Davis v. Bandemer (1986)
Tuesday, December 1, 2009 at 11:32AM Read the opinion here.
Issue. Are political gerrymandering cases properly justiciable under the Equal Protection Clause; and, if so, what must be shown to demonstrate an Equal Protection violation?
Background. Indiana Democrats sued the State's apportionment plan adopted by the Republican-controlled state legislature in 1981. The plan was adopted in secret and presented before the legislature two days before the end of its legislative session. Under the new apportionment plan, Indiana Democrats won a majority of the state-wide votes for both the State Senate and the State House. However, Democrats received a minority of the seats in both chambers. Democrats claimed that this anomaly was the result of the gerrymandered apportionment plan pushed through by Republicans (each district was of relatively equal population). The plan diluted the Democratic vote, which Democrats claimed violated the "one person, one vote" requirement of the Equal Protection Clause.
The District Court agreed that the apportionment plan violated the Equal Protection Clause. On appeal, the Supreme Court found that such claims are justiciable in the courts but that the evidence was not sufficient to prove an Equal Protection violation.
Court's Analysis. After finding that political gerrymandering cases (drawing districts to create safe seats for Republicans and/or Democrats) can be heard before the courts, the Supreme Court went on to analyze the standard applied by the District Court and the evidentiary record.
In order for an equal protection claim for voter dilution to be successful, one needs to prove both intentional discrimination against an identified political group and an actual discriminatory effect of that group. The Supreme Court refused to overturn the District Court's finding that Republicans intended to discriminate against Democrats when creating political districts. Anytime a legislature redistricts, the legislators are aware where voters are located and what their likely political preferences are. Who is better situated to know what would likely be a safely drawn district than those who run for elections?
The Supreme Court, however, did not agree that the Democrats proved acutal discriminatory effect. One election is not sufficient to show such effect. Further, the Democrats were asking for nothing less than proportional representation in State legislative races. The Court would not allow such a thing. In fact, it can be argued that both safe Democratic and Republican districts may better reflect the state-wide vote than having all competitive districts. Regardless, there will always be some discrepancy in a winner-take-all, district based elections.
Additionally, even if a political minority lived in a District where his preferred candidate never wins, who is to say that the winning candidate will not protect his interests. There was no proof that a winning candidate will ignore or will not adequately represent those who did not vote for the candidate.
In sum, "a group's electoral power is not constitutionally diminished by the simple fact of an apportionment scheme that makes winning elections more difficult." Unconstitutional discrimination only occurs when the electoral system is "arranged in a manner that will consistently degrade a voter's or a group of voters' influence on the political process as a whole." There was not sufficient evidence in this case of such dilution.