Case implicating one-person-one-vote in prison context survives appellate review

The Court of Appeals has ruled that the NAACP may proceed with a lawsuit against the State of Connecticut in claiming that the state violates the one-man-one-vote principle in counting incarcerated individuals as residing in the district where their prison is located rather than the district on which they presently reside.

The case is NAACP v. Merrill, issued on September 24. While most incarcerated prisoners cannot vote, their are still included in population counts. I mean, they still exist as human beings. The question is what legislative district do they belong to when they are in jail, often situated away from their home counties. What it all means, according to plaintiffs, is that counting the inmates as residents of their prison counties "artificially inflates the representation of some parts of the state at the expense of others: the representational power of the predominantly White residents living in the prisonersʹ mostly rural prison districts is artificially inflated, while the representational power of the predominantly Black and Latino residents living in prisonersʹ more urban home districts is artificially deflated."

The state argues there is no case under the Eleventh Amendment's general prohibition against suing the state in federal court. (As an aside, the Eleventh Amendment is really something that needs to be reexamined, as I don't know what purpose it serves to prevent people from suing the state in federal court, and whatever reasons may have existed for that policy back in 1787 probably don't apply in the modern age.) There are exceptions to the Eleventh Amendment, including the principle that you can challenge in federal court the state's ongoing violation of federal law and seek prospective, or injunctive, relief, and not money damages. That's the case here, as plaintiffs want a declaratory judgment and an injunction requiring the state to adopt a new districting plan for elections.

If you are a one-person-one-vote junkie, then this case is for you. The Court of Appeals (Wesley, Chin and Bianco) deals with the state's various defenses to this case, requiring the judges to explore f this constitutional principle. One issue involves what constitutes "one-person-one-vote." The Supreme Court has said states may deviate from that principle in pursuit of other legitimate objectives, and that "minor deviations from mathematical equality among state legislative districts are insufficient to make out a prima facie case of invidious discrimination under the Fourteenth Amendment." The general rule is that "a maximum population deviation under 10 percent falls within this category of minor deviations." The state argues that plaintiff has no case because the deviation falls within the 10 percent margin, but the Court of Appeals rejects that defense on this Rule 12 motion, as "[a] prima facie case . . . is an evidentiary standard, not a pleading requirementʺ and ʺit is not appropriate to require a plaintiff to plead facts establishing a prima facie caseʺ because ʺthe precise requirements of a prima facie case can vary depending on . . . context,ʺ and ʺit may be difficult to define the precise formulation of the required prima facie case in a particular caseʺ before ʺdiscovery has unearthed relevant facts and evidence." What it means is that "the 10% threshold is not a safe harbor."