Tennant v. Jefferson County Commission

Background

A county commission and two county commissioners sued West Virginia after the Legislature adopted S.B. 1008 in August 2011 to redraw three congressional districts following the 2010 census. The State’s process produced a plan that moved only one county (about 1.5% of the State’s population) but left a population variance of 0.79% between the largest and smallest districts. The district court found the plan unconstitutional under the Constitution’s “one person, one vote” rule and blocked the State from implementing it. The State appealed directly to this Court.

Reasoning

The Court applied the two-step test from Karcher. Because the State conceded that a plan with smaller population differences was possible, the question became whether the slightly larger variance was necessary to achieve legitimate state objectives. The Court accepted the State’s explanations: avoiding splitting counties, preserving the cores of prior districts, and preventing contests between incumbents. The Court also rejected the lower court’s view that modern mapping technology makes a 0.79% variance unacceptable and faulted the lower court for demanding exact numeric findings tying parts of the variance to each objective. On that basis the Court reversed the injunction.

Real world impact

The ruling lets West Virginia put S.B. 1008 into effect while the remaining state-law claims proceed. It gives elected officials room to favor whole counties and to limit large shifts of population or incumbent contests even if that creates very small population differences. It likewise signals that federal courts should defer to reasonable legislative judgments about districting policies instead of requiring precise numeric justifications for small deviations.

Dissents or concurrances

A district court judge dissented, arguing the record supported the State’s choices and that a nearly identical variance had been accepted previously, a point the Court found persuasive.