Connecticut's legislative apportionment plan was held by the
District Court to be unconstitutional because partisan political
structuring had resulted in excessive population deviations in the
House districting.
Held:
1. Minor deviations from mathematical equality among state
legislative districts do not make out a
prima facie case
of invidious discrimination under the Equal Protection Clause of
the Fourteenth Amendment, and in this case, where the House
districts deviated on the average by 1.9% and the maximum deviation
was 7.83%, a
prima facie case was not made out. Pp.
412 U. S.
740-751.
2. A "political fairness principle" that achieves a rough
approximation of the state-wide political strengths of the two
major parties does not violate the Equal Protection Clause. Pp.
412 U. S.
751-754.
341 F.
Supp. 139, reversed.
WHITE, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which BURGER,
C.J., and STEWART, BLACKMUN, POWELL, and REHNQUIST, JJ., joined.
BRENNAN, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which DOUGLAS and
MARSHALL, JJ., joined,
post, p.
412 U. S. 772.
MR. JUSTICE WHITE delivered the opinion of the Court.
The questions in this case are whether the population variations
among the election districts provided by a reapportionment plan for
the Connecticut General Assembly, proposed in 1971, made out a
prima facie
Page 412 U. S. 736
case of invidious discrimination under the Equal Protection
Clause and whether an otherwise acceptable reapportionment plan is
constitutionally vulnerable where its purpose is to provide
districts that would achieve "political fairness" between the
political parties.
I
The reapportionment plan for the Connecticut General Assembly
became law when published by Connecticut's Secretary of State in
December, 1971. Under the State's Constitution, the legislature is
given the initial opportunity to reapportion itself in the months
immediately following the completion of a decennial census of the
United States. Conn.Const., Art. III, § 6(b). In the present case,
the legislature was unable to agree on a plan by the state
constitutional deadline of April 1, 1971. The task was therefore
transferred, as required by the constitution, to an eight-member
bipartisan commission.
Ibid. The Democratic and Republican
Party leaders in the legislature each appointed four commissioners.
The commission was given until July 1, 1971, to devise a
reapportionment plan,
id., § 6(c); but, although the
commission approached agreement, it too was unable to adopt a plan
within the deadline. Accordingly, as a final step in the
constitutional process, a three-man bipartisan Board was
constituted.
Id., § 6(d). The Speaker of the House of
Representatives, a Democrat, and the Republican Minority Leader of
the House each chose a judge of the State Superior Court to be a
Board member, and the two judges in turn designated a third Board
member, who was a justice of the State Supreme Court.
Ibid.
This Apportionment Board, using the census data available during
the summer of 1971, and relying heavily on the legislative
commission's tentative plans, filed a
Page 412 U. S. 737
reapportionment plan on September 30, 1971, with one member
dissenting.
According to the 1970 census data before the Board, the
population of Connecticut is 3,032,217. The Board's reapportionment
plan provides for a Senate consisting of 36 senators elected from
single member districts. The ideal senatorial district, in terms of
population, would thus contain 84,228 people. The districts
actually created deviate, on the average, by O.45% from this ideal,
the median deviation being O.47%. The largest and smallest
senatorial districts deviate by +0.88% and -0.93%, respectively,
making the total maximum deviation 1.81%. [
Footnote 1]
The reapportionment plan proposed a House of 151 single member
districts. The population of the ideal assembly district would be
20,081. The average deviation from perfect equality for all the
plan's assembly districts is 1.9%, the median deviation, 1.8,%. The
maximum deviation from the ideal is +3.93% and -3.9%. The maximum
deviation between any two districts thus totals 7.83%. [
Footnote 2]
In Connecticut, towns, rather than counties, are the basic unit
of local government.
See Butterworth v.
Dempsey, 229 F.
Supp. 754, 761 (Conn.),
aff'd, 378 U.
S. 564 (1964). The State Constitution provides that "no
town shall be divided" for the purpose of creating House districts,
except where districts are formed "wholly within the town." Art.
III, § 4. No comparable directive exists for the creation of Senate
districts. The Constitution further provides, however, that the
"establishment of districts . . . shall be consistent with
federal
Page 412 U. S. 738
constitutional standards."
