly electing not to address “the arguments that the Georgia statute violates the Due Process, Equal Protection, and Privileges and Immunities Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.”

Impact on Redistricting

Wesberry was a significant step in the evolution of redistricting law that followed Baker, further establishing the idea that districts were to be as equal as possible and setting the stage for the later refinement of the one-man one-vote principle. In response to the case, districts across the country had to be redrawn to provide more equitable representation, a process which in some instances had significant political ramifications. The case also served as a predecessor to the series of cases known collectively as the “Reapportionment Cases," which would go beyond Federal elections to dramatically change the landscape of State legislative elections as well.

Gaffney v. Cummings , 412 U.S. 772 (1973)

Case Summary

In this case the Court reviewed a Connecticut redistricting plan that had been held unconstitutional by the District Court. The plan had drawn roughly equal districts, but had taken into account municipal lines as well as “political fairness”, resulting in a total maximum deviation of 1.81% for Senate districts and 7.83% for assembly districts. The plan “also consciously and overtly adopted and followed a policy of "political fairness," which aimed at a rough scheme of proportional representation of the two major political parties.” At the district level the court held that "the deviations from equality of populations of the Senate and House districts are not justified by any sufficient state interest and that the Plan denies equal protection of the law to voters in the districts of greater population. The court also found that “the policy of ‘partisan political structuring’, cannot be approved as a legitimate reason for violating the requirement of numerical equality of population in districting." The Supreme Court reversed the ruling.

Ruling

The Court reached to major holdings. First, exact equality between districts was not required for state redistricting as it is for Congressional districts. Second, political boundaries and “political fairness” could justify deviations from perfect population equality. In regards to the first ruling, the court held that “appellees' showing of numerical deviations from population equality among the Senate and House districts in this case failed to make out a prima facie violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, whether those deviations are considered alone or in combination with the additional fact that another plan could be conceived with lower deviations.” The Court “concluded that there are fundamental differences between congressional districting under Art. I and the Wesberry line of cases on the one hand, and, on the other, state legislative reapportionments governed by the Fourteenth Amendment and Reynolds v. Sims and its progeny.” Noting that the "dichotomy between the two lines of cases has consistently been maintained," the Court concluded that "the constitutionality of Virginia's legislative redistricting plan was not to be judged by the more stringent standards that Kirkpatrick and Wells made applicable to congressional reapportionment, but instead by the equal protection test enunciated in Reynolds v. Sims.” Reynolds had found that “districts in state reapportionments be "as nearly of equal population as is practicable… so long as the divergences from a strict population standard are based on legitimate considerations incident to the effectuation of a rational state policy, some deviations from the equal-population principle are constitutionally permissible with respect to the apportionment of seats in either or both of the two houses of a bicameral state legislature." The Court went on to determine that both municipal lines and political fairness constituted “legitimate considerations” under this test. In regards to political considerations in drawing lines, the Court was “quite unconvinced that the reapportionment plan… violated the Fourteenth Amendment because it attempted to reflect the relative strength of the parties in locating and defining election districts.” The Court determined that “neither we nor the district courts have a constitutional warrant to invalidate a state plan, otherwise within tolerable population limits, because it undertakes, not to minimize or eliminate the political strength of any group or party, but to recognize it and, through districting, provide a rough sort of proportional representation in the legislative halls of the State.” However, “State legislative districts may be equal or substantially equal in population and still be vulnerable under the Fourteenth Amendment” because “a districting statute otherwise acceptable, may be invalid if it is “invidiously discriminatory’.” That is to say that it was “employed to minimize or cancel out the voting strength of racial or political elements of the voting population." 

Impact on Redistricting

The Court’s ruling that State redistricting plans are held to a lower standard for population equality than Congressional districts has been an important development in redistricting law. Under this case law, state redistricting has a significant degree of flexibility not found on the state level. What considerations qualify as “legitimate considerations”, however, has been an issue of contention, and the Court’s holding regarding political fairness had to be further expounded in later cases. 

Karcher v. Daggett, 462 U.S. 725 (1983)

Case Summary

A Congressional redistricting plan was drawn up by the Democrat controlled New Jersey Legislature and signed by a Democratic governor that, though creating districts that differed by less that 1%, were blatantly drawn to favor the Democratic Party. The plan was challenged as violating the “equal representation” clause of Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution.

