Source: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/05-204/
Timestamp: 2013-12-06 09:18:44
Document Index: 168040762

Matched Legal Cases: ['§2', '§5', '§2', '§1973', '§2', '§2', '§2', '§2', '§2', '§2', '§2', '§2', '§2', '§4', '§2', '§2', '§2', '§2', '§5', '§2284', '§2', '§1973', '§4', '§4', '§2']

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No. 05204.Argued March 1, 2006Decided June 28, 2006*
The 2000 census authorized two additional seats for the Texas delegation. The Republicans then controlled the governorship and the State Senate, but did not yet control the State House of Representatives. So constituted, the legislature was unable to pass a redistricting scheme, resulting in litigation and the necessity of a court-ordered plan to comply with the U. S. Constitutions one-person, one-vote requirement. Conscious that the primary responsibility for drawing congressional districts lies with the political branches of government, and hesitant to undo the work of one political party for the benefit of another, the three-judge Federal District Court sought to apply only neutral redistricting standards when drawing Plan 1151C, including placing the two new seats in high-growth areas, following county and voting precinct lines, and avoiding the pairing of incumbents. Under Plan 1151C, the 2002 congressional elections resulted in a 17-to-15 Democratic majority in the Texas delegation, compared to a 59% to 40% Republican majority in votes for statewide office in 2000, thus leaving the 1991 Democratic gerrymander largely in place.
In 2003, however, Texas Republicans gained control of both houses of the legislature and set out to increase Republican representation in the congressional delegation. After a protracted partisan struggle, the legislature enacted a new congressional districting map, Plan 1374C. In the 2004 congressional elections, Republicans won 21 seats to the Democrats 11, while also obtaining 58% of the vote in statewide races against the Democrats 41%. Soon after Plan 1374C was enacted, appellants challenged it in court, alleging a host of constitutional and statutory violations. In 2004 the District Court entered judgment for appellees, but this Court vacated the decision and remanded for consideration in light of Vieth v. Jubelirer,
541 U. S. 267. On remand, the District Court, believing the scope of its mandate was limited to questions of political gerrymandering, again rejected appellants claims. Held: The judgment is affirmed in part, reversed in part, and vacated in part, and the cases are remanded. 399 F. Supp. 2d 756, affirmed in part, reversed in part, vacated in part, and remanded. Justice Kennedy delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts IIA and III, concluding:
1. This Court held, in Davis v. Bandemer,
478 U. S. 109, that an equal protection challenge to a political gerrymander presents a justiciable case or controversy, although it could not agree on what substantive standard to apply, compare id., at 127137, with id., at 161162. That disagreement persists. The Vieth plurality would have held such challenges nonjusticiable political questions, but a majority declined to do so, see 541 U. S., at 306, 317, 343, 355. Justiciability is not revisited here. At issue is whether appellants offer a manageable, reliable measure of fairness for determining whether a partisan gerrymander is unconstitutional. P. 7. 2. Texas redrawing of District 23s lines amounts to vote dilution violative of §2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Pp. 1736.
(a) Plan 1374Cs changes to District 23 served the dual goals of increasing Republican seats and protecting the incumbent Republican against an increasingly powerful Latino population that threatened to oust him, with the additional political nuance that he would be reelected in a district that had a Latino majority as to voting age population, though not a Latino majority as to citizen voting age population or an effective Latino voting majority. The District 23 changes required adjustments elsewhere, so the State created new District 25 to avoid retrogression under §5 of the Act. Pp. 1718.
(b) A State violates §2 if, based on the totality of circumstances, it is shown that the political processes leading to nomination or election … are not [as] equally open to … members of [a racial group as they are to] other members of the electorate. 42 U. S. C. §1973(b). Thornburg v. Gingles,
478 U. S. 30, identified three threshold conditions for establishing a §2 violation: (1) the racial group must be sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a majority in a single-member district; (2) the group must be politically cohesive; and (3) the white majority must vot[e] sufficiently as a bloc to enable it … usually to defeat the minoritys preferred candidate. The legislative history identifies factors that courts can use, once all three threshold requirements are met, in interpreting §2s totality of circumstances standard, including the States history of voting-related discrimination, the extent to which voting is racially polarized, and the extent to which the State has used voting practices or procedures that tend to enhance the opportunity for discrimination against the minority group. See id., at 4445. Another relevant consideration is whether the number of districts in which the minority group forms an effective majority is roughly proportional to its share of the population in the relevant area. Johnson v. De Grandy,
512 U. S. 997. The district courts determination whether the §2 requirements are satisfied must be upheld unless clearly erroneous. See Gingles, supra, at 7879. Where the ultimate finding of dilution is based on a misreading of the governing law, however, there is reversible error. De Grandy, supra, at 1022. Pp. 1820.
