Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1962-03-27
Districting Ruling Apt to Change
Character of Two Political Parties
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ing, said he may call his Legis-
.lature into special session.
News Of the high court ruling
was cheered by plaintiffs in
the current suits in Maryland,
Oklahoma, Ohio, Indiana, Kan
.Sas, New York, Michigan and
Mississippi. A number of these
have been held up pending the
Tennessee decision.
: A new suit attacking the
.county-unit system of voting
was filed in Georgia within two
hours of the announcement of
yesterdays ruling, and there
was talk of litigation in YER
mont, New Hampshire, Vir-
'ginia, Wisconsin, Nebraska,
Pennsylvania and other States.
The most recent documenta-
.tion of what President Ken
,nedy called in 1858 "the shame
of the States, their unrepre-
sentative legislatures" came in
the report published last No
Vember by the Bureau of Public
Administration Of the Univer-
Sity of Virginia.
T. Hawaii Near Ideal
d, In it, Profs. Paul T. David
and Ralph Eisenberg said that
in 1860 not one of the so States
met the standard of model
representation" in which the
legislator with the largest con-
Stituency represented no more
than is times as many people
as the member with the small
est constituency.
The closest ratio to the ideal,
they said, was 90 to l in
-Hawaii's lower house and the
worst was 1,081 to l in New
Hampshire.
The inequity between repre-
Sentation for the largest popu-
lation counties and the counties
with the smallest population
grew steadily worse between
1910 and 1860, they said, as
rural population shrank and /
urban population mounted.
In Tennessee and other
States, the growing numbers of
urban voters were unable to
force the rural legislators to
reapportion in a way that
would significantly weaken the
country boys" political con-
troll. And, until yesterday. they
were unable to obtain consid-
Grafton for their complaints in
the Federal courts.
The political reaction to yes
terday's assertion of jurisdic-
tion by the Supreme Court was
on practicable lines.
Attorney General Robert F..
Kennedy hailed it as "a land
mark in the development of
representative government"
Senator Talmadge, Democrat
of Georgia, called it "unconsti-
tutional' and Senator Thur
mond, Democrat of South Caro-
lima, termed it "the most dan
gerous decision affecting rights
of States which the Supreme
Court has ever handed down"
. Just how quickly and pro-
foundry the ruling will affect
the character of American
politics was a source of much
discussion among the experts.
! More Power Possible
One Washington official with
. long background in political
analysis ventured the guess
that when all the litigation and
maneuvering are completed,
rural, conservative forces may
emerge even more powerful in
the State legislatures than
they are now.
The device for continuing
control. he suggested, may be
the imposition of little Fed
eral systems" on many more
State MISUNDERSTANDING
a lower house that is fairly rep
resentative of population with
an upper house where repre-
sentation is based, as in the
United States Senate, not on
population but on prede-
termined geographical units,
such as counties or towns.
In this way, he said, rural
forces may sacrifice some of
their power in one house of the
Legislature only to achieve even
greater power in the other.
His was minority view,
however. Most commentators
agreed with Attorney Rhyme
that the likeliest long-term eff
feet of the Supreme Court rul-
ing will be to pretty well shift
control Of State Legislatures to
urban areas"
The University Of Virginia
study showed that in 1860 in
the country as a whole, the
smallest population counties
(under $4,000 had II votes in
the legislature for every 10 they
deserved on the basis Of popu-
lation, while the largest-popu-