Court Opinion

ID: 9425364
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:14:31.735098+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:55.169771
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Marshall,
concurring in part.
While I join Part I of the Court’s opinion, I can agree with Part II wherein the Court reverses the District *799Court's selection of Plan C over Plan B only insofar as that determination rests upon the fact that Plan B comes closer than Plan C to achieving the goal of “precise mathematical equality,” see Kirkpatrick v. Preisler, 394 U. S. 526, 530-531 (1969). See also Wells v. Rockefeller, 394 U. S. 542 (1969). Whatever the merits of the view that a legislature’s reapportionment plan will not be struck down merely because “district boundaries may have been drawn in a way that minimizes the number of contests between present incumbents,” Burns v. Richardson, 384 U. S. 73, 89 n. 16 (1966), it is entirely another matter to suggest that a federal district court which has determined that a particular reapportionment plan fails to comport with the constitutional requirement of “one man, one vote” must, in drafting and adopting its own remedial plan, give consideration to the apparent desires of the controlling state political powers. In my opinion, the judicial remedial process in the reapportionment area— as in any area — should be a fastidiously neutral and objective one, free of all political considerations and guided only by the controlling constitutional principle of strict accuracy in representative apportionment. Here the District Court gave ample recognition to the legislature’s “primary responsibility”* in the area of apportionment when it added that its redistricting order was “without prejudice to the legislative and executive branches of the State of Texas to proceed with the consideration and adoption of any other constitutionally permissible plan of congressional redistricting at a called or regular session of the Legislature of the State of Texas.” Nevertheless, because the District Court failed to adhere strictly to the principle of mathematical precision in selecting between Plan B and Plan C, its choice of Plan C must be reversed.

See, e. g., Maryland Committee for Fair Representation v. Tawes, 377 U. S. 656, 676 (1964); Ely v. Klahr, 403 U. S. 108, 114 (1971); Burns v. Richardson, 384 U. S. 73, 84-85 (1966).