Id., § 5. To meet those
standards and to reach what it thought to be substantial population
equality, the Board cut the boundary lines of 47 of the State's 169
towns. [
Footnote 3] The Board
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. Senate and House
districts were structured so that the composition of both Houses
would reflect "as closely as possible . . . the actual [state-wide]
plurality of vote on the House or Senate lines in a given
election." [
Footnote 4] Rather
than focusing on party membership in the respective districts, the
Board took into account the party voting results in the preceding
three state-wide elections, and, on that basis, created what was
thought to be a proportionate number of Republican and Democratic
legislative seats.
In November, 1971, not long after the Board filed the
reapportionment plan with the Secretary of the State, an action was
brought in federal district court seeking declaratory and
injunctive relief against implementation of the plan. The complaint
alleged that the Board
"erroneously applied the one man-one vote doctrine of the
Fourteenth Amendment . . . to achieve smaller deviations from
population equality for the assembly districts
Page 412 U. S. 739
than was required by the Fourteenth Amendment . . . and thereby
was compelled to segment an excessive number of towns in forming
assembly districts."
The complaint further alleged the plan amounted to a political
gerrymander, and contained "a built-in bias in favor of the
Republican Party." Appellant Gaffney, the Chairman of the State
Republican Party, was permitted to intervene in support of the
Board's plan and, after a three-judge court was empaneled, the
court heard testimony in March, 1972. At the hearing, plaintiff
appellees introduced three alternative House apportionment plans
that required fewer town-line cuts, although all three plans
involved total deviations from population equality in excess of
those contained in the Board plan. [
Footnote 5] A fourth plan for the House was submitted with
a total maximum deviation from population equality among districts
of 2.61%, as compared with the Board plan, which contained a 7.83%
total maximum deviation. This alternative plan, however, was
prepared without regard for town lines, which were cut
substantially more times than in the Board plan. [
Footnote 6] Considerable evidence was
introduced demonstrating the obvious political considerations in
the Board's district-making. [
Footnote 7] In late March, the District Court filed its
decision invalidating the Board plan and permanently enjoining its
use in future elections.
341 F.
Supp. 139. The court held that
"the deviations
Page 412 U. S. 740
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. . . ."
Id. at 148. The court relied in part on
Kirkpatrick
v. Preisler, 394 U. S. 526
(1969). More particularly, the court found that the policy of
"partisan political structuring," 341 F. Supp. at 150, "cannot be
approved as a legitimate reason for violating the requirement of
numerical equality of population in districting."
Id. at
149. The court therefore required that a plan reflecting "closer
adherence to the constitutional guidelines" be adopted.
Jurisdiction over the case was retained for all purposes, and the
court announced that it "will appoint a master . . . to devise a
plan conforming to federal and state constitutional requirements. .
. ."
Id. at 150.
On June 12, 1972, after a motion to expedite consideration of
the appeal had been denied (406 U.S. 942), this Court granted
appellant's motion for a stay of the District Court's judgment.
407 U. S. 902. On
the basis of that stay, and a subsequent supportive state order,
[
Footnote 8] the 1972 fall
elections for the State Assembly were held under the Board's
reapportionment plan. When this Court convened in October, 1972, we
noted probable jurisdiction over the appeal.
409
U. S. 839. By this time, a Special Master had been
appointed by the District Court and had prepared a reapportionment
plan.
II
We think that appellees' showing of numerical deviations from
population equality among the Senate and
Page 412 U. S. 741
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 among the State's legislative
districts. Put another way, the allegations and proof of population
deviations among the districts fail in size and quality to amount
to an invidious discrimination under the Fourteenth Amendment which
would entitle appellees to relief, absent some countervailing
showing by the State.
The requirement of Art. I, § 2, of the Constitution, that
representatives be chosen "by the People of the several States,"
mandates that "one man's vote in a congressional election is to be
worth as much as another's."
Wesberry v. Sanders,
376 U. S. 1,
376 U. S. 8 (1964)
(footnote omitted). This standard "permits only the limited
population variances which are unavoidable despite a good faith
effort to achieve absolute equality, or for which justification is
shown."
