CASE SUMMARY

When the West Virginia Legislature redrew its congressional districts in 2010, the state Senate's redistricting task force drafted a plan with an overall population deviation of 1 person between districts. The Legislature considered four different amendments and ultimately passed a version with a relative overall deviation of 0.79% (4,871 people) – the second highest variance out of the four proposals. On November 4, 2011, the County Commission of Jefferson County, West Virginia, and several county residents filed a federal lawsuit against the state’s Secretary of State, Governor, and legislative leaders challenging the enacted congressional plan as malapportioned in violation of Article I, § 2 of the U.S. Constitution and as discriminating against voters in the overpopulated 2nd District in violation of the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. They also argued the population variances and 2nd District’s configuration violated the equal population and compactness requirements of Article I, § 4 of the West Virginia Constitution. Plaintiffs sought a declaratory judgment the enacted plan was unconstitutional, an injunction barring the plan from use in future elections, and a court order adopting a new, constitutional plan.

  • On December 15, 2011, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia transferred the case to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia.
  • On January 3, 2012, the district court struck down the enacted congressional plan as malapportioned in violation of Article I, § 2, finding that the state failed to make a good faith effort to draw districts of equal populations. The court rejected the state's argument that the deviations were justified as being necessary to achieve their redistricting policy objectives of respecting county boundaries, preserving the cores of prior districts, and avoiding pairing incumbents, citing the existence of several alternative proposals which achieved those goals with smaller deviations and the state’s failure to show the “precise portion” of each deviation that was attributable to each policy. The court also rejected the state’s comparison of this plan’s deviation to a 1970’s plan which was sustained by a West Virginia federal court, stating that modern day redistricting technology had made achieving a zero-variance plan much easier and more practicable than in the past, as evidenced by the fifteen states which had enacted such plans in the 2010 cycle. The court enjoined the plan from use in future elections and ordered the state to enact a new, properly apportioned plan.
  • Defendants appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court which granted a stay on the district court's judgment pending appeal.
  • On September 25, 2012, SCOTUS issued a per curiam opinion reversing upholding the state's enacted congressional plan as constitutional. First, the Court held that the district court erred in concluding that improved redistricting technology had converted a historically "minor" deviation into a "major" one today since the degree of harm resulting from such malapportionment remained the same. Next, the Court explained that the redistricting policies put forth by West Virginia were valid and sufficient to sustain the enacted plan because none of the alternative proposals came close to achieving all of the State's policy goals while also achieving a lower variance. It also clarified that no precedent required a State to produce the precise portion of each deviation attributable to each redistricting policy. In light of its ruling, the Court remanded the case back to the district court for further proceedings on the state constitutional claims.
  • On January 25, 2013, the district court, on remand, ordered the case be dismissed on the grounds that West Virginia courts should have the first opportunity to address the remaining "novel" issues involving the West Virginia Constitution.

CASE LIBRARY

U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia - No. 3:11-cv-0096

U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia - No. 2:11-cv-0989

U.S. Supreme Court - No. 11A674 (Stay) & 11-1184 (Merits)