Denver • In a blistering 42-page ruling, the 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Tuesday, upheld the lower courts decision that San Juan County had violated the constitutional rights of residents in drawing gerrymandered voting districts and the appeals court affirmed the redrawn districts that resulted in the county’s first Navajo-majority Commission.
Judge Nancy Moritz, writing for the court, said the county had violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Voting Rights Act when it drew previous voting districts that packed most Navajo residents into a single district of the three.