Kirkpatrick v. Preisler, 394 U.S. at
394 U. S. 531.
In
Kirkpatrick and in
Wells v. Rockefeller,
394 U. S. 542
(1969), the Court found inconsistent with this standard state
statutes creating congressional districts having total maximum
deviations of 5.97% and 13.1%, respectively. It is the standard of
these cases which is the prevailing rule under Art. I and which we
confirm in
White v. Weiser, post, p.
412 U. S. 783,
today, for the purposes of congressional reapportionment.
Earlier this Term, the question arose whether the same standard
is applicable when reviewing state legislative reapportionments
under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Mahan v. Howell, 410 U. S. 315
(1973). We 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
Page 412 U. S. 742
governed by the Fourteenth Amendment and
Reynolds v.
Sims, 377 U. S. 533
(1964), and its progeny. Noting that the "dichotomy between the two
lines of cases has consistently been maintained," 410 U.S. at
410 U. S. 322,
we concluded that
"the constitutionality of Virginia's legislative redistricting
plan was not to be judged by the more stringent standards that
Kirkpatrick and
Wells make applicable to
congressional reapportionment, but instead by the equal protection
test enunciated in
Reynolds v. Sims,"
id. at
410 U. S. 324,
that test being that districts in state reapportionments be "as
nearly of equal population as is practicable,"
Reynolds,
supra, at
377 U.S.
577, and that,
"[s]o 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."
Id. at
377 U.S.
579. In
Mahan, the ideal district was 46,485
persons per delegate. The maximum variation from the ideal was
16.4% -- "the 12th district being overrepresented by 6.8% and the
16th district being underrepresented by 9.6%." 410 U.S. at
410 U. S. 319
(footnote omitted). The average percentage variation under the plan
was +3.89%. Of the 52 house districts, 35 were within 4% of the
ideal district, and nine exceeded a 6% variation from the
ideal.
The asserted justification for the divergencies in
Mahan was "the State's policy of maintaining the integrity
of political subdivision lines,"
id. at
410 U. S. 325,
a policy we found to be rational and wholly sufficient to justify
the district population disparities of the size and quality that
had been found to exist. We ruled that the
"relatively minor variations present in the Virginia plan
contrast sharply with the larger variations in state legislative
reapportionment plans that have been struck
Page 412 U. S. 743
down by previous decisions of this Court,"
id. at
410 U. S. 329,
and that "Virginia has not sacrificed substantial equality to
justifiable deviations."
Ibid.
Although requiring that the population variations among
legislative districts in
Mahan be justified by substantial
state considerations, we did not hold that in state legislative
cases any deviations from perfect population equality in the
districts, however small, make out
prima facie equal
protection violations and require that the contested
reapportionments be struck down absent adequate state
justification. Nor had we so held in any prior state
reapportionment case.
Swann v. Adams, 385 U.
S. 440 (1967), and
Kilgarlin v. Hill,
386 U. S. 120
(1967), required state justification of population variations found
in state legislative reapportionments, but the variations involved
in each of these cases exceeded those we dealt with in
Mahan.
In the case now before us, appellant urges that the population
variations among Senate and House districts in the Board plan did
not, in and of themselves, demonstrate an equal protection
violation, and that the State was not required to justify them
absent further proof of invidiousness by appellees. For several
reasons, we think the point is well taken, and that the District
Court erred in holding to the contrary.
As we noted in
Mahan v. Howell, Reynolds v. Sims
recognized that a State must make an honest and good faith effort
to construct its districts "as nearly of equal population as is
practicable," but that absolute equality was a "practical
impossibility": "Mathematical exactness or precision is hardly a
workable constitutional requirement." 377 U.S. at
377 U.S. 577. Moreover, the
Reynolds court also noted that "some distinctions may well
be made between congressional and state legislative
representation," and that
"[s]omewhat more flexibility may therefore be constitutionally
permissible with respect to
Page 412 U. S. 744
state legislative apportionment than in congressional
districting."
Id. at
377 U.S.
578. All that would be required was
"substantial equality of population among the various districts,
so that the vote of any citizen is approximately equal in weight to
that of any other citizen in the State."
