Honsey v. Donovan’s Empirical Analysis
1964
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 6 district · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 13 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently August 2013
2 federal appellate · 6 district · 1 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 1343 · 28 U.S.C. § 2281 · 28 U.S.C. § 2284 · 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on Baker v. Carr · Reynolds v. Sims · Wesberry v. Sanders · Gray v. Sanders · Lucas v. Forty-Fourth General Assembly of Colorado
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 13 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“To summarize the foregoing opinion: 1. The equal protection clause of the state and federal constitutions requires substantially equal legislative representation for all citizens of a state. This is the basic concept. 2. The 1965 temporary apportionment plan contains objections to both state and federal standards required for equal protection as disclosed by the record in Polk County, the only multi-member district before us in this case. 3. Subdistricting is required in Polk County after the 1966 elections. 4. A special session of the Sixty-first General Assembly is not required to accomplish this objective. 5. The 1965 temporary reapportionment plan is sufficient to serve as an interim plan of apportionment. 6. Members of the Sixty-second General Assembly are to be elected in accordance with the terms and provisions of Senate File 568, chapter 88, Laws Sixty-first General Assembly of Iowa (1965 temporary apportionment plan). 7. The Sixty-second General Assembly of Iowa will have the power to and is the appropriate body to provide such subdistricting. 8. The equal protection clause requires that a state make an honest and good faith effort to construct districts, in both houses of the legislature, as nearly of equal population as is practicable. 9. But mathematical exactness or precision is hardly a workable constitutional requirement. And it is neither practicable nor desirable to establish rigid mathematical standards. Rather, the proper judicial approach, is to ascertain ”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.