Opinion ID: 1151125
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Congressional Districts

Text: The federal constitutional standard for population equality among a state's congressional districts is far stricter than that applicable to districts for electing a state legislature. The populations of congressional districts must be equal as nearly as is practicable. ( Wesberry v. Sanders (1964) 376 U.S. 1, 7-8 [11 L.Ed.2d 481, 486, 84 S.Ct. 526].) That standard requires that the State make a good faith effort to achieve precise mathematical equality. [Citation.] Unless population variances among congressional districts are shown to have resulted despite such effort, the State must justify each variance, no matter how small. ( Kirkpatrick v. Preisler, supra, 394 U.S. 526, 530-531 [22 L.Ed.2d at pp. 524-525].) In Kirkpatrick, the high court invalidated an apportionment of Missouri's congressional districts with a maximum deviation of 5.97 percent. [13] he court rejected Missouri's attempted justifications as being ad hoc and haphazard, and not applied in a systematic, uniform manner throughout the state. ( Id. at p. 535 [22 L.Ed.2d at p. 527].) In Karcher, supra, 462 U.S. 725, these principles were the basis for invalidating New Jersey congressional districts with a maximum deviation of 0.6984 percent. The court first held, principally because of evidence of other plans with lower deviations, that the districts did not come as nearly as practicable to population equality, and therefore, the burden shifted to the State to prove that the population deviations in its plan were necessary to achieve some legitimate state objective. ( Id. at p. 740 [77 L.Ed.2d at p. 147].) The court described how the state's shifted burden could be met. Any number of consistently applied legislative policies might justify some variance, including, for instance, making the districts compact, respecting municipal boundaries, preserving the cores of prior districts, and avoiding contests between incumbent Representatives. As long as the criteria are nondiscriminatory [citation], these are all legitimate objectives that on a proper showing could justify minor population deviations. See, e.g., West Virginia Civil Liberties Union v. Rockefeller, 336 F.Supp 395, 398-400 (S.D.W. Va. 1972) (approving plan with 0.78% maximum deviation as justified by compactness provision in State Constitution). ( Karcher, supra, 462 U.S. at pp. 740-741 [77 L.Ed.2d at p. 147].) The court stressed the necessity for specificity and consistency: The State must ... show with some specificity that a particular objective required the specific deviations in its plan, rather than simply relying on general assertions. The showing required to justify population variations is flexible, depending on the size of the deviations, the importance of the State's interests, the consistency with which the plan as a whole reflects those interests, and the availability of alternatives that might substantially vindicate those interests yet approximate population equality more closely. ( Karcher, supra, 462 U.S. at p. 741 [77 L.Ed.2d at p. 147].) New Jersey's attempted justification of the challenged redistricting was held clearly inadequate. The only justification seriously advanced was preservation of minority voting strength, but that explanation applied to only two of the state's fourteen districts and could not justify the deviations of others. ( Karcher, supra, 462 U.S. at pp. 742-745 [77 L.Ed.2d at pp. 148-151].) We are satisfied that our proposed congressional districts comply with these Karcher guidelines. Our maximum deviation is only 0.49 percent, compared with almost 0.70 percent in Karcher itself, and 0.78 percent in the West Virginia reapportionment case that Karcher describes as justified by compactness provision in [the] State Constitution (462 U.S. at p. 741 [77 L.Ed.2d at p. 147]). All of our proposed districts are fully, specifically, and consistently justified by the state policies expressed in the California Constitution (art. XXI) and in Reinecke IV, supra, 10 Cal.3d 402, 410-414, or by the overriding federal policies implemented by sections 2 and 5 of the Voting Rights Act. We note Karcher 's examples of possible nondiscriminatory state justifications, for instance, making districts compact [and] respecting municipal boundaries (462 U.S. at p. 740 [77 L.Ed.2d at p. 147]) reflect our own Reinecke IV criteria (10 Cal.3d at pp. 411-412). The Democratic Congressional Delegation contends that their plan should be chosen over any rival plan because it achieves almost perfect population equality (a deviation of no more than 9 persons from the ideal district population of 572,308). We reject that contention. As Justice Stevens, who joined in the majority Karcher opinion, observed in his separate concurring opinion in that case, the goal of perfect population equality is an inadequate method of judging the constitutionality of an apportionment plan. ( Karcher, supra, 462 U.S. at p. 750 [77 L.Ed.2d at p. 155] (conc. opn. of Stevens, J.).) Karcher clearly permits the congressional districts that we propose, with a maximum deviation of less than 0.5 percent and specifically justified by legitimate, consistently applied state and federal policies. Moreover, there is an affirmative policy reason for not insisting on virtually exact equality. The districts that we recommend are composed of entire census tracts. These tracts normally range from 2,000 to 6,000 persons in size and, as explained in Reinecke IV, an effort has been made by the Census Bureau to make them homogeneous as to social characteristics and to use prominent natural or manmade geographical features as boundaries. Thus, following, rather than disregarding, census tracts will aid in establishing natural, well defined legislative districts and will aid in obtaining valid pertinent socioeconomic data about such districts. ( Reinecke IV, supra, 10 Cal.3d at p. 413, fns. omitted.) [14] The plans submitted to us with near-zero population deviations are based on census blocks instead of tracts. Formulating districts on a block basis is enormously expensive. A block, as used by the Census Bureau, is just that  a block in a city or suburb. The approximately 6,000 census tracts in California are made up of about 400,000 blocks. The cost of computers, software, and experts to deal efficiently with this greater amount of data is exponentially higher than a comparable system in which the bulk of the redistricting work is done by census tracts. Indeed, the cost would be prohibitive for any private person or group having resources short of those available to the Legislature. [15] Thus, the result of insisting on an exactitude that requires formulation of districts by census blocks, instead of tracts, would be to limit the ability of many groups, including those representing minority voters, to participate meaningfully in the reapportionment process by presenting alternate redistricting plans, such as the one offered to us by the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund (hereafter MALDEF). Such limitation on community participation would undercut our duty to `afford all interested parties the opportunity to be heard' so that `[t]he court [will] be fully informed with respect to all of the possible criteria that might be adopted for reapportionment and with respect to all of the specific implementations of such criteria that might be ordered into effect.' ([ Legislature v. Reinecke (1972)] 6 Cal.3d [595,] 601-602.) ( Reinecke III, supra, 9 Cal.3d at p. 167, cited in Wilson v. Eu, supra, 54 Cal.3d 471, 473, as the basis for the court's direction that we hold public hearings.) This policy of maximum community input for any court-ordered plan, followed in 1973 as well as in 1991, clearly justifies, under Karcher, supra, 462 U.S. 725, the minor deviations necessary to enable redistricting to be done on a reasonably exact census tract basis instead of a census block basis that would be prohibitively expensive for most interested persons and groups. Widespread participation in the redistricting process is also an important policy to be furthered under the Act. The United States Attorney General has recognized this in the regulations for preclearance under section 5. Among the factors the Attorney General considers in determining whether to preclear a voting procedural change, such as redistricting, are the extent to which the jurisdiction afforded members of racial and language minority groups an opportunity to participate in the decision to make the change (28 C.F.R. § 51.57(c)) and the extent to which the jurisdiction took the concerns of members of racial and language minority groups into account in making the change (28 C.F.R. § 51.57(d)). The participation called for by these provisions should not be restricted for those unable to afford the enormous cost of unnecessarily exact redistricting. [16]