Id. at
377 U.S.
579. In other words,
"[s]imply stated, an individual's right to vote for state
legislators is unconstitutionally impaired when its weight is in a
substantial fashion diluted when compared with votes of citizens
living in other parts of the State."
Id. at
377 U.S.
568.
As these pronouncements have been worked out in our cases, it
has become apparent that the larger variations from substantial
equality are too great to be justified by any state interest so far
suggested. There were thus the enormous variations struck down in
the early cases beginning with
Reynolds v. Sims, [
Footnote 9] as well as the much
smaller, but nevertheless unacceptable, deviations appearing in
later cases such as
Swann v. Adams, 385 U.
S. 440 (1967);
Kilgarlin v. Hill, 386 U.
S. 120 (1967); and
Whitcomb v. Chavis,
403 U. S. 124,
403 U. S.
161-163 (1971).
Page 412 U. S. 745
On the other hand, as
Mahan v. Howell demonstrates,
population deviations among districts may be sufficiently large to
require justification, but nonetheless be justifiable and legally
sustainable. It is now time to recognize, in the context of the
eminently reasonable approach of
Reynolds v. Sims, that
minor deviations from mathematical equality among state legislative
districts are insufficient to make out a
prima facie case
of invidious discrimination under the Fourteenth Amendment so as to
require justification by the State.
We doubt that
Reynolds would mandate any other result,
if for no other reason than that the basic statistical materials
which legislatures and courts usually have to work with are the
results of the United States census taken at 10-year intervals and
published as soon as possible after the beginning of each decade.
These figures may be as accurate as such immense undertakings can
be, but they are inherently less than absolutely accurate. Those
who know about such things recognize this fact, [
Footnote 10] and, unless they are to be
wholly ignored, it makes little sense
Page 412 U. S. 746
to conclude from relatively minor "census population" variations
among legislative districts that any person's vote is being
substantially diluted. The "population" of a legislative district
is just not that knowable to be used for such refined
judgments.
What is more, it must be recognized that total population, even
if absolutely accurate as to each district when counted, is
nevertheless not a talismanic measure of the weight of a person's
vote under a later adopted reapportionment plan. The United States
census is more of an event than a process. It measures population
at only a single instant in time. District populations are
constantly changing, often at different rates in either direction,
up or down. Substantial differentials in population growth rates
are striking and well-known phenomena. [
Footnote 11] So, too, if it is the weight of a
person's vote that matters, total population -- even if stable and
accurately taken -- may not actually reflect that body of voters
whose votes must be counted and weighed for the purposes of
reapportionment, because "census persons" are not voters. [
Footnote 12] The proportion of the
census
Page 412 U. S. 747
population too young to vote or disqualified by alienage or
nonresidence varies substantially among the States and among
localities within the States. The six congressional districts in
Connecticut, for example, vary from one another by as much as 4% in
their age-eligible voters, with the first district having 68% of
its census population at voting age while the sixth district has
64% at 18 years or older. Bureau of the Census, Congressional
District Data Book, 93d Congress, Connecticut 7-8 (1972). Other
States have congressional districts that vary from one another by
as much as 29% and as little as l% with respect to their
age-eligible voters. [
Footnote
13] And these figures tell us nothing of the other ineligibles
making up the substantially equal census populations among election
districts: aliens, nonresident military personnel, nonresident
students, for example.
See Burns v. Richardson,
384 U. S. 73,
384 U. S. 90-97
(1966);
Davis v. Mann, 377 U. S. 678,
377 U. S.
691-692 (1964);
Ely v. Klahr, 403 U.
S. 108,
403 U. S.
115-116, n. 7 (1971);
Mahan v. Howell, 410 U.S.
at
410 U. S.
330-332. Nor do these figures tell anything at all about
the proportion of all those otherwise eligible individuals
Page 412 U. S. 748
whose vote cannot be counted or weighed because they either
failed to register or failed to vote. [
Footnote 14]
Reynolds v. Sims, of course,
dealt with more than the statistical niceties involved in
equalizing individual voting strength. It argued that,
"if a State should provide that the votes of citizens in one
part of the State should be given two times, or five times, or 10
times the weight of votes of citizens in another part of the State,
it could hardly be contended that the right to vote of those
residing in the disfavored areas had not been effectively
diluted."
