Court Opinion

ID: 9749317
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 16:33:13.649708+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:46.459441
License: Public Domain

*681BENSON, Chief Judge
(concurring specially).
Except for the plan of the Legislature, the reapportionment plan now ordered by the Court is the least disruptive of the plans considered. I have not abandoned my dissent to the decision of the Court holding the Legislature’s plan to be constitutionally defective, but because it is in the public interest to get this matter resolved, I have signed the order.
I wish to point out that the arithmetic of the plan shows a maximum deviation of 6.26% based on the 1970 census figures. Because census data later than the 1970 census was used in forming the districts in the cities of Fargo, Grand Forks, Bismarck and Jamestown, the actual deviation appears to be closer to 14%. This is significant only because it again demonstrates the difficulty of achieving mathematical equality and the wisdom of the Supreme Court’s comments in Gaffney v. Cummings, 412 U.S. 735, 93 S.Ct. 2321, 37 L.Ed.2d 298 (1973), quoted in my dissent, that fair and effective representation does not depend solely on mathematical equality among district populations.