Case Summary
Issue:
Whether a city violates the “one-person, one vote” principle of the Fourteenth Amendment when it creates city council districts that, while roughly equal in total population, are grossly malapportioned with regard to eligible voters?
Plaintiff:
Keith A. Lepak, Marvin Randle, Dan Clements, Dana Bailey, Kensley Stewart, Crystal Main, David Tate, Vicki Tate, Morgan McComb, and Jacqualea Cooley
Defendant:
City of Irving, Texas, Robert Moon, Rachel Torrez Moon, Michael Moore, Guillermo Ornelaz, Gilbert Ornelaz, and Aurora Lopez
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Case History
In 2007 Irving, Texas was sued under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in a challenge to its at-large system for electing its city council. The plaintiff proposed a new system that divided the city into six districts, each with one city council representative; in addition the council would be made up of two at-large members and a mayor, also elected at-large. District 1, a majority Hispanic district, was roughly equal in population to other proposed districts; however, it contained many people who were ineligible to vote. The city opposed the lawsuit arguing that District 1 had a substantially smaller eligible voting population. The federal district court rejected that defense, ruled for the plaintiff, and instituted the new electoral system.
In 2010, ten city voters challenged the city council electoral system as unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment. They argued that the “one-person, one-vote” principle requires voting districts to be appropriated by citizen voting age population, not total population. Specifically, they argue, with a city population of 191,613, each of the six districts contains nearly 33,000 people; however, one district has 6,500 fewer eligible voters than the next lowest district, which results in significant vote dilution contrary to the Constitution.
A Texas federal district court granted summary judgment to the city, holding the choice to apportion voting districts either on total population or total number of eligible voters was a political question properly left to the legislative body for determination. In December 2011, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed in a per curium opinion; in September 2012, a petition for en banc review was denied. The voters petitioned the Supreme Court in December 2012.