# Avery v. Midland County

> Supreme Court of the United States · April 1, 1968 · 390 U.S. 474

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9423648

## Case

- **Full name:** AVERY v. MIDLAND COUNTY Et Al.
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** April 1, 1968
- **Citations:** 390 U.S. 474; 88 S. Ct. 1114; 20 L. Ed. 2d 45; 1968 U.S. LEXIS 2061
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Stewart
- **Judges:** White, Harlan, Fortas, Stewart, Marshall
- **Cited by:** 582 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9423648

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding “that the Constitution permits no substantial variation from equal population in drawing districts for units of local government having general governmental powers over the entire geographic area served by the body,” id. at 484-85, 88 S.Ct. 1114
- finding that city, town, or County may no more deny equal protection than it may abridge freedom of speech, establish an official religion, arrest without probable cause, or deny due process of law
- holding that a qualified voter in a local election had a right to have his vote counted with substantially the same weight as those of other qualified voters when the local officials exercised “general governmental powers over the entire geographic area served by the body”
- emphasizing that al though the “forms and functions of local government and the relationships among the various units are matters of state concern ... a State’s political subdivisions must comply with the Fourteenth Amendment”

## Opinion text

Mr. Justice Stewart,
dissenting.
I would dismiss the writ as improvidently granted for the reasons stated by Mr. Justice Harlan and Mr. Justice Fortas.
*510 Since the Court does reach the merits, however, I add that I agree with most of what is said in the thorough dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Fortas. Indeed, I would join that opinion were it not for the author’s unquestioning endorsement of the doctrine of Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U. S. 533 . I continue to believe that the Court’s opinion in that case misapplied the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment — that the apportionment of the legislative body of a sovereign State, no less than the apportionment of a county government, is far too subtle and complicated a business to be resolved as a matter of constitutional law in terms of sixth-grade arithmetic. My views on that score, set out at length elsewhere, * closely parallel those expressed by Mr. Justice Fortas in the present case.
Lucas v. Colorado General Assembly, 377 U. S. 713, 744 (dissenting opinion).

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9423648. Public record. Not legal advice.