Karcher v. Daggett

Justice White delivered the dissenting opinion. The minority justices held fast to the belief that any legislative apportionment should promote and provide fair, nondiscriminatory voting districts for all citizens which was the intent of the Feldman Plan. The dispute at issue then, according to the minority justices, was the maximum standard population deviation among voting districts in the state of New Jersey. The justices felt that the Feldman Plan, with a deviation of less than 0.7 percent, provided "fair and effective representation." The justices pointed out that the margin of estimated error in the 1970 (federal) census was 2.3 percent, substantially higher than deviation in New Jersey's reapportionment plan. Moreover, the undercount in New Jersey was not yet known; therefore, the justices believed that, as in the past, it was reasonable to believe that the 1980 undercount would not have been substantially different than the federal government's undercount (a factor on which, in part, the state of New Jersey's reapportionment plan was based). Simply, the minority believed deviation in the Feldman Plan was "statistically insignificant." Moreover, Justice White observed that since the Court refused to set a numerical standard below which judicial intervention would not be required, "the courts should give a greater weight to the importance of the state's interest and the consistency with which those interests are served than to the size of the deviation."

Justice Powell delivered a separate dissenting opinion. He shared the minority opinion that New Jersey's reapportionment deviation "was neither `appreciable' nor constitutionally significant." Powell also believed the requirement of respecting municipal boundaries was adhered to in the Feldman Plan. Divergence from constitutional "theoretical exactitude" was permissible because the maximum standard deviation of 0.6984 percent met constitutional requirements requiring population be equality apportioned among districts.