(c) Appellants have satisfied all three Gingles requirements as to District 23, and the creation of new District 25 does not remedy the problem. The second and third Gingles factorsLatino cohesion, majority bloc votingare present, given the District Courts finding of racially polarized voting in the District 23 and throughout the State. As to the first Gingles preconditionthat the minority group be large and compact enough to constitute a majority in a single-member district, 478 U. S., at 50appellants have established that Latinos could have had an opportunity district in District 23 had its lines not been altered and that they do not have one now. They constituted a majority of the citizen voting age population in District 23 under Plan 1151C. The District Court suggested incorrectly that the district was not a Latino opportunity district in 2002 simply because the incumbent prevailed. The fact that a group does not win elections does not resolve the vote dilution issue. De Grandy, 512 U. S., at 1014, n. 11. In old District 23 the increase in Latino voter registration and overall population, the concomitant rise in Latino voting power in each successive election, the near victory of the Latino candidate of choice in 2002, and the resulting threat to the incumbents continued election were the very reasons the State redrew the district lines. Since the redistricting prevented the immediate success of the emergent Latino majority in District 23, there was a denial of opportunity in the real sense of that term. Plan 1374Cs version of District 23, by contrast, is unquestionably not a Latino opportunity district. That Latinos are now a bare majority of the districts voting-age population is not dispositive, since the relevant numbers must account for citizenship in order to determine the groups opportunity to elect candidates, and Latinos do not now have a citizen voting-age majority in the district. The States argument that it met its §2 obligations by creating new District 25 as an offsetting opportunity district is rejected. In a district line-drawing challenge, the first Gingles condition requires the possibility of creating more than the existing number of reasonably compact districts with a sufficiently large minority population to elect candidates of its choice. Id., at 1008. The District Courts finding that the current plan contains six Latino opportunity districts and that seven reasonably compact districts, as proposed by appellant GI Forum, could not be drawn was not clearly erroneous. However, the court failed to perform the required compactness inquiry between the number of Latino opportunity districts under the challengers proposal of reinstating Plan 1151C and the existing number of reasonably compact districts. Ibid. Section 2 does not forbid the creation of a noncompact majority-minority district, Bush v. Vera,
517 U. S. 952, but such a district cannot remedy a violation elsewhere in the State, see Shaw v. Hunt,
517 U. S. 899. The lower court recognized there was a 300-mile gap between the two Latino communities in District 25, and a similarly large gap between the needs and interests of the two groups. The courts conclusion that the relative smoothness of the district lines made the district compact, despite this combining of discrete communities of interest, is inapposite because the court analyzed the issue only in the equal protection context, where compactness focuses on the contours of district lines to determine whether race was the predominant factor in drawing those lines. See Miller v. Johnson,
515 U. S. 900. Under §2, by contrast, the injury is vote dilution, so the compactness inquiry considers the compactness of the minority population, not … the compactness of the contested district. Vera, 517 U. S., at 997. A district that reaches out to grab small and apparently isolated minority communities is not reasonably compact. Id., at 979. The lower courts findings regarding the different characteristics, needs, and interests of the two widely scattered Latino communities in District 23 are well supported and uncontested. The enormous geographical distances separating the two communities, coupled with the disparate needs and interests of these populationsnot either factor alonerenders District 25 noncompact for §2 purposes. Therefore, Plan 1374C contains only five reasonably compact Latino opportunity districts, one fewer than Plan 1151C. Pp. 2029.
