Brewer v. Ham’s Empirical Analysis
876 F.2d 448 · 1989
Citation profile
24 federal appellate ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 54 later decisions — most recently July 2022 · most notably Westwego Citizens for Better Government v. City of Westwego (1991), Nixon v. Kent County (1996)
24 federal appellate ·
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 42 U.S.C. § 1973 (§ 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965)
Relies on Thornburg v. Gingles · East Carroll Parish School Board v. Marshall · Zimmer v. McKeithen · United States v. Marengo County Commission · Campos v. City of Baytown
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 54 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(1) the extent of any history of official discrimination in the state or political subdivision that touched the right of the members of the minority group to regis ter, to vote, or otherwise to participate in the democratic process; (2) the extent to which voting in the elections of the state or political subdivision is racially polarized; (3) the extent to which the state or political subdivision has used unusually large election districts, majority vote requirements, anti-single shot provisions, or other voting practices or procedures that may enhance the opportunity for discrimination against the minority group; (4) if there is a candidate slating process, whether the members of the minority group have been denied access to that political process; (5) the extent to which members of the minority group in the state or political subdivision bear the effects of discrimination in such areas as education, employment and health, which hinder their ability to participate effectively in the political process; (6) whether political campaigns have been characterized by overt or subtle racial appeals; (7) the extent to which members of the minority group have been elected to public office in the jurisdiction.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“(1) that the minority group is sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a majority in a single-member district; (2) that the minority group is politically cohesive; and (3) that the white majority votes sufficiently as a bloc to enable it in the absence of special circumstances, such as the minority candidate running unopposed usually to defeat the minority's preferred candidate.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““[t]he need for voting age population data ... should be obvious. Only voting age persons can vote. It would be a Pyrrhic victory for a court to create a single-member district in which a minority population dominant in absolute, but not in voting age numbers, continued to be defeated at the polls.””
2 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.