Vera v. Richards’s Empirical Analysis
1994
Citation profile
10 federal appellate · 1 district · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 37 later decisions (4 by the Supreme Court) — most recently January 2018 · most notably Bush v. Al Vera Lawson (1996), James B. Hunt, Jr. v. Martin Cromartie (1999)
10 federal appellate · 1 district · 1 state decisions
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
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 1331 · 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)
Relies on Baker v. Carr · Village of Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp. · Washington v. Davis · Yick Wo v. Hopkins · Thornburg v. Gingles
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 37 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“at least not highly irregular apart from the small racially distinct appendages”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent““Texas has a long, well-documented history of discrimination that has touched upon the rights of African-Americans and Hispanics to register, to vote, or to participate otherwise in the electoral process. Devices such as the poll tax, an all-white primary system, and restrictive voter registration time periods are an unfortunate part of this State’s minority voting rights history. The history of official discrimination in the Texas election process—stretching back to Reconstruction—led to the inclusion of the State as a covered jurisdiction under Section 5 in the 1975 amendments to the Voting Rights Act. Since Texas became a covered jurisdiction, the Department of Justice has frequently interposed objections against the State and its subdivisions.” Vera v. Richards, 861 F. Supp. 1304, 1317 (SD Tex. 1994) (citations omitted).”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“[a]s enacted in Texas in 1991, many incumbent protection boundaries sabotaged traditional redistricting principles as they routinely divided counties, cities, neighborhoods, and regions. For the sake of maintaining or winning seats in the House of Representatives, Congressmen or would-be Congressmen shed hostile groups and potential opponents by fencing them out of their districts. The Legislature obligingly carved out districts of apparent supporters of incumbents, as suggested by the incumbents, and then added appendages to connect their residences to those districts. The final result seems not one in which the people select their representatives, hut in which the representatives have selected the people.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
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.