Source: http://supreme.nolo.com/us/376/1/case.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 06:18:13+00:00

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Appellants are qualified voters in Georgia's Fifth Congressional District, the population of which is two to three times greater than that of some other congressional districts in the State. Since there is only one Congressman for each district, appellants claimed debasement of their right to vote resulting from the 1931 Georgia apportionment statute and failure of the legislature to realign that State's congressional districts more nearly to equalize the population of each. They brought this class action under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1988 and 28 U.S.C. § 1343(3), asking that the apportionment statute be declared invalid and that appellees, the Governor and Secretary of State, be enjoined from conducting elections under it. A three-judge District Court, though recognizing the gross population imbalance of the Fifth District in relation to the other districts, dismissed the complaint for "want of equity."
1. As in Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186, which involved alleged malapportionment of seats in a state legislature, the District Court had jurisdiction of the subject matter; appellants had standing to sue, and they had stated a justiciable cause of action on which relief could be granted. Pp. 376 U. S. 5-6.
dismissal for "want of equity" as raising a wholly "political" question. Pp. 376 U. S. 6-7.
3. The constitutional requirement in Art. I, § 2,that Representatives be chosen "by the People of the several States" means that, as nearly as is practicable, one person's vote in a congressional election is to be worth as much as another's. Pp. 376 U. S. 7-8, 376 U. S. 18.
206 F.Supp. 276, reversed and remanded.
Appellants are citizens and qualified voters of Fulton County, Georgia, and as such are entitled to vote in congressional elections in Georgia's Fifth Congressional District. That district, one of ten created by a 1931 Georgia statute, [Footnote 1] includes Fulton, DeKalb, and Rockdale Counties, and has a population, according to the 1960 census, of 823,680. The average population of the ten districts is 394,312, less than half that of the Fifth. One district, the Ninth, has only 272,154 people, less than one-third as many as the Fifth. Since there is only one Congressman for each district, this inequality of population means that the Fifth District's Congressman has to represent from two to three times as many people as do Congressmen from some of the other Georgia districts.
Claiming that these population disparities deprived them and voters similarly situated of a right under the Federal Constitution to have their votes for Congressmen given the same weight as the votes of other Georgians, the appellants brought this action under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1988 and 28 U.S.C. § 1343(3), asking that the Georgia statute be declared invalid and that the appellees, the Governor and Secretary of State of Georgia, be enjoined from conducting elections under it. The complaint alleged that appellants were deprived of the full benefit of their right to vote, in violation of (1) Art. I, § 2, of the Constitution of the United States, which provides that "The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States . . . "; (2) the Due Process, Equal Protection, and Privileges and Immunities Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, and (3) that part of Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment which provides that "Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers. . . ."
"It is clear by any standard . . . that the population of the Fifth District is grossly out of balance with that of the other nine congressional districts of Georgia, and, in fact, so much so that the removal of DeKalb and Rockdale Counties from the District, leaving only Fulton with a population of 556,326, would leave it exceeding the average by slightly more than forty percent. [Footnote 2]"
of congressional districts raised only "political" questions, which were not justiciable. Although the majority below said that the dismissal here was based on "want of equity," and not on nonjusticiability, they relied on no circumstances which were peculiar to the present case; instead, they adopted the language and reasoning of Mr Justice Frankfurter's Colegrove opinion in concluding that the appellants had presented a wholly "political" question. [Footnote 3] Judge Tuttle, disagreeing with the court's reliance on that opinion, dissented from the dismissal, though he would have denied an injunction at that time in order to give the Georgia Legislature ample opportunity to correct the "abuses" in the apportionment. He relied on Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186, which, after full discussion of Colegrove and all the opinions in it, held that allegations of disparities of population in state legislative districts raise justiciable claims on which courts may grant relief. We noted probable jurisdiction. 374 U.S. 802. We agree with Judge Tuttle that, in debasing the weight of appellants' votes, the State has abridged the right to vote for members of Congress guaranteed them by the United States Constitution, that the District Court should have entered a declaratory judgment to that effect, and that it was therefore error to dismiss this suit. The question of what relief should be given we leave for further consideration and decision by the District Court in light of existing circumstances.
