Kilgarlin v. Hill, 386 U.S. 120 (1967)

Kilgarlin v. Hill

No. 235

Decided February 20, 1967
386 U.S. 120

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS

Syllabus

Appellants challenge the 1965 legislative reapportionment of the Texas House of Representatives in a plan which combined single-member, multi-member, and floterial districts. The District Court sustained the plan except for the floterial districts, which were found to violate the principles of Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, and permitted the 1966 election to proceed under the plan. Despite population variances among the remaining districts resulting in a 1.31 to 1 ratio between the largest and smallest districts, the District Court approved the plan, holding that appellants had not sustained their burden of negating the existence of any state of facts which would sustain the legislation and that the deviations were justified by the state policy of respecting county lines wherever possible.

Held: Population variances of the size evident here invoke the rule of Swann v. Adams, 385 U.S. 440, and, notwithstanding the District Court’s view that the deviations here were generally justified by the state policy of respecting county lines, the judgment is reversed in part and the case is remanded for further proceedings to determine whether the state policy necessitates the range of deviations evident here.

252 F.Supp. 404, reversed in part and remanded.