High Court Upholds Calif. Redistrict Plan

A California redistricting plan that placed Democrats in control of the state’s congressional delegation does not unlawfully discriminate against Republicans, the Supreme Court ruled today.

By a 6-3 vote, the justices upheld the redistricting plan. Republicans had challenged it as an unconstitutional form of gerrymandering.

The court dismissed the GOP appeal last Oct. 3. But then on Nov. 14 the justices announced that they might consider the case after all.

The reasons for the court’s second thoughts in November were not explained.

Today, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices John Paul Stevens and Anthony M. Kennedy voted to grant full review to the California dispute. Four votes are needed to grant such review.

‘Judgment Is Affirmed’

Six justices joined in upholding the redistricting plan in a one-sentence decision. “The judgment is affirmed,” they said.

The court said in 1986 in an Indiana legislative reapportionment case that gerrymandering--the manipulation of voting district boundaries for partisan gain--may be unlawful even when it results in districts meeting the “one-person, one-vote” requirement.

But in splintered voting, the justices upheld the Indiana plan that was attacked as a violation of Democrats’ rights.

The 1986 decision left key questions unanswered, and only four justices joined in the court’s main opinion, authored by Justice Byron R. White.

White said gerrymandering might be unconstitutional if it “will consistently degrade a voter’s or a group of voters’ influence on the political processes as a whole.”

California Complaint

California Republicans said that is exactly what has happened to them.

“The essence of representative democracy is undermined” when “a computer-generated gerrymander can preordain what the congressional results will be throughout the decade,” they said in seeking Supreme Court reconsideration.

A three-judge federal court upheld California’s plan by a 2-1 vote last April.