Thornburg v. Gingles’s Empirical Analysis
1986
Citation profile
733 federal appellate · 149 district · 135 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 2,351 later decisions (52 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2026 · most notably Xiao Ji Chen v. United States Department of Justice (2006), Johnson v. De Grandy (1994)
733 federal appellate · 149 district · 135 state decisions — followed in 24 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 Anderson v. City of Bessemer City · Pullman-Standard v. Swint · Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union of United States, Inc. · Inwood Laboratories, Inc. v. Ives Laboratories, Inc.
Cited together with City of Mobile v. Bolden · White v. Regester · Johnson v. De Grandy · Reynolds v. Sims · Chisom v. Roemer
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 2,351 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice.”
413 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. Davis v. Bandemer · Holder v. Hall“[u]nless minority voters possess the potential to elect representatives in the absence of the challenged structure or practice, they cannot claim to have been injured by that structure or practice.”
43 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“supportive of, but not essential to, a minority voter's claim.”
36 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.