63 Cal. 2d 270 - Silver v. Brown’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 district · 75 state decisions

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 81 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “"■[6, 7] Although the United States Supreme Court has eschewed establishing rigid mathematical standards for evaluating legislative apportionments (Roman v. Sincock, 377 U.S. 695, 710 , 84 S.Ct. 1449 , 12 L.Ed.2d 620 ; Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 578 , 84 S. Ct. 1362 , 12 L.Ed.2d 506 ), we deem it only fair to the Legislature to set forth limits within which an apportionment would at least carry a strong presumption of validity under the equal protection clause and beyond which it would be seriously suspect. Those limits are that no district depart from the ideal size by more than 15 per cent and that a majority of the members of each house be elected by the voters of districts containing at least 48 per cent of the total population. The former figure is that adopted by H.R. 5505 to govern congressional apportionment, which has been passed by the House of Representatives and is now pending in the United States Senate. (See also Toombs v. Fortson (1965) 241 F.Supp. 65, 69-70 .) Adherence to the latter •figure will insure making districts of maximum deviation the exception rather than the rule.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 253 F. Supp. 352 - Dungan v. Sawyer

2. ““Reapportionment... is an extremely complex matter, for innumerable plans could be adopted that would satisfy the one man-one vote requirement. Before this court, in the discharge of its duty to insure the electorate equal protection of the laws, undertakes to draft reapportionment plans of its own, it should accord all interested parties an opportunity to be heard. The court should be fully informed with respect to all possible criteria that might be adopted for reapportionment, and with respect to all the specific implementations of such criteria that might be ordered into effect. Insofar as the 1972 elections are concerned, there is obviously insufficient time ... for this court to allow all interested parties to be heard, to resolve the conflicting contentions presented, and to translate its conclusions into concrete reapportionment plans. ...””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Tam v. Colton