What did the Supreme Court say in the reapportionment cases?
About this video
This video explains malapportionment, where districts had very unequal populations because rural legislators refused to redraw lines as cities grew. It describes how Baker v. Carr opened the door for courts to intervene and how Reynolds v. Sims set the rule of one person, one vote, reshaping elected bodies across the country.
You'll be able to
- explain what malapportionment is and why it harmed voters in growing cities.
- explain why Baker v. Carr was a turning point for the Supreme Court.
- state the one person, one vote rule from Reynolds v. Sims.
Key words
- Malapportionment
- When election districts have very unequal numbers of people, so some votes count for more than others.
- One person, one vote
- The rule that legislative districts must generally have equal numbers of people.
- Political thicket
- Justice Frankfurter's phrase warning that courts should stay out of political disputes like districting.
- Baker v. Carr
- The case where the Supreme Court decided it could hear challenges to unequal districts.
- Reynolds v. Sims
- The case that established the one person, one vote rule.
Transcript
[MUSIC] Malapportionment was incredibly harmful. It's hard to imagine today because I think most of us grew up in the world of one person one vote where this is the rule that came out of these cases. This idea that all legislative districts, state legislative, congressional districts, with some exceptions, but generally speaking they have to have equal numbers of people and the goal of the one person one vote cases is to really make representatives more responsive. Imagine a situation where you have a district that has 100,000 people and you have a district that has 900,000 people. In theory, it's easier for a representative who represents a 100,000 people to be more responsive to that constituency than it is for a representative to be responsive to a district that has nine times more people, but this was the state of affairs when urban centers started to increase their populations relative to the rural areas because rural representatives did not want to diminish their power,
they just simply refused to redraw the districts. The Supreme Court decisions in the one person one vote cases were a really important correction to a system that had for decades, basically minimize the voice of the majority, so Baker v. Carr in particular is important because prior to Baker v. Carr, the U.S Supreme Court had taken the position that it is not supposed to intervene in these cases. There's this famous language that Justice Frankfurter used where he references the fact that the court should not enter the political thicket and so he doesn't view the Supreme Court's role as one in which they are supposed to police the state legislative districts. By the time we get to Baker the Court says, there's a space for us here. If we don't intervene, nothing happens. You still have a situation where these urban centers are under
represented that the representatives are not being responsive and the people can do nothing about it, so I think the court felt like it had no choice by the time it decided Baker v. Carr. By the time we get to Reynolds v. Sims, we come up with the rule of one person one vote and it completely changes pretty much the elected bodies of every state in the country. I mean these cases were momentous. [MUSIC]
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