Ruling

The Supreme Court held that the apportionment plan was unconstitutional because its variations from equal population could not be justified. The Court determined that the "equal representation" standard requires that Congressional districts be drawn to achieve as close to population equality as practicable. Reaffirming its ruling in Kirkpatrick v. Preisler, the Court declared that "there are no de minimus population variations, which could practically be avoided, but which nonetheless meet the standard of Art. I Sec. 2, without justification." However, plaintiffs challenging apportionment plans bear the burden of proof. The plan must be shown to create population differences that could have been reduced by a “good-faith effort to draw districts of equal population." If this requirement is met, then the burden of proof shifts to the defendant, who must show that any significant variances between districts were necessary to achieve a legitimate government interest. The Court also rejected the state government’s contention that any plan that creates districts between which the variance is less that the “predictable undercount” in census figures should be treated at equivalent. The Court insisted that Census numbers be used at the benchmark for creating equal districts.

Impact on Redistricting

This case has essentially made it so that Congressional districts must be drawn to be perfectly equal. While its efficacy in preventing gerrymandering is questionable, it has led governments to justify their plans by appealing to powerful governmental interests when explaining why they drew districts in a particular manner.

Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U. S. 30 (1986)

Case Summary

North Carolina’s 1982 redistricting plan was challenged by African American residents arguing that one single-member district and six multimember districts on the grounds the new districts impaired African American citizens' ability to “elect representatives of their choice in violation of § 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.” § 2 had been amended by law such that a violation of § 2 could be proved by showing discriminatory effect alone, rather than having to show any discriminatory intent. This change established what is known as the “result test” for demonstrating discrimination.

Ruling

In a complicated but unanimous ruling, the Court held that “the use of multimember districts generally will not impede the ability of minority voters to elect representatives of their choice.” Rather, plaintiffs must demonstrate that “a bloc voting majority must usually be able to defeat candidates supported by a politically cohesive, geographically insular minority group.” Essentially, plaintiffs must show a pattern of racially polarized voting, or “block-voting.” If such a pattern exists, such districts could qualify as a violation of § 2. Furthermore, “the language of § 2 and its legislative history plainly demonstrate that proof that some minority candidates have been elected does not foreclose a § 2 claim.” Unwilling to embrace too inflexible of a standard, the ruling ordered courts, when “evaluating a statutory claim of vote dilution through districting… to consider the "totality of circumstances" and to determine, based upon a practical evaluation of the past and present realities, whether the political process is equally open to minority voters.” The Court also upheld the principle that “Plaintiffs need not prove causation or intent."

Impact on Redistricting

Thornburg set the three-part standard for reviewing plans challenged under § 2 for diluting minority voting power. Under this case, if a minority has a population large enough to constitute a majority in a single district, that minority displays political solidarity, and non-minority voters consistently oppose that minority’s preferred candidate, then the plans must be drawn to protect the minority district. This has essentially mandated the existence of certain districts, even ones that had to be gerrymandered to maintain a majority-minority population, such as California’s 38^th district. These districts more or less cannot be touched in redistricting plans. This requirement has also led some critics to claim that the creation of majority-minority districts in fact dilutes minority voting strength by “packing” minority voters into fewer districts. The case has ended the practice of using multimember districts to dilute minority voting strength.

Shaw v. Reno, 509 U.S. 630 (1993)

Case Summary

North Carolina’s first redistricting plan following the 1990 Census was rejected because it had created only one minority-majority district, while in the judgment of the US Attorney General, there could have been two. This led to a new redistricting plan that involved a heavily gerrymandered district that used interstate highways to connect high density minority areas. The plan was challenged by white voters who claimed that the plan was racially discriminatory, its only purpose being to elect a black representative. The case reached the Supreme Court after being rejected by the district court, which ruled that the plaintiffs had failed to state a constitutional basis for their complaint.

Ruling

The Court ruled that North Carolina’s plan, though facially race neutral, was of such an unnatural shape that it went beyond what was reasonable in order to avoid racial imbalance. The Court ruled that the plaintiffs did present a valid equal protection challenge that must be examined under strict scrutiny. As such, efforts to satisfy §5 or §2 of the Voting Rights Act must be narrowly tailored to those purposes, and does not give the government free reign to gerrymander districts based solely on race. The case was remanded to determine if there was a demonstratable, compelling government interest that justified the plan under strict review.

Impact on Redistricting

This case established, at least in legal principle, the idea that creating minority-majority districts did not override all other considerations, such as compactness, when drawing districts. Shaw required future line-drawers to justify their plans in terms of a compelling government interest, and show that theirs was the most reasonable plan possible that satisfied that interest. It should be noted, however, that racial consideration still often play a powerful, sometimes dominant role in redistricting efforts. Even in the case of the North Carolina district in question, the District Court on remand found the plan did satisfy the strict scrutiny standard, leading to a subsequent case, Shaw v. Hunt, in which the Supreme Court reversed again.