377 U.S. at
377 U. S. 562.
To conclude differently,
"and to sanction minority control of state legislative bodies,
would appear to deny majority rights in a way that far surpasses
any possible denial of minority rights that might otherwise be
thought to result."
Id. at
377 U.S.
565. More fundamentally,
Reynolds recognized that
"the achieving of fair and effective representation for all
citizens is . . . the basic aim of legislative apportionment,"
id. at
377 U.S.
565-566, and it was for that reason that the decision
insisted on substantial equality of populations among districts.
This is a vital and worthy goal, but surely its attainment does not
in any common sense way depend upon eliminating the insignificant
population variations involved in this case. Fair and effective
representation may be destroyed by gross population variations
among districts, but it is apparent that such representation does
not depend solely on mathematical equality among district
Page 412 U. S. 749
populations. [
Footnote
15] There are other relevant factors to be taken into account
and other important interests that States may legitimately be
mindful of.
See Mahan v. Howell, supra; Abate v. Mundt,
403 U. S. 182
(1971);
Dusch v. Davis, 387 U. S. 112
(1967);
Sailors v. Board of Education, 387 U.
S. 105 (1967);
Burns v. Richardson, supra. An
unrealistic overemphasis on raw population figures, a mere nose
count in the districts, may submerge these other considerations and
itself furnish a ready tool for ignoring factors that in day-to-day
operation are important to an acceptable representation and
apportionment arrangement.
Nor is the goal of fair and effective representation furthered
by making the standards of reapportionment so difficult to satisfy
that the reapportionment task is recurringly removed from
legislative hands and performed by federal courts which themselves
must make the political decisions necessary to formulate a plan or
accept those made by reapportionment plaintiffs who may have wholly
different goals from those embodied in the official plan. From the
very outset, we recognized that the apportionment task, dealing as
it must with fundamental "choices about the nature of
representation,"
Burns v. Richardson, 384 U.S. at
384 U. S. 92, is
primarily a political and legislative process.
Reynolds v.
Sims, 377 U.S. at
377 U.S.
586. We doubt that the Fourteenth Amendment requires
repeated displacement of otherwise appropriate state decisionmaking
in the name of essentially minor deviations from perfect
census-population equality that no one, with confidence, can say
will deprive any person of fair and effective representation in his
state legislature.
That the Court was not deterred by the hazards of the
Page 412 U. S. 750
political thicket when it undertook to adjudicate the
reapportionment cases does not mean that it should become bogged
down in a vast, intractable apportionment slough, particularly when
there is little, if anything, to be accomplished by doing so.
This very case represents what should not happen in the federal
courts. The official state functionaries proposed a plan with a
maximum variation among the districts of 7.83% in the House and
1.81% in the Senate, and with respective average variations of
l.90% and .45%. Appellees then proposed four alternate plans for
the House, three of which involved slightly larger variations among
districts but cut fewer town lines. The fourth cut more lines, but
had a maximum variation between its largest and smallest district
of only 2.6%. The District Court thought the state plan involved
unacceptably large variations between districts, although, in the
House, with districts of about 20,000 people, the average variation
involved only 399 people, and the largest variations involved only
1,573 people. [
Footnote 16]
But neither did the District Court adopt any of the plans submitted
by appellees. Instead, it appointed its own Master to come up with
still another scheme. That plan, we are told, involves a total
maximum deviation in the House of only 1.16%. [
Footnote 17] Was the Master compelled, as a
federal constitutional matter, to come up with a plan with smaller
variations than were contained in appellees' plans? And what is to
happen to the Master's plan if a resourceful mind hits upon a plan
better than the Master's by a fraction of a percentage point?
Involvements like this must end at some point, but that point
constantly recedes if those
Page 412 U. S. 751
who litigate need only produce a plan that is marginally
"better" when measured against a rigid and unyielding population
equality standard.