(d) The totality of the circumstances demonstrates a §2 violation. The relevant proportionality inquiry, see De Grandy, 512 U. S., at 1000, compares the percentage of total districts that are Latino opportunity districts with the Latino share of the citizen voting-age population. The States contention that proportionality should be decided on a regional basis is rejected in favor of appellants assertion that their claim requires a statewide analysis because they have alleged statewide vote dilution based on a statewide plan. Looking statewide, there are 32 congressional districts. The five reasonably compact Latino opportunity districts amount to roughly 16% of the total, while Latinos make up 22% of Texas citizen voting-age population. Latinos are, therefore, two districts shy of proportional representation. Even deeming this disproportionality insubstantial would not overcome the other evidence of vote dilution for Latinos in District 23. The changes there undermined the progress of a racial group that has been subject to significant voting-related discrimination and that was becoming increasingly politically active and cohesive. Cf., e.g., id., at 1014. Against this background, the Latinos diminishing electoral support for the incumbent indicates their belief he was unresponsive to their particularized needs. In essence, the State took away their opportunity because they were about to exercise it. Even accepting the District Courts finding that the States action was taken primarily for political, not racial, reasons, the redrawing of District 23s lines was damaging to its Latino voters. The State not only made fruitless the Latinos mobilization efforts but also acted against those Latinos who were becoming most politically active. Although incumbency protection can be a legitimate factor in districting, see Karcher v. Daggett, 462 U. S. 725, not all of its forms are in the interests of the constituents. If, as here, such protection means excluding some voters from the district simply because they are likely to vote against the officeholder, the change is to benefit the officeholder, not the voters. This policy, whatever its validity in the political realm, cannot justify the effect on Latino voters. See Gingles, supra, at 45. Pp. 2936.
(e) Because Plan 1374C violates §2 in its redrawing of District 23, appellants First Amendment and equal protection claims with respect to that district need not be addressed. Their equal protection claim as to the drawing of District 25 need not be confronted because that district will have to be redrawn to remedy the District 23 violation. Pp. 3637.
Justice Kennedy concluded in Part II that because appellants have established no legally impermissible use of political classifications, they state no claim on which relief may be granted as to their contention that Texas statewide redistricting is an unconstitutional political gerrymander. Justice Souter and Justice Ginsburg joined Part IID. Pp. 715.
(a) Article I of the Constitution, §§2 and 4, gives the States primary responsibility for apportionment of their … congressional … districts, Growe v. Emison,
507 U. S. 25, but §4 also permits Congress to set further requirements. Neither the Constitution nor Congress has stated any explicit prohibition of mid-decade redistricting to change districts drawn earlier in conformance with a decennial census. Although the legislative branch plays the primary role in congressional redistricting, courts have an important role when a districting plan violates the Constitution. See, e.g., Wesberry v. Sanders,
376 U. S. 1. That the federal courts sometimes must order legislative redistricting, however, does not shift the primary responsibility away from legislative bodies, see, e.g.,
437 U. S. 535, who are free to replace court-mandated remedial plans by enacting redistricting plans of their own, see, e.g., Upham v. Seamon,
456 U. S. 37. Judicial respect for legislative plans, however, cannot justify legislative reliance on improper criteria for districting determinations. Pp. 710.
(b) Appellants claim unpersuasively that a decision to effect mid-decennial redistricting, when solely motivated by partisan objectives, presumptively violates equal protection and the First Amendment because it serves no legitimate public purpose and burdens one group because of its political opinions and affiliation. For a number of reasons, that test is unconvincing. There is some merit to the States assertion that partisan gain was not the sole motivation for replacing Plan 1151C: The contours of some contested district lines seem to have been drawn based on more mundane and local interests, and a number of line-drawing requests by Democratic state legislators were honored. Moreover, a successful test for identifying unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering must do what appellants sole-motivation theory explicitly disavows: show a burden, as measured by a reliable standard, on the complainants representational rights. See Vieth, supra, at 292295, 307308. Appellants sole-intent standard is no more compelling when it is linked to the circumstance that Plan 1374C is mid-decennial legislation. The Constitutions text and structure and this Courts cases indicate there is nothing inherently suspect about a legislatures decision to replace mid-decade a court-ordered plan with one of its own. Even if there were, the fact of mid-decade redistricting alone is no sure indication of unlawful political gerrymanders. Appellants test would leave untouched the 1991 Texas redistricting, which entrenched a party on the verge of minority status, while striking down the 2003 redistricting plan, which resulted in the majority Republican Party capturing a larger share of the seats. A test that treats these two similarly effective power plays in such different ways does not have the reliability appellants ascribe to it. Pp. 1014.
