Karcher v. Daggett

The U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Feldman plan even though the population difference per district was rather small (less than .7 percent). The justices held consistent to previous rulings in Kirkpatrick v. Preisler (1969) and White v. Weiser (1973) by adhering to a standard which gave no exact, numerical guidance regarding the maximum allowable standard deviation between voting districts. However, they did insist that the state of New Jersey, by not considering and adopting other reapportionment plans of lesser deviation, violated constitutional limits which required voting districts that were "as nearly as practicable" close to numerical equality. (There was only a difference of .245 percent between the Feldman Plan and competing schemes.)

Equally important, the Court's ruling failed to recognize as valid the state of New Jersey legislature's design to create districts in which the voting power of racial minorities was preserved. While Justice Stevens was alone in forwarding the idea that New Jersey had "created" rather than preserved the necessity of protecting minority voters against political gerrymandering, the majority opinion tacitly failed to consider protection of voting constituencies based on racial or ethnic considerations. Thus, in rendering this decision, the U.S. Supreme Court moved toward less rigorous and vigorous support of minority and equal protection rights by the judiciary, a trend which continued to the end of the century.