City of Mobile v. Bolden’s Empirical Analysis
1980
Citation profile
467 federal appellate · 82 district · 113 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,581 later decisions (103 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2026 · most notably Patterson v. McLean Credit Union (1989), Harris v. McRae (1980)
467 federal appellate · 82 district · 113 state decisions — followed in 23 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.
Appellate journey
reviewedBolden v. City of Mobile (from Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 42 U.S.C. § 1973 (§ 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965) · 42 U.S.C. § 1973C (§ 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965) · 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act)) · 42 U.S.C. § 1985
Relies on Mt. Healthy City School District Board of Education v. Doyle · Baker v. Carr · Perry v. Sindermann · Roe v. Wade · Village of Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp.
Cited together with Thornburg v. Gingles · White v. Regester · Village of Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp. · Reynolds v. Sims · Rogers v. Lodge
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 1,581 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“No voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or applied by any State or political subdivision to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color.”
62 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“impinges upon a fundamental right explicitly or implicitly secured by the Constitution [it] is presumptively unconstitutional.”
15 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrencee.g. Davis v. Bandemer · Lyman v. Baker“past discrimination cannot, in the manner of original sin, condemn governmental action that is not itself unlawful.”
13 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
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.