(c) Appellants political gerrymandering theory that mid-decade redistricting for exclusively partisan purposes violates the one-person, one-vote requirement is rejected. Although conceding that States operate under the legal fiction that their plans are constitutionally apportioned throughout a decade, see, e.g.,
539 U. S. 461, n. 2, appellants contend that this fiction should not provide a safe harbor for a legislature that enacts a voluntary, mid-decade plan overriding a legal court-drawn plan. This argument mirrors appellants attack on mid-decennial redistricting solely motivated by partisan considerations and is unsatisfactory for the same reasons. Their further contention that the legislature intentionally sought to manipulate population variances when it enacted Plan 1374C is unconvincing because there is no District Court finding to that effect, and they present no specific evidence to support this serious allegation of bad faith. Because they have not demonstrated that the legislatures decision to enact Plan 1374C constitutes a violation of the equal-population requirement, their subsidiary reliance on Larios v. Cox, 300 F. Supp. 2d 1320, summarily affd, 542 U. S. 947, is unavailing. Pp. 1416.
Justice Kennedy, joined by The Chief Justice and Justice Alito, concluded in Part IV that the Dallas area redistricting does not violate §2 of the Voting Rights Act. Appellants allege that the Dallas changes dilute African-American voting strength because an African-American minority effectively controlled District 24 under Plan 1151C. However, before Plan 1374C, District 24 had elected an Anglo Democrat to Congress in every election since 1978. Since then, moreover, the incumbent has had no opposition in any of his primary elections, and African-Americans have consistently voted for him. African-Americans were the second-largest racial group in the district after Anglos, but had only 25.7% of the citizen voting age population. Even assuming that the first Gingles prong can accommodate appellants assertion that a §2 claim may be stated for a racial group that makes up less than 50% of the population, see, e.g., De Grandy, supra, at 1009, they must show they constitute a sufficiently large minority to elect their candidate of choice with the assistance of cross-over votes, Voinovich v. Quilter,
507 U. S. 146. The District Court committed no clear error in rejecting questionable evidence that African-Americans have the ability to elect their candidate of choice in favor of other evidence that an African-American candidate of choice would not prevail. See Anderson v. Bessemer City,
470 U. S. 564. That African-Americans had influence in the district does not suffice to state a §2 claim. If it did, it would unnecessarily infuse race into virtually every redistricting, raising serious constitutional questions. See Georgia v. Ashcroft,
539 U. S. 461. Id., at 480, 482, distinguished. Appellants do not raise a district-specific political gerrymandering claim against District 24. Pp. 3741.
The Chief Justice, joined by Justice Alito, agreed that appellants have not provided a reliable standard for identifying unconstitutional political gerrymanders, but noted that the question whether any such standard existsi.e., whether a challenge to such a gerrymander presents a justiciable case or controversyhas not been argued in these cases. The Chief Justice and Justice Alito therefore take no position on that question, which has divided the Court, see Vieth v. Jubelirer,
541 U. S. 267, and join the pluralitys Part II disposition without specifying whether appellants have failed to state a claim on which relief can be granted or failed to present a justiciable controversy. Pp. 12.
Justice Scalia, joined by Justice Thomas, concluded that appellants claims of unconstitutional political gerrymandering do not present a justiciable case or controversy, see Vieth v. Jubelirer, 541 U. S. 267 (plurality opinion), and that their vote-dilution claims premised on §2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 lack merit for the reasons set forth in Justice Thomass opinion concurring in the judgment in Holder v. Hall, 512 U. S. 874. Reviewing appellants race-based equal protection claims, Justice Scalia, joined by The Chief Justice, Justice Thomas, and Justice Alito, concluded that the District Court did not commit clear error in rejecting appellant GI Forums assertion that the removal of Latino residents from District 23 constituted intentional vote dilution. Justice Scalia, joined by The Chief Justice, Justice Thomas, and Justice Alito, subjected the intentional creation of District 25 as a majority-minority district to strict scrutiny and held that standard satisfied because appellants conceded that the creation of this district was reasonably necessary to comply with §5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which is a compelling state interest, and did not argue that Texas did more than that provision required it to do. Pp. 211.
Kennedy, J., announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts IIA and III, in which Stevens, Souter,
Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined, an opinion with respect to Parts I and IV, in which Roberts, C. J., and Alito, J., joined, an opinion with respect to Parts IIB and IIC, and an opinion with respect to Part IID, in which Souter and Ginsburg, JJ., joined. Stevens, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which Breyer, J., joined as to Parts I and II. Souter, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which Ginsburg, J., joined. Breyer, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part. Roberts, C. J., filed an opinion concurring in part, concurring in the judgment in part, and dissenting in part, in which Alito, J., joined. Scalia, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part, in which Thomas, J., joined, and in which Roberts, C. J., and Alito, J., joined as to Part III.