The point is, that such involvements should never begin. We have
repeatedly recognized that state reapportionment is the task of
local legislatures or of those organs of state government selected
to perform it. Their work should not be invalidated under the Equal
Protection Clause when only minor population variations among
districts are proved. Here, the proof at trial demonstrated that
the House districts under the State Apportionment Board's plan
varied in population from one another by a
maximum of only
about 8%, and that the average deviation from the ideal House
district was only about 2%. The Senate districts had even less
variations. On such a showing, we are quite sure that a
prima
facie case of invidious discrimination under the Fourteenth
Amendment was not made out.
III
State legislative districts may be equal or substantially equal
in population and still be vulnerable under the Fourteenth
Amendment. A districting statute, otherwise acceptable, may be
invalid because it fences out a racial group so as to deprive them
of their preexisting municipal vote.
Gomillion v.
Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339
(1960). A districting plan may create multi-member districts
perfectly acceptable under equal population standards, but
invidiously discriminatory because they are employed "to minimize
or cancel out the voting strength of racial or political elements
of the voting population."
Fortson v. Dorsey, 379 U.
S. 433,
379 U. S. 439
(1965).
See White v. Regester, post, p.
412 U. S. 755;
Whitcomb v. Chavis, 403 U. S. 124
(1971);
Abate v. Mundt, 403 U.S. at
403 U. S. 184
n. 2;
Burns v. Richardson, 384 U.S. at
384 U. S. 88-89.
We must, therefore, respond to appellees' claims in this case
Page 412 U. S. 752
that, even if acceptable population-wise, the Apportionment
Board's plan was invidiously discriminatory because a "political
fairness principle" was followed in making up the districts in both
the House and Senate.
The record abounds with evidence, and it is frankly admitted by
those who prepared the plan, that virtually every Senate and House
district line was drawn with the conscious intent to create a
districting plan that would achieve a rough approximation of the
state-wide political strengths of the Democratic and Republican
Parties, the only two parties in the State large enough to elect
legislators from discernible geographic areas. Appellant insists
that the spirit of "political fairness" underlying this plan is not
only permissible, but a desirable consideration in laying out
districts that otherwise satisfy the population standard of the
reapportionment cases. Appellees, on the other hand, label the plan
as nothing less than a gigantic political gerrymander, invidiously
discriminatory under the Fourteenth Amendment. [
Footnote 18]
We are quite unconvinced that the reapportionment plan offered
by the three-member Board violated the Fourteenth Amendment because
it attempted to reflect the relative strength of the parties in
locating and defining election districts. It would be idle, we
think, to contend that any political consideration taken into
account in fashioning a reapportionment plan is sufficient to
invalidate it. Our cases indicate quite the contrary.
Page 412 U. S. 753
See White v. Regester, supra; Burns v. Richardson, supra;
Whitcomb v. Chavis, supra; Abate v. Mundt, supra. The very
essence of districting is to produce a different -- a more
"politically fair" -- result than would be reached with elections
at large, in which the winning party would take 100% of the
legislative seats. Politics and political considerations are
inseparable from districting and apportionment. The political
profile of a State, its party registration, and voting records are
available precinct by precinct, ward by ward. These subdivisions
may not be identical with census tracts, but, when overlaid on a
census map, it requires no special genius to recognize the
political consequences of drawing a district line along one street
rather than another. It is not only obvious, but absolutely
unavoidable, that the location and shape of districts may well
determine the political complexion of the area. District lines are
rarely neutral phenomena. They can well determine what district
will be predominantly Democratic or predominantly Republican, or
make a close race likely. Redistricting may pit incumbents against
one another or make very difficult the election of the most
experienced legislator. The reality is that districting inevitably
has and is intended to have substantial political consequences.
It may be suggested that those who redistrict and reapportion
should work with census, not political, data, and achieve
population equality without regard for political impact. But this
politically mindless approach may produce, whether intended or not,
the most grossly gerrymandered results; and, in any event, it is
most unlikely that the political impact of such a plan would remain
undiscovered by the time it was proposed or adopted, in which event
the results would be both known and, if not changed, intended.
