White v. Regester

1973-06-18

Headline: Texas House map largely upheld, but Court orders Dallas and Bexar multimember districts converted to single-member districts for diluting minority votes while rejecting statewide invalidation over population differences.

Holding: The Court reversed the District Court’s statewide invalidation of the Texas House plan based on population deviations but affirmed that the Dallas and Bexar multimember districts must be converted to single-member districts because they diluted minority voting strength.

Real World Impact:

Orders Dallas and Bexar multimember districts replaced by single-member districts, affecting local elections.
Lets most of the Texas House map stand despite up to 9.9% district population variation.
Clarifies multimember districts can violate minority voting rights when political processes exclude them.

Topics: voting rights, redistricting, multimember districts, minority representation

Summary

Background

In 1970 the Texas Legislative Redistricting Board drew a House plan of 150 seats using 79 single-member and 11 multimember districts. The ideal district size was 74,645 people. Four lawsuits challenged the plan, claiming population mismatches and that Dallas and Bexar multimember districts diluted minority voting strength. A three-judge District Court found the House plan unconstitutional statewide, ordered Dallas and Bexar changed to single-member districts for the 1972 election, and gave the Texas Legislature until July 1, 1973 to adopt a new plan.

Reasoning

The Supreme Court held that population differences alone did not require statewide invalidation. Although two Texas districts differed by as much as 9.9% from the ideal, the Court emphasized that the average deviation was 1.82% and only a small number of districts exceeded larger thresholds, so the plaintiffs failed to prove an Equal Protection violation from population variance alone. The Court reversed the District Court on that statewide point. The Court affirmed, however, the District Court’s findings about Dallas and Bexar: multimember districts there had the practical effect of excluding minorities because political nomination and election processes were not equally open to those groups.

Real world impact

As a result, most of the Texas House map remained in place for the near term, but the multimember districts in Dallas and Bexar had to be redrawn into single-member districts to protect minority voters’ opportunities. The decision relied on detailed local findings—the history of discrimination, organization control of candidate slating in Dallas, and the concentrated, underrepresented Barrio community in Bexar County—so those local remedies were upheld.

Dissents or concurrances

Justice Brennan (joined by two colleagues) disagreed with the Court’s tolerance for population deviation. He argued the Court retreated from the prior requirement that states make a good-faith effort to achieve districts as nearly equal in population as practicable, warning the decision could weaken earlier reapportionment gains.