* Together with No. 05254, Travis County, Texas, et al. v. Perry, Governor of Texas, et al., No. 05276, Jackson et al. v. Perry, Governor of Texas, et al., and No. 05439, GI Forum of Texas et al. v. Perry, Governor of Texas, et al., also on appeal from the same court.
Together with No. 05254, Travis County, Texas, et al. v. Perry, Governor of Texas, et al., No. 05276, Jackson et al. v. Perry, Governor of Texas, et al., and No. 05439, GI Forum of Texas et al. v. Perry, Governor of Texas, et al., also on appeal from the same court.
05204 v.
05254 v.
05276 v.
05439 v.
Justice Kennedy announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts IIA and III, an opinion with respect to Parts I and IV, in which The Chief Justice and Justice Alito join, an opinion with respect to Parts IIB and IIC, and an opinion with respect to Part IID, in which Justice Souter and Justice Ginsburg join.
These four consolidated cases are appeals from a judgment entered by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. Convened as a three-judge court under 28 U. S. C. §2284, the court heard appellants constitutional and statutory challenges to a 2003 enactment of the Texas State Legislature that drew new district lines for the 32 seats Texas holds in the United States House of Representatives. (Though appellants do not join each other as to all claims, for the sake of convenience we refer to appellants collectively.) In 2004 the court entered judgment for appellees and issued detailed findings of fact and conclusions of law. Session v. Perry, 298 F. Supp. 2d 451 (per curiam). This Court vacated that decision and remanded for consideration in light of Vieth v. Jubelirer,
541 U. S. 267 (2004)
. The District Court reexamined appellants political gerrymandering claims and, in a second careful opinion, again held for the defendants. Henderson v. Perry, 399 F. Supp. 2d 756 (2005). These appeals followed, and we noted probable jurisdiction. 546 U. S. ___ (2005).
Appellants contend the new plan is an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander and that the redistricting statewide violates §2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 79Stat.
437, as amended, 42 U. S. C. §1973. Appellants also contend that the use of race and politics in drawing lines of specific districts violates the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The three-judge panel, consisting of Circuit Judge Higginbotham and District Judges Ward and Rosenthal, brought considerable experience and expertise to the instant case, based on their knowledge of the States people, history, and geography. Judges Higginbotham and Ward, moreover, had served on the three-judge court that drew the plan the Texas Legislature replaced in 2003, so they were intimately familiar with the history and intricacies of the cases.
We affirm the District Courts dispositions on the statewide political gerrymandering claims and the Voting Rights Act claim against District 24. We reverse and remand on the Voting Rights Act claim with respect to District 23. Because we do not reach appellants race-based equal protection claim or the political gerrymandering claim as to District 23, we vacate the judgment of the District Court on these claims.
The 1990 census resulted in a 30-seat congressional delegation for Texas, an increase of 3 seats over the 27 representatives allotted to the State in the decade before. See Bush v. Vera,
517 U. S. 952, 956957 (1996)
. In 1991 the Texas Legislature drew new district lines. At the time, the Democratic Party controlled both houses in the state legislature, the governorship, and 19 of the States 27 seats in Congress. Yet change appeared to be on the horizon. In the previous 30 years the Democratic Partys post-Reconstruction dominance over the Republican Party had eroded, and by 1990 the Republicans received 47% of the statewide vote, while the Democrats received 51%. Henderson, supra, at 763; Brief for Appellee Perry et al.in No. 05204, etc., p. 2 (hereinafter Brief for StateAppellees).
Faced with a Republican opposition that could be moving toward majority status, the state legislature drew a congressional redistricting plan designed to favor Democratic candidates. Using then-emerging computer technology to draw district lines with artful precision, the legislature enacted a plan later described as the shrewdest gerrymander of the 1990s. M. Barone, R. Cohen, & C. Cook, Almanac of American Politics 2002, p. 1448 (2001). See Henderson, supra, at 767, and n. 47. Although the 1991 plan was enacted by the state legislature, Democratic Congressman Martin Frost was acknowledged as its architect. Session, supra, at 482. The 1991 plan carefully constructs democratic districts with incredibly convoluted lines and packs heavily Republican suburban areas into just a few districts. Henderson, supra, at 767, n. 47 (quoting M. Barone & R. Cohen, Almanac of American Politics 2004, p. 1510 (2003) (hereinafter 2004 Almanac)).