(3) that the plaintiffs had stated a justiciable cause of action on which relief could be granted.
". . . Smiley v. Holm, 285 U. S. 355, Koenig v. Flynn, 285 U. S. 375, and Carroll v. Becker, 285 U. S. 380, concerned the choice of Representatives in the Federal Congress. Smiley, Koenig, and Carroll settled the issue in favor of justiciability of questions of congressional redistricting. The Court followed these precedents in Colegrove, although over the dissent of three of the seven Justices who participated in that decision. [Footnote 6]"
This statement in Baker, which referred to our past decisions holding congressional apportionment cases to be justiciable, we believe was wholly correct, and we adhere to it. Mr. Justice Frankfurter's Colegrove opinion contended that Art. I, § 4, of the Constitution [Footnote 7] had given Congress "exclusive authority" to protect the right of citizens to vote for Congressmen, [Footnote 8] but we made it clear in Baker that nothing in the language of that article gives support to a construction that would immunize state congressional apportionment laws which debase a citizen's right to vote from the power of courts to protect the constitutional rights of individuals from legislative destruction, a power recognized at least since our decision in Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, in 1803. Cf. 22 U. S. S. 7� v. Ogden,@ 9 Wheat. 1. The right to vote is too important in our free society to be stripped of judicial protection by such an interpretation of Article I. This dismissal can no more be justified on the ground of "want of equity" than on the ground of "nonjusticiability." We therefore hold that the District Court erred in dismissing the complaint.
This brings us to the merits. We agree with the District Court that the 1931 Georgia apportionment grossly discriminates against voters in the Fifth Congressional District. A single Congressman represents from two to three times as many Fifth District voters as are represented by each of the Congressmen from the other Georgia congressional districts. The apportionment statute thus contracts the value of some votes and expands that of others. If the Federal Constitution intends that, when qualified voters elect members of Congress, each vote be given as much weight as any other vote, then this statute cannot stand.
meant that, no matter what the mechanics of an election, whether statewide or by districts, it was population which was to be the basis of the Hose of Representatives.
During the Revolutionary War, the rebelling colonies were loosely allied in the Continental Congress, a body with authority to do little more than pass resolutions and issue requests for men and supplies. Before the war ended, the Congress had proposed and secured the ratification by the States of a somewhat closer association under the Articles of Confederation. Though the Articles established a central government for the United States, as the former colonies were even then called, the States retained most of their sovereignty, like independent nations bound together only by treaties. There were no separate judicial or executive branches: only a Congress consisting of a single house. Like the members of an ancient Greek league, each State, without regard to size or population, was given only one vote in that house. It soon became clear that the Confederation was without adequate power to collect needed revenues or to enforce the rules its Congress adopted. Farsighted men felt that a closer union was necessary if the States were to be saved from foreign and domestic dangers.
"argued strongly for an election of the larger branch by the people. It was to be the grand depository of the democratic principle of the Govt. [Footnote 14]"
"If the power is not immediately derived from the people in proportion to their numbers, we may make a paper confederacy, but that will be all. [Footnote 15]"
"If the sovereignty of the States is to be maintained, the Representatives must be drawn immediately from the States, not from the people, and we have no power to vary the idea of equal sovereignty. [Footnote 19]"
"was prepared for every event rather than sit down under a Govt. founded in a vicious principle of representation and which must be as short-lived as it would be unjust. [Footnote 23]"
The debates at the Convention make at least one fact abundantly clear: that, when the delegates agreed that the House should represent "people," they intended that, in allocating Congressmen, the number assigned to each State should be determined solely by the number of the State's inhabitants. [Footnote 30] The Constitution embodied Edmund Randolph's proposal for a periodic census to ensure "fair representation of the people," [Footnote 31] an idea endorsed by Mason as assuring that "numbers of inhabitants"
"The city of Philadelphia is supposed to contain between fