Kilgarlin v. Hill
Headline: Texas House reapportionment partly reversed and remanded; Court allows 1966 elections under the flawed plan but orders fixes for unequal district populations and county representation
Holding: We affirm permitting the 1966 elections under Texas’s House plan but reverse in part, finding unjustified population deviations and remanding for corrections to equalize representation.
- Allows the 1966 Texas House elections to proceed despite certain constitutional flaws.
- Requires courts or the Legislature to correct unjustified population disparities among districts.
- Prompts further review of county-boundary policies and multi-member district effects on representation.
Summary
Background
A group of Texas voters and interested parties challenged H.B. 195, the Legislature’s plan for electing the State House. The plan used single-member, multi-member, and "floterial" districts. A federal trial court found 11 floterial districts unconstitutional under the Court’s equal-population rule but allowed the 1966 election to go forward unless the Legislature fixed the plan by August 1, 1967.
Reasoning
The core question was whether the House plan gave substantially equal population per representative as required by earlier decisions. The challengers showed district populations ranging from 54,385 to 71,301 people per representative, with deviations reaching more than 10% in many districts and an overall ratio of 1.31 to 1. The Supreme Court said such variances require a satisfactory justification. The trial court relied on a general state policy of preserving county lines, but the Supreme Court found that justification insufficiently tied to the specific population differences and therefore reversed part of the judgment and sent the case back for further consideration.
Real world impact
Practically, the decision lets the 1966 elections proceed under H.B. 195 while requiring further court review and possible corrections to bring district populations closer to equality. The ruling directs the lower court to explain or remedy why county-line preservation should permit the particular population disparities here.
Dissents or concurrances
Justice Douglas, while joining the opinion, reserved a question about whether voters in multi-member districts should be limited to one vote to help minorities. Other Justices would have fully affirmed the lower court.
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