Voters who considered this unfair and unlawful treatment sought to invalidate the 1991 plan as an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander, but to no avail. See Terrazas v. Slagle, 789 F. Supp. 828, 833 (WD Tex. 1992); Terrazas v. Slagle, 821 F. Supp. 1162, 1175 (WD Tex. 1993). The 1991 plan realized the hopes of Democrats and the fears of Republicans with respect to the composition of the Texas congressional delegation. The 1990s were years of continued growth for the Texas Republican Party, and by the end of the decade it was sweeping elections for statewide office. Nevertheless, despite carrying 59% of the vote in statewide elections in 2000, the Republicans only won 13 congressional seats to the Democrats 17. Henderson, supra, at 763.
These events likely were not forgotten by either party when it came time to draw congressional districts in conformance with the 2000 census and to incorporate two additional seats for the Texas delegation. The Republican Party controlled the governorship and the State Senate; it did not yet control the State House of Representatives, however. As so constituted, the legislature was unable to pass a redistricting scheme, resulting in litigation and the necessity of a court-ordered plan to comply with the Constitutions one-person, one-vote requirement. See Balderas v. Texas, Civ. Action No. 6:01CV158 (ED Tex., Nov. 14, 2001) (per curiam), summarily affd, 536 U. S. 919 (2002)
, App. E to Juris. Statement in No. 05276, p. 202a. The congressional districting map resulting from the Balderas litigation is known as Plan 1151C.
As we have said, two members of the three-judge court that drew Plan 1151C later served on the three-judge court that issued the judgment now under review. Thus we have the benefit of their candid comments concerning the redistricting approach taken in the Balderas litigation. Conscious that the primary responsibility for drawing congressional districts is given to political branches of government, and hesitant to und[o] the work of one political party for the benefit of another, the three-judge Balderas court sought to apply only neutral redistricting standards when drawing Plan 1151C. Henderson, 399 F. Supp. 2d, at 768. Once the District Court applied these principlessuch as placing the two new seats in high-growth areas, following county and voting precinct lines, and avoiding the pairing of incumbentsthe drawing ceased, leaving the map free of further change except to conform it to one-person, one-vote. Ibid. Under Plan 1151C, the 2002 congressional elections resulted in a 17-to-15 Democratic majority in the Texas delegation, compared to a 59% to 40% Republican majority in votes for statewide office in 2000. Id., at 763764. Reflecting on the Balderas Plan, the District Court in Henderson was candid to acknowledge [t]he practical effect of this effort was to leave the 1991 Democratic Party gerrymander largely in place as a legal plan. Id., at 768.
The continuing influence of a court-drawn map that perpetuated much of [the 1991] gerrymander, ibid., was not lost on Texas Republicans when, in 2003, they gained control of the State House of Representatives and, thus, both houses of the legislature. The Republicans in the legislature set out to increase their representation in the congressional delegation. Session, 298 F. Supp. 2d, at 471. See also id., at 470 (There is little question but that the single-minded purpose of the Texas Legislature in enacting [a new plan] was to gain partisan advantage). After a protracted partisan struggle, during which Democratic legislators left the State for a time to frustrate quorum requirements, the legislature enacted a new congressional districting map in October 2003. It is called Plan 1374C. The 2004 congressional elections did not disappoint the plans drafters. Republicans won 21 seats to the Democrats 11, while also obtaining 58% of the vote in statewide races against the Democrats 41%. Henderson, supra, at 764.
Soon after Texas enacted Plan 1374C, appellants challenged it in court, alleging a host of constitutional and statutory violations. Initially, the District Court entered judgment against appellants on all their claims. See Session, 298 F. Supp. 2d, at 457; id., at 515 (Ward, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). Appellants sought relief here and, after their jurisdictional statements were filed, this Court issued Vieth v. Jubelirer. Our order vacating the District Court judgment and remanding for consideration in light of Vieth was issued just weeks before the 2004 elections. See 543 U. S. 941 (Oct. 18, 2004). On remand, the District Court, believing the scope of its mandate was limited to questions of political gerrymandering, again rejected appellants claims. Henderson, 399 F. Supp. 2d, at 777778. Judge Ward would have granted relief under the theorypresented to the court for the first time on remandthat mid-decennial redistricting violates the one-person, one-vote requirement, but he concluded such an argument was not within the scope of the remand mandate. Id., at 779, 784785 (specially concurring).
Based on two similar theories that address the mid-decade character of the 2003 redistricting, appellants now argue that Plan 1374C should be invalidated as an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander. In Davis v. Bandemer,
, the Court held that an equal protection challenge to a political gerrymander presents a justiciable case or controversy, id., at 118127, but there was disagreement over what substantive standard to apply. Compare id., at 127137 (plurality opinion) with id., at 161162 (Powell, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). That disagreement persists. A plurality of the Court in Vieth v. Jubelirer would have held such challenges to be nonjusticiable political questions, but a majority declined to do so. See 541 U. S., at 306 (Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment); id., at 317 (Stevens, J., dissenting); id., at 343 (Souter, J., dissenting); id., at 355 (Breyer, J., dissenting). We do not revisit the justiciability holding but do proceed to examine whether appellants claims offer the Court a manageable, reliable measure of fairness for determining whether a partisan gerrymander violates the Constitution.
Before addressing appellants arguments on mid-decade redistricting, it is appropriate to note some basic principles on the roles the States, Congress, and the courts play in determining how congressional districts are to be drawn. Article I of the Constitution provides:
Section 2. The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States . . . .
Section 4. The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for . . . Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations . . . .
This text, we have explained, leaves with the States primary responsibility for apportionment of their federal congressional . . . districts. Growe v. Emison,
507 U. S. 25, 34 (1993)
; see also Chapman v. Meier,
420 U. S. 1, 27 (1975)
([R]eapportionment is primarily the duty and responsibility of the State through its legislature or other body); Smiley v. Holm,
285 U. S. 355, 366367 (1932)
(reapportionment implicated States powers under Art. I, §4). Congress, as the text of the Constitution also provides, may set further requirements, and with respect to districting it has generally required single-member districts. See U. S. Const., Art. I, §4; 81Stat.
581, 2 U. S. C. §2c; Branch v. Smith, 538 U. S. 254, 266267 (2003)
. But see id., at 275 (plurality opinion) (multimember districts permitted by 55Stat.
Although the legislative branch plays the primary role in congressional redistricting, our precedents recognize an important role for the courts when a districting plan violates the Constitution. See, e.g., Wesberry v. Sanders,
Legislative bodies should not leave their reapportionment tasks to the federal courts; but when those with legislative responsibilities do not respond, or the imminence of a state election makes it impractical for them to do so, it becomes the unwelcome obligation of the federal court to devise and impose a reapportionment plan pending later legislative action. Wise v. Lipscomb,
437 U. S. 535, 540 (1978)
(principal opinion) (quoting Connor v. Finch,
431 U. S. 407, 415 (1977)
Quite apart from the risk of acting without a legislatures expertise, and quite apart from the difficulties a court faces in drawing a map that is fair and rational, see id., at 414415, the obligation placed upon the Federal Judiciary is unwelcome because drawing lines for congressional districts is one of the most significant acts a State can perform to ensure citizen participation in republican self-governance. That Congress is the federal body explicitly given constitutional power over elections is also a noteworthy statement of preference for the democratic process. As the Constitution vests redistricting responsibilities foremost in the legislatures of the States and in Congress, a lawful, legislatively enacted plan should be preferable to one drawn by the courts.
It should follow, too, that if a legislature acts to replace a court-drawn plan with one of its own design, no presumption of impropriety should attach to the legislative decision to act. As the District Court noted here, Session, 298 F. Supp. 2d, at 460461, our decisions have assumed that state legislatures are free to replace court-mandated remedial plans by enacting redistricting plans of their own. See, e.g., Upham v. Seamon,
456 U. S. 37, 44 (1982)
377 U. S. 533, 587 (1964)
. Underlying this principle is the assumption that to prefer a court-drawn plan to a legislatures replacement would be contrary to the ordinary and proper operation of the political process. Judicial respect for legislative plans, however, cannot justify legislative reliance on improper criteria for districting determinations. With these considerations in mind, we next turn to consider appellants challenges to the new redistricting plan.
Appellants claim that Plan 1374C, enacted by the Texas Legislature in 2003, is an unconstitutional political gerrymander. A decision, they claim, to effect mid-decennial redistricting, when solely motivated by partisan objectives, violates equal protection and the First Amendment because it serves no legitimate public purpose and burdens one group because of its political opinions and affiliation. The mid-decennial nature of the redistricting, appellants say, reveals the legislatures sole motivation. Unlike Vieth, where the legislature acted in the context of a required decennial redistricting, the Texas Legislature voluntarily replaced a plan that itself was designed to comply with new census data. Because Texas had no constitutional obligation to act at all in 2003, Brief for Appellant Jackson et al. in No. 05276, p. 26, it is hardly surprising, according to appellants, that the District Court found [t]here is little question but that the single-minded purpose of the Texas Legislature in enacting Plan 1374C was to gain partisan advantage for the Republican majority over the Democratic minority, Session, supra, at 470.
A rule, or perhaps a presumption, of invalidity when a mid-decade redistricting plan is adopted solely for partisan motivations is a salutary one, in appellants view, for then courts need not inquire about, nor parties prove, the discriminatory effects of partisan gerrymanderinga matter that has proved elusive since Bandemer. See Vieth, 541 U. S., at 281 (plurality opinion); Bandemer, 478 U. S., at 127. Adding to the tests simplicity is that it does not quibble with the drawing of individual district lines but challenges the decision to redistrict at all.
For a number of reasons, appellants case for adopting their test is not convincing. To begin with, the state appellees dispute the assertion that partisan gain was the sole motivation for the decision to replace Plan 1151C. There is some merit to that criticism, for the pejorative label overlooks indications that partisan motives did not dictate the plan in its entirety. The legislature does seem to have decided to redistrict with the sole purpose of achieving a Republican congressional majority, but partisan aims did not guide every line it drew. As the District Court found, the contours of some contested district lines were drawn based on more mundane and local interests. Session, supra, at 472473. The state appellees also contend, and appellants do not contest, that a number of line-drawing requests by Democratic state legislators were honored. Brief for State Appellees 34.
Evaluating the legality of acts arising out of mixed motives can be complex, and affixing a single label to those acts can be hazardous, even when the actor is an individual performing a discrete act. See, e.g., Hartman v. Moore, 547 U. S. ___, ___ (2006) (slip op., at 910). When the actor is a legislature and the act is a composite of manifold choices, the task can be even more daunting. Appellants attempt to separate the legislatures sole motive for discarding Plan 1151C from the complex of choices it made while drawing the lines of Plan 1374C seeks to avoid that difficulty. We are skeptical, however, of a claim that seeks to invalidate a statute based on a legislatures unlawful motive but does so without reference to the content of the legislation enacted.
Even setting this skepticism aside, a successful claim attempting to identify unconstitutional acts of partisan gerrymandering must do what appellants sole-motivation theory explicitly disavows: show a burden, as measured by a reliable standard, on the complainants representational rights. For this reason, a majority of the Court rejected a test proposed in Vieth that is markedly similar to the one appellants present today. Compare 541 U. S., at 336 (Stevens, J., dissenting) (Just as race can be a factor in, but cannot dictate the outcome of, the districting process, so too can partisanship be a permissible consideration in drawing district lines, so long as it does not predominate), and id., at 338 ([A]n acceptable rational basis can be neither purely personal nor purely partisan), with id., at 292295 (plurality opinion), and id., at 307308 (Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment).
The sole-intent standard offered here is no more compelling when it is linked to the circumstance that Plan 1374C is mid-decennial legislation. The text and structure of the Constitution and our case law indicate there is nothing inherently suspect about a legislatures decision to replace mid-decade a court-ordered plan with one of its own. And even if there were, the fact of mid-decade redistricting alone is no sure indication of unlawful political gerrymanders. Under appellants theory, a highly effective partisan gerrymander that coincided with decennial redistricting would receive less scrutiny than a bumbling, yet solely partisan, mid-decade redistricting. More concretely, the test would leave untouched the 1991 Texas redistricting, which entrenched a party on the verge of minority status, while striking down the 2003 redistricting plan, which resulted in the majority Republican Party capturing a larger share of the seats. A test that treats these two similarly effective power plays in such different ways does not have the reliability appellants ascribe to it.
Furthermore, compared to the map challenged in Vieth, which led to a Republican majority in the congressional delegation despite a Democratic majority in the statewide vote, Plan 1374C can be seen as making the party balance more congruent to statewide party power. To be sure, there is no constitutional requirement of proportional representation, and equating a partys statewide share of the vote with its portion of the congressional delegation is a rough measure at best. Nevertheless, a congressional plan that more closely reflects the distribution of state party power seems a less likely vehicle for partisan discrimination than one that entrenches an electoral minority. See Gaffney v. Cummings,
412 U. S. 735, 754 (1973)
. By this measure, Plan 1374C can be seen as fairer than the plan that survived in Vieth and the two previous Texas plansall three of which would pass the modified sole-intent t