On February 29, the West Virginia Supreme Court upheld a state constitutional requirement that in State Senate districts covering several counties, only one person from each county can ever be elected in any given election year. See this story. In multi-member State Senate districts, some seats are up in presidential years, and others are up in midterm years. The opinion is not yet posted on the State Supreme Court’s web page.
More of the STONE AGE AREA fixation.
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
Laws are made for ALL persons in a regime.
The two litigants are a state senator (Donna Boley) for 28 years from a small county, and a former senator (Frank Deem) from a large county in the same district, who has served 44 of the last 58 years in the legislature (two stints in both houses), having first been elected in 1954. Both are Republicans.
Deem was defeated in the Republican primary in 2010, perhaps with support for his opponent from Boley, and last year tried to get the small county where Boley lives redistricted out of the district.
Deem filed for office, and the secretary of state said that she didn’t have authority to remove him from office. So Boley sued to get a court order to have him removed from the ballot. Because the deadline for removal was March 2, Boley suggested that court make their decision, and then issue a formal opinion later.
The West Virginia provides that senate districts be made up of whole counties, with the 2 senators from each district reside in different counties. The whole county provision was overturned many years ago on OMOV grounds, so that districts now may include parts of counties.
The legislature has decided to treat parts of counties as “counties” for the residence rule, so you can have two senators elected from a county, if they are in different districts.
In the current case, the large county has 82% of the population of the district. I could see that a federal court might require more equal “residential zones” or might simply outlaw multi-member districts in a case like West Virginia.