Opinion ID: 2520871
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The U.S. Constitution's Restrictions on the General Assembly's Authority to Redistrict

Text: Next, the Secretary of State and General Assembly argue that the U.S. Constitution grants the General Assembly absolute, unfettered redistricting authority that the states cannot curtail. This is not so. Instead, this authority is limited by both federal and state law. Before turning to state law, we first describe the federal case law and statutes that control redistricting to illustrate that the General Assembly's redistricting authority is not unfettered as it claims. Although the U.S. Constitution grants the power to draw congressional districts to the states, the states have often abused their broad redistricting authority. Historically, some state legislatures have used redistricting to enhance the power of the majority (racial and/or political), and to suppress minorities. See generally Andrew Hacker, Congressional Districting: The Issue of Equal Representation 30-70 (1963) [hereinafter Hacker, Congressional Districting ]. The legislatures primarily disenfranchised voters either by gerrymandering or by neglecting redistricting duties altogether, thus allowing the sizes of the districts to become more and more unbalanced as populations shifted over time. The resulting size disparities were unfair because the representatives from larger population districts represented more citizens than representatives from smaller districts. This disparity among districts meant that the citizens in the smaller population districts had a relatively more powerful voice in Congress. As an example, in 1962, Colorado's largest congressional district had 3.3 times the population of the smallest district. Thus, one vote in the smallest district was the same as 3.3 votes in the largest district. Hacker, Congressional Districting at 3. Even though the population of Colorado was shifting from rural to urban and suburban areas, the rural counties still elected more than their proportional share of representatives. Lisco v. McNichols, 208 F.Supp. 471, 478 (D.Colo. 1962); see also Hacker, Congressional Districting at 22-26. Yet the Colorado legislature neglected its duty to draw new congressional districts for more than forty years between 1921 and 1964. Id. at 3. Because of this growing inequality among districts, the Supreme Court and Congress stepped in to protect the voters' rights. In 1964, the United States Supreme Court established the one-person, one-vote doctrine, requiring that every state make a good-faith effort to elect all representatives from districts of equal populations. Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S. 1, 84 S.Ct. 526, 11 L.Ed.2d 481 (1964) (interpreting U.S. Const. art. I, ง 2, cl. 1). Under this doctrine, states now have a constitutional obligation to draw congressional districts with equal numbers of constituents, or else justify any differences, no matter how small, with a legitimate reason. Karcher v. Daggett, 462 U.S. 725, 734, 103 S.Ct. 2653, 77 L.Ed.2d 133 (1983). When evaluating constitutionality under the one-person, one-vote doctrine, a court uses the national decennial census figures. The United States Supreme Court has recognized the legal fiction that these figures remain accurate for the entire ten years between censuses. Georgia v. Ashcroft, ___ U.S. ___, ___ n. 2, 123 S.Ct. 2498, 2516 n. 2, 156 L.Ed.2d 428 (2003). Consequently, according to this legal fiction, when states create same-size districts that adhere to one-person, one-vote standards at the beginning of the decade, these districts remain constitutionally valid on equal population grounds until the next census, even though the states' populations actually shift and change in the intervening years. Id. Conversely, new decennial census figures generally render the old districts unconstitutional, and states must redistrict prior to a subsequent election. Id. In sum, under federal constitutional law, each state must draw new congressional districts after a decennial census or risk having its districts declared unconstitutional prior to the next congressional election.