![handle is hein.crs/govejkc0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Con gressionol Research Service
Informing the legislitive debate since 1914
November 16, 2022
Congressional Redistricting: Key Legal and Policy Issues
Following each decennial census, the 435 seats in the
House are apportioned-or divided up-among the 50
states (U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 2, cl. 1; 2 U.S.C. §
2a(a)). Accordingly, to comport with the constitutional
standard of population equality among districts, discussed
below, at least once every 10 years, most states are required
to draw new congressional district boundaries in response
to changes in the number of Representatives apportioned to
the state or shifts in population within the state. This
process is known as congressional redistricting.
Federal Requirements for Congressional
Districts
Most federal standards for congressional redistricting derive
from the Constitution and federal law, as interpreted by the
Supreme Court, as discussed below. Under Article I, § 2, cl.
3 of the Constitution, as amended by the Fourteenth
Amendment, representation in the House of Representatives
is based on state population size. Article I, § 2, cl. 3 also
requires that each state has at least one Representative and
that districts have at least 30,000 persons. 2 U.S.C. § 2c
requires that one Representative be elected from each
district.
Population Equality Standard
The Supreme Court has interpreted the Constitution to
require that each congressional district within a state
contain an approximately equal number of persons. In
Wesberry v. Sanders (376 U.S. 1 (1964)), the Court
interpreted Article I, § 2, cl. 1 of the Constitution (that
Representatives be chosen by the People of the several
States) to mean that, as nearly as is practicable[,] one
man's vote in a congressional election is to be worth as
much as another's. Later that year, in Reynolds v. Sims
(377 U.S. 533 (1964)), the Court held that this requirement,
or the population equality standard of one person, one vote,
also applies in the context of state legislative redistricting
and that the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection
Clause requires all who participate in an election to have
an equal vote. The population equality standard applies
only to districts within a state and not to districts across
various states.
Since 1964, the Court has described the extent to which a
redistricting plan, in complying with the population equality
standard, may deviate from precise or ideal population
equality among congressional districts within a state.
Precise or ideal equality is the average population that each
district would contain if a state's population were evenly
distributed across all districts. The total population
deviation or maximum population deviation refers to the
percentage difference from the ideal population between the
most and least populated districts in a state. The Court has
determined that congressional districts are permitted less
deviation from precise equality than state legislative
districts are. For example, in Kirkpatrick v. Preisler (394
U.S. 526 (1969)), the Court invalidated a congressional
redistricting plan with a 5.97% maximum population
deviation, where the most populous district was 3.13%
above the mathematical ideal, and the least populous was
2.84% below. The Court characterized the variance as too
great to comport with the as nearly as practicable
standard set forth in Wesberry, requiring the government to
make a good faith effort to achieve precise mathematical
equality.
Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) Standard
Congressional district boundaries in every state are required
to comply with Section 2 of the VRA (52 U.S.C. § 10301).
Section 2 prohibits any voting qualification or practice
applied or imposed by any state or political subdivision
(e.g., a city or county) that results in the denial or
abridgement of the right to vote based on race, color, or
membership in a language minority. This prohibition
includes congressional redistricting maps. Section 2 further
provides that the VRA is violated if, based on the totality of
circumstances, electoral processes are not equally open to
participation by members of a racial or language minority
group in that the group's members have less opportunity
than other members of the electorate to elect representatives
of their choice.
Under certain circumstances, Section 2 may require the
creation of one or more majority-minority districts in a
congressional redistricting map in order to prevent the
denial or abridgement of the right to vote based on race,
color, or membership in a language minority. A majority-
minority district is one in which a racial or language
minority group comprises a voting majority. The creation of
such districts can avoid minority vote dilution by helping to
ensure that racial or language minority groups are not
submerged into the majority and, thereby, denied an equal
opportunity to elect candidates of choice.
On October 4, 2022, the Supreme Court heard oral
arguments in a case that could affect standards that
reviewing courts apply in determining when the creation of
a majority-minority district in a congressional redistricting
map is required under Section 2 of the VRA. In Merrill v.
Milligan, the Court is evaluating a challenge to an Alabama
congressional redistricting map where the lower court
determined that compliance with Section 2 required the
creation of two majority-minority districts instead of one.
Equal Protection Standard
Congressional redistricting maps must also conform with
standards of equal protection under the Fourteenth
Amendment. According to the Supreme Court, if race is the](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.crs/govejkc0001&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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