It is much more plausible to assume that those who redistrict
and reapportion work with both political and
Page 412 U. S. 754
census data. Within the limits of the population equality
standards of the Equal Protection Clause, they seek, through
compromise or otherwise, to achieve the political or other ends of
the State, its constituents, and its officeholders. What is done in
so arranging for elections, or to achieve political ends or
allocate political power, is not wholly exempt from judicial
scrutiny under the Fourteenth Amendment. As we have indicated, for
example, multi-member districts may be vulnerable, if racial or
political groups have been fenced out of the political process and
their voting strength invidiously minimized.
See White v.
Regester, supra; Whitcomb v. Chavis, supra. See also
Gomillion v. Lightfoot, supra. Beyond this, we have not
ventured far or attempted the impossible task of extirpating
politics from what are the essentially political processes of the
sovereign States. Even more plainly, judicial interest should be at
its lowest ebb when a State purports fairly to allocate political
power to the parties in accordance with their voting strength and,
within quite tolerable limits, succeeds in doing so. There is no
doubt that there may be other reapportionment plans for Connecticut
that would have different political consequences, and that would
also be constitutional. Perhaps any of appellees' plans would have
fallen into this category, as would the court's, had it propounded
one. But 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.
Reversed.
[For dissenting opinion of MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN,
see
post, p.
412 U. S.
772.]
[
Footnote 1]
The ratio of the largest Senate district to the smallest is
1.018 to 1.
[
Footnote 2]
The ratio of the largest assembly district to the smallest is
1.082 to 1.
[
Footnote 3]
Some town boundaries were cut more than once, resulting in what
the parties have termed "town segments," or portions of a town that
were used to form an assembly district not wholly within that town.
The Board's plan creates 78 such segments in the formation of the
151 assembly districts.
[
Footnote 4]
Testimony of Judge George A. Saden, the Republican Board member.
App. 264. According to Mr. James F. Collins, a staff member of the
Board, the plan for the House resulted in approximately 70 safe
Democratic seats, 55 to 60 safe Republican seats, with the balance
characterized as probable or swing Democratic or Republican or
"just plain swing,"
341 F.
Supp. 139, 147.
See App. 126-127.
[
Footnote 5]
The Board's Senate plan was not challenged in the District
Court, and no alternative Senate plan was introduced. Appellees do
not challenge the Senate districts on the ground of their
population deviations. Brief for Appellees 14 n. 4; Tr. of Oral
Arg. 20.
[
Footnote 6]
Plaintiff appellees' plan resulted in 58 town-line cuts and 88
town segments, as opposed to the corresponding figures of 47 and 78
in the Board's plan.
[
Footnote 7]
Plaintiff appellees further offered testimony illustrating the
undesirability -- in the context of the State's administrative
apparatus -- of excessive cutting of town lines.
[
Footnote 8]
The order was entered in a parallel state proceeding,
Miller
v. Schaffer, No. 173606, Super.Ct., Hartford County, filed
November 12, 1971, which was directed at correcting certain
clerical errors or omissions in the Board's plan.
[
Footnote 9]
Reynolds v. Sims involved the Alabama State
Legislature, which had not reapportioned itself in over 60 years.
Under the apportionment existing in 1964, some senatorial districts
with the same number of representatives had over 40 times more
people than others. House districts with identical representation
could vary by 16 to 1. In Maryland in 1964, some House districts
with nominally equal representation could have six times more
people than others, while senatorial districts could be 32 times
larger than others.
Maryland Committee for Fair Representation
v. Tawes, 377 U. S. 656
(1964). The list may easily be expanded to include other States,
and Connecticut is no exception. In 1964, the Connecticut towns of
Hartford and Union had the same representation in the House, but
Union had a population of 383 people, while Hartford had a
population of 162,178. A vote in Union was thus weighted about 425
times more heavily than a vote in Hartford. At that time, it would
have taken only 11.9% of Connecticut's population to elect a
majority of its House, and only 31% to elect a Senate majority.
See Butterworth v. Dempsey, 229 F.
Supp. 754 (Conn.),
aff'd, 378 U.
S. 564 (1964).
[
Footnote 10]
See, e.g., H. Alterman, Counting People: The Census in
History 262 (1969):
"A census, by its nature, can never be an exact count of a
nation. This is especially true of the United States. . . . Thus,
an error of 1 or 2 percent in the count of the total population is
to be expected; professionally, it is regarded as an 'acceptable'
error."
