258
Opinion of the Court
on the briefs were Arthur F. Jernigan, Jr., and Grant M. Fox.†
Justice Scalia announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, II, and III-A, and an opinion with respect to Parts III-B and IV, in which The Chief Justice, Justice Kennedy, and Justice Ginsburg join.
In these cases, we decide whether the District Court properly enjoined a Mississippi state court's proposed congressional redistricting plan and whether it properly fashioned its own congressional reapportionment plan rather than order at-large elections.
I
The 2000 census caused Mississippi to lose one congressional seat, reducing its representation in the House of Representatives from five Members to four. The state legislature, however, failed to pass a new redistricting plan after the decennial census results were published in 2001. In anticipation of the March 1, 2002, state-law deadline for the qualification of candidates, see Miss. Code Ann. § 23-15-299 (Lexis 2001), appellant and cross-appellee Beatrice Branch and others (state plaintiffs) filed suit in a Mississippi State Chancery Court in October 2001, asking the state court to issue a redistricting plan for the 2002 congressional elections. In November 2001, appellee and cross-appellant John Smith and others (federal plaintiffs) filed a similar action under Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42 U. S. C. § 1983, in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi, claiming that the current districting plan, Miss. Code Ann. § 23-15-
†Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal in No. 01-1437 were filed for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People et al. by J. Gerald Hebert and Robert Rubin; and for the Nationalist Movement by Richard Barrett.
John P. Krill, Jr., filed a brief for Robert C. Jubelirer et al. as amici curiae urging affirmance in No. 01-1437.
Page: Index Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007