Communication 09 How To draw Redistricting Plans That Will Stand Up In Court

Home

D.Congressional Plans 1.As Nearly Equal in Population As Practicable Once you know the population, and you know how to measure the de equality in a plan, how equal do the districts have to be? Firs courts use two different standards for judging redistricting pla a different one for legislative plans. The standard for congressional plans is based on Article I, § 2, of the U.S. Constitution, which says: Representatives . . . shall be apportioned among the several Sta their respective numbers . . . . The standard for congressional plans is strict equality. In the Wesberry v. Sanders,376 U.S. 1, the U.S. Supreme Court articulated that standard as as nearly population as practicable. Notice the choice of words. The Court did not say as nearly equ practical. The American Heritage Dictionary defines practicable as capable of being . . . done . . . . that something practical is not only capable of being done, bu It illustrates the difference between the two by pointing out th practicable to transport children to school by balloon, but it would not be practical. In 1983, in Karcher v. Daggett,462 U.S. 725, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a congressional redistricting plan drawn by the New Jersey Legisla than one percent. To be precise, .6984 percent, or 3,674 people one other plan before the Legislature had an overall range less Legislature, thus carrying their burden of proving that the popu reduced or eliminated by a good-faith effort to draw districts o In the 1980s, three-judge federal courts drawing their own redis mathematical equality. For example, in Minnesota the court-draw people (.0145 percent), LaComb v. Growe, 541 F. Supp. 145 (D. Minn. 1982) aff’d mem. sub nom. Orwoll v. LaComb, 456 U.S. 966 (1982) (Appendix A, unpublished) (In its opinion, only the sum of all the deviations, 76 people, and refers to it as the tota in Colorado the court-drawn plan had an overall range of ten people (.0020 percent), Carstens v. Lamm, 543 F. Supp. 68, 99 (D. Colo. 1982). With the improvements in the census and in the computer technolo redistricting plans after the 1990 census, the degree of populat even greater than that achieved in the 1980s. 12