Chisom v. Roemer’s Empirical Analysis
1991
Citation profile
277 federal appellate · 51 district · 80 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 885 later decisions (30 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2025 · most notably Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Enrico St Cyr (2001), State Ex Rel. Kalal v. Circuit Court for Dane County (2004)
277 federal appellate · 51 district · 80 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.
Appellate journey
reviewedChisom v. Roemer (from Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on United States v. Ron Pair Enterprises, Inc. · Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman · Will v. Michigan Department of State Police · Sedima Sprl v. Imrex Company Inc · Reynolds v. Sims
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 885 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(a) No voting qualification or prerequisite to voting or standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or applied by any State or political subdivision in a manner which results in a denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color, or in contravention of the guarantees set forth in section 10303(f)(2) of this title, as provided in subsection (b). (b) A violation of subsection (a) is established if, based on the totality of circumstances, it is shown that the political processes leading to nomination or election in the State or political subdivision are not equally open to participation by members of a class of citizens protected by subsection (a) in that its members have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice. The extent to which members of a protected class have been elected to office in the State or political subdivision is one circumstance which may be considered: Provided, That nothing in this section establishes a right to have members of a protected class elected in numbers equal to their proportion in the population.”
33 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice.”
14 later decisions quote this exact passage“fundamental tension between the ideal character of the judicial office and the real world of electoral politics.”
14 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.