The Census Bureau estimates that the 1970 census had an
undercoverage rate of 2.5%, or about 5,300,000 people. Address of
J. S. Siegel, Population Association of America Annual Meeting, in
New Orleans, La., Apr. 26, 1973.
See N.Y. Times, Apr. 26,
1973, p. 1, col. 1.
Inexactness of census data is most evident with respect to
minorities. It is estimated, for example, that Negroes were
underenumerated in the 1970 census by 7.7%, as compared to an
estimated l.9% undercount for white persons.
Ibid. See
also Siegel, Completeness of Coverage of the Nonwhite
Population in the 1960 Census and Current Estimates, and Some
Implications, in Social Statistics and the City 13 (D. Heer
ed.1968).
[
Footnote 11]
See, e.g., M. Spiegelman, Introduction to Demography
415-416 (1968); U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2 The Materials and
Methods of Demography 806 (1971).
In Connecticut, for example, the population of the State as a
whole grew by 19.6% during the 1960's. But the population in the
area comprising the Second Congressional District grew by over 28%,
while the population in the Fourth District grew by only 11.2%. The
U.S. Bureau of the Census, Congressional District Data Book, 93d
Congress, Connecticut 7 (1972).
[
Footnote 12]
See Burns v. Richardson, 384 U. S.
73,
384 U. S. 91-92
(1966):
"We start with the proposition that the Equal Protection Clause
does not require the States to use total population figures derived
from the federal census as the standard by which this substantial
population equivalency is to be measured. . . . Neither in
Reynolds v. Sims nor in any other decision has this Court
suggested that the States are required to include aliens,
transients, short-term or temporary residents, or persons denied
the vote for conviction of crime, in the apportionment base by
which their legislators are distributed and against which
compliance with the Equal Protection Clause is to be measured. The
decision to include or exclude any such group involves choices
about the nature of representation with which we have been shown no
constitutionally founded reason to interfere. Unless a choice is
one the Constitution forbids,
cf., e.g., Carrington v.
Rash, 380 U. S. 89, the resulting
apportionment base offends no constitutional bar, and compliance
with the rule established in
Reynolds v. Sims is to be
measured thereby."
[
Footnote 13]
Utah, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Missouri have only 1%
variations. New York has a 29% variation in age-eligible voters
among its congressional districts, while California has a 25% and
Illinois a 20% variation. These figures may be computed from the
Bureau of the Census' Congressional District Data, 93d Congress,
for the respective States.
[
Footnote 14]
Again using Connecticut congressional districts as an example,
in the November, 1972 elections, the percentage of registered
voters who actually voted varied by a maximum of 2.8%.
See
Statement of Vote, General Election Nov. 7, 1972, State of
Conn.Pub. Doc. No. 26, p. 72 (1973). The percentages of registered
voters who voted varied by as much as about 23% among the towns in
the State.
Id. at 671.
[
Footnote 15]
For discussions of the vast and growing literature in this area,
see Reapportionment in the 1970s (N. Polsby ed.1971).
[
Footnote 16]
Among the Senate districts (of about 84,000 people each), the
average deviation involves only about 400 people and the maximum
deviation only 1,532 people.
[
Footnote 17]
Reply Brief for Appellant 19. Apparently, more refined census
data were available to the Master in preparing this later plan.
[
Footnote 18]
Appellees also maintain that the shapes of the districts would
not have been so "indecent" had the Board not attempted to "wiggle
and joggle" boundary lines to ferret out pockets of each party's
strength. That may well be true, although any plan that attempts to
follow Connecticut's "oddly shaped" town lines (App. 98) is bound
to contain some irregularly shaped districts. But compactness or
attractiveness has never been held to constitute an independent
federal constitutional requirement for state legislative districts.
Cf. White v. Weiser, post, p.
412 U. S. 783;
Wright v. Rockefeller, 376 U. S. 52,
376 U. S. 54
(1964), and
id. at
376 U. S. 59-61
(DOUGLAS, J., dissenting).