Reapportionment Cases
Reapportionment cases are significant legal decisions concerning the distribution of legislative representation based on population within the United States. They emerged from the Supreme Court's ruling in Baker v. Carr (1962), which established that issues of legislative reapportionment could be examined by federal courts, moving away from the notion that these matters were purely political. Subsequent cases, including Gray v. Sanders (1963) and Wesberry v. Sanders (1964), asserted the principle of "one person, one vote," challenging systems that resulted in unequal representation. The Court's rulings addressed the complexity of reapportionment at the state legislative level, where legislatures were responsible for drawing district lines, creating a patchwork of varying practices across states. The decisions reflected conflicts among justices, notably between Chief Justice Earl Warren, who championed equal representation, and Justice John M. Harlan II, who consistently dissented, raising concerns about the judiciary's role in political matters. These cases highlight the ongoing struggle to ensure fair representation in a diverse society, emphasizing the necessity of judicial intervention to rectify malapportionment that could otherwise prevent effective political representation.
Reapportionment Cases
Reynolds v. Sims; WMCA v. Lomenzo; Maryland Committee for Fair Representation v. Tews; Davis v. Mann; Roman v. Sinock; Lucas v. Forty-fourth General Assembly of Colorado
Date: June 15, 1964
Citation: 377 U.S. 533; 377 U.S. 633; 377 U.S. 656; 377 U.S. 665; 377 U.S. 695; 377 U.S. 713
Issue: Reapportionment
Significance: The Supreme Court’s rulings in these six landmark cases regarding state legislatures are the cornerstone of the reapportionment revolution.
These six decisions built on the Supreme Court’s Baker v. Carr (1962) ruling that legislative reapportionment would no longer be considered a political question to be left to legislatures to decide but would be justiciable, or capable of litigation by the federal courts. Preliminary decisions include Gray v. Sanders (1963), which struck down the unequal Georgia county unit system for electing governors and first set out the principle of one person, one vote, and Wesberry v. Sanders (1964), in which the Court resolved questions of the reapportionment of U.S. House of Representatives seats within state boundaries on the same one person, one vote basis. In the Reapportionment Cases, the Court addressed reapportionment of state legislature. This was the most central issue of reapportionment because state legislatures drew all the lines their own and those for congressional seats. It was also the most complicated because of the variations in districting across the fifty states. This complexity was reflected in the six cases and the pattern of support and dissent in the justices’ varying responses to them.
Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote the majority opinion in all six cases, which were decided by varying margins and dissents. In a way, Warren’s simple response to the complexity one person, one vote may have been the only consistent way to deal with the myriad circumstances found in the states. Equally consistent was Justice John M. Harlan II, who dissented in all six cases. Earlier, Harlan had had the support of the late Justice Felix Frankfurter in opposing the Court’s entrance into what Frankfurter called the “political thicket.” However, on Reynolds, Harlan stood alone against the Court. Harlan’s charge was answered by Warren, who wrote that the pervasive denial of effective representation was a denial of constitutionally protected rights demanding judicial protection. Indeed, the Court’s logic after footnote 4 of United States v. Carolene Products Co. (1938) was that the Court was the only institution capable of correcting certain wrongs. Malapportioned districts were certainly such as issue, because no one could not expect the beneficiaries of malapportionment to vote themselves out of representation if they were voters or out of a job if they were state legislators.
As the Court moved away from the facts of Reynolds, the justices’ positions became more complex. In the Virginia case (Davis v. Mann), both Justices Tom C. Clark and Potter Stewart concurred with Warren, and Harlan dissented. In the Maryland (Tews) and Delaware (Sinock) cases, Clark concurred with Warren, and Stewart, in essence, voted with Harlan without joining in the dissent. In the New York case (WMCA v. Lomenzo), Stewart and Clark joined Harlan in dissent. In the Colorado case (Lucas), Stewart and Clark not only joined Harlan but also offered spirited dissents because of the special factors in that case. The Colorado malapportionment grew out of a plan and process imbedded in the Colorado constitution and not simply as the result of legislative action. From the simple vantage point of one person, one vote, this made no difference, but from the point of view of those who appreciated that a political “thicket” did exist, the difference was important. The considerations included in the dissents in Lucas reappear in subsequent cases in which the Court pressed more relentlessly toward absolute mathematical equality, eventually leading a majority of the Court to rethink the rigidity of this position.