White v. Regester’s Empirical Analysis
1973
Citation profile
492 federal appellate · 112 district · 149 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,573 later decisions (106 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2026 · most notably Castaneda v. Partida (1977), Thornburg v. Gingles (1986)
492 federal appellate · 112 district · 149 state decisions — followed in 21 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
Relies on Roe v. Wade · Reynolds v. Sims · Hernandez v. Texas · Whitcomb v. Chavis
Cited together with Whitcomb v. Chavis · Reynolds v. Sims · City of Mobile v. Bolden · Thornburg v. Gingles · East Carroll Parish School Board v. Marshall
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 1,573 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“that its members had less opportunity than did other residents in the district to participate in the political processes and to elect legislators of their choice.”
50 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“intensely local appraisal of the design and impact of”
22 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“a white-dominated organization that is in effective control of Democratic Party candidate slating,”
17 later decisions 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.