Johnson v. DeGrandy 512 US 997 (1994)

Case Summary

On review by a district court panel, a redistricting plan for Dade County Florida was found to be in violation of the Voting Rights Act by diluting minority voting power. The case was complicated, however, by the fact that Dade County has large Hispanic and African American populations. As voting patterns split along all three racial populations, this created a scenario where drawing majority Hispanic and African American populations were in some cases in incompatible. The Court also found that the plan only created 9 Hispanic districts out of a possible 11. Finding the three parts of the Gingles test satisfied, particularly in light of historical discrimination and vote dilution, the Court redrew the plan to increase the number of Hispanic districts, except where drawing Hispanic and African American districts were mutually exclusive, in which case they left the districts untouched. The case was appealed.

Ruling

The Supreme Court overturned the district Court’s finding that the original plan violated § 2. The Court held that a plan is not in violation of the Voting Rights Act simply because it did not maximize the number of majority-minority districts. “In sum, the District Court's finding of dilution did not address the statutory standard of unequal political and electoral opportunity, and reflected instead a misconstruction of § 2 that equated dilution with failure to maximize the number of reasonably compact majority minority districts.” The original plan has drawn 9 Hispanic districts out of a possible 11, but the Court held that not drawing district lines to maximize the number of districts did not necessarily constitute a violation. The Court accepted that “several of SJR 2-G's district lines separate portions of Hispanic neighborhoods, while another district line draws several Hispanic neighborhoods into a single district. This, however, would be to say only that lines could have been drawn elsewhere, nothing more. But some dividing by district lines and combining within them is virtually inevitable and befalls any population group of substantial size. Attaching the labels "packing" and "fragmenting" to these phenomena, without more, does not make the result vote dilution when the minority group enjoys substantial proportionality.” This is to say that Gingles does not require, in regions with large minority populations, that maximizing the number 50% +1 majority-minority districts is required. Furthermore, to do so might in fact dilute minority strength, as creating bare majorities in more districts rather than substantial majorities in fewer districts might reduce a minority group’s electoral success. “Fragmenting minority voters among several districts… or packing them into one or a small number of districts to minimize their influence in the districts next door… Section 2 prohibits either sort of line drawing where its result, `interact[ing] with social and historical conditions,' impairs the ability of a protected class to elect its candidate of choice on an equal basis with other voters."

Impact on Redistricting

Johnson has clarified Gingles in an important way, making it clear that where minority populations are significant enough to cover several districts, maximizing the number of majority-minority districts is not the only important consideration, and in fact may be counterproductive. The decision gives redistricting plans more flexibility in areas with large minority populations to draw lines based on factors other than race alone.

Bush v. Vera 517 US 952 (1996)

Case Summary

After the 1990 Census Texas received three additional Congressional seats. As part of its reapportionment plan, the new redistricting plan created three new majority-minority districts, two Hispanic and one African American. The districts were undeniably gerrymandered for this purpose, with little consideration for other factors, even compactness. Though cleared by the DOJ and used for the 1992 elections, the plan was challenged and the District Court held these three districts to be unconstitutional gerrymanders. The case was appealed.

Ruling

The Court first determined that voters in the gerrymandered districts did have standing to sue. The Court then reaffirmed its earlier holdings in Shaw and Miller that “Strict scrutiny applies where race was "the predominantfactor" motivating the drawing of district lines, and traditional, race neutral districting principles were subordinated to race.” The districts were found to have substantially ignored compactness requirements in order to create majority-minority districts, and that racial gerrymandering was subject to strict scrutiny. The Court explored the defendants’ claim that incumbent protection and politically motivated gerrymandering were the primary considerations, which if true would not result in strict scrutiny review. The Court determined, however, that racial considerations were the primary motivation, and thus strict scrutiny applied. Under strict scrutiny, defendants failed to provide a compelling interest to justify drawing districts based purely on race,. Race can be an important consideration, and majority-minority districts can be intentionally drawn, but only of the established requirements stemming from §2 of the VRA have been demonstrated. Furthermore, a history of discrimination, as in Texas, is not sufficient on its own to satisfy this requirement. Discrimination must be “specific and identified” in the district, along with racially polarized voting, to substantiate the defendants voter dilution claim.

Impact on Redistricting

The case reaffirmed Shaw’s finding that creating majority-minority districts cannot justify gerrymandering without demonstrating that the specific district meets the criteria for vote dilution under §2 of the VRA. While some heavily gerrymandered districts, such as District 38 in California, can be created to protect minority voting strength, the fact that a majority-majority district can be created does not necessarily require or permit such a district to be drawn. This allows line drawers more freedom in creating districts in areas with large minority populations, or seen another way, less freedom to maximize majority-minority districts.