## Facts

- Wyoming’s Constitution provides that each of the State’s 23 counties constitutes a legislative district and must have at least one senator and one representative, with seats apportioned among counties “as nearly as may be” by inhabitants.
- After the 1980 census, Wyoming’s population was 469,557; the “ideal” Wyoming House district size was about 7,337 persons per representative.
- A 1981 reapportionment statute created a 64-member House, assigning at least one representative to each county.
- Niobrara County, the least populous county (2,924 residents), received one representative under the county-minimum rule.
- The plan produced an average deviation of about 16% and a maximum deviation of 89% between the most- and least-populated districts.
- The statute included a fallback: if Niobrara’s separate seat were unconstitutional, Niobrara would be combined with a neighboring county and the House would have 63 members.
- Voters from more populous counties sued, alleging dilution of their votes due to Niobrara’s overrepresentation.

## Issues

1. Whether Wyoming’s assignment of a separate House seat to Niobrara County, producing a maximum population deviation of 89%, violated the Equal Protection Clause’s “one person, one vote” requirement.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court affirmed the district court’s judgment upholding the reapportionment statute.
- The Court held that Wyoming did not violate the Equal Protection Clause by giving Niobrara County its own representative.
- The Court treated the deviation as the product of a consistent, nondiscriminatory application of a legitimate state policy to preserve county integrity in representation.
- Although deviations over 10% create a prima facie equal protection problem, Wyoming justified the variance with a rational state policy not shown to be invidiously discriminatory.

## Legal Principles

- State legislative districts must generally satisfy population equality under the Equal Protection Clause, but exact mathematical equality is not required.
- A total population deviation above roughly 10% establishes a prima facie case of unconstitutional vote dilution, shifting to the State the burden to justify the disparities.
- The controlling inquiry is whether the plan reasonably advances a rational state policy and whether the resulting disparities remain within constitutional limits.
- Preserving the integrity of political subdivisions (such as counties), when applied uniformly and without discriminatory purpose or effect, can be a legitimate justification for population deviations in apportionment.

## Conclusion

Wyoming’s decision to guarantee each county at least one House representative, including a seat for sparsely populated Niobrara County, was upheld because the resulting population disparity flowed from a rational, historically grounded, and nondiscriminatory county-integrity policy that the Court deemed constitutionally permissible on these facts.


Brown v. Thomson, 462 U.S. 835 (1983)