Avery v. Midland County’s Empirical Analysis
1968
Citation profile
311 federal appellate · 115 district · 446 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,387 later decisions (77 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2024 · most notably Kramer v. Union Free School District No. 15 (1969), City of Lafayette Louisiana v. Louisiana Power & Light Company (1978)
311 federal appellate · 115 district · 446 state decisions — followed in 46 states
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. § 1257
Relies on Baker v. Carr · Brown et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka et al. · Reynolds v. Sims · See v. City of Seattle · Terminiello v. Chicago
Cited together with Reynolds v. Sims · Hadley v. Junior College District of Metropolitan Kansas City · Baker v. Carr · Kramer v. Union Free School District No. 15 · Sailors v. Board of Ed. of Kent Cty.
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 1,387 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“a special-purpose unit of government assigned the performance of functions affecting definable groups of constituents more than other constituents.”
61 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[W]henever a state or local government decides to select persons by popular election to perform governmental functions, the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires that each qualified voter must e given an equal opportunity to participate in that election, and when members of an elected body are chosen from separate districts, each district must be established on a basis that will insure, as far as is practicable, that equal numbers of voters can vote for proportionally equal numbers of officials.”
8 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent““ * * * To the extent that a citizens’ right to vote is debased, he is that much less a citizen. The fact that an individual lives here or there is not a legitimate reason for overweighting or diluting the efficacy of his vote.” 377 U.S. page 567, 84 S.Ct. page 1384. From Avery— “ * * * [Petitioner] has a right to a vote for the Commissioners Court of substantially equal weight to the vote of every other resident.” 390 U.S. page 476, 88 S.Ct. page 1116. “ * * -x- Government — National, State, and local — must grant to each citizen the equal protection of its laws, which includes an equal opportunity to influence the election of lawmakers, no matter how large the majority wishing to deprive other citizens of equal treatment or how small the minority who object to their mistreatment.” 390 U.S. page 482, 88 S.Ct. page 1119. “ * * * the votes of some resi- dents have greater weight than those of others; in both cases the equal protection of the laws has been denied.” 390 U.S. pages 480-481, 88 S.Ct. page 1118. “ * * * We hold today only that the Constitution permits no substantial variation in equal population in drawing districts for units of local government having general governmental powers over the entire geographic area served by the body.” 390 U.S. pages 484-485, 88 S.Ct. page 1120. From Simon— “* -x- * the Constitution permits no substantial variation from equal population when drawing districts for units of local government having general governmental powers over the ent”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
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.