Today in Supreme Court History: September 25

Tennant v. Jefferson County Comm’n, 567 U.S. 758 (decided September 25, 2012):  Court approves West Virginia Legislature’s final reapportionment plan of its three Congressional seats.  Sshort decision describes how the Court decides whether a redistricting comports with “one person, one vote”: looks at population differential (not dispositive; one rejected plan had a differential of only one person between smallest and largest districts); incumbents forced into same district; counties or cities remaining whole, etc.  Approved plan had differential of only 0.79% between smallest and largest, which Court admitted in these days of computerized algorithms might be a “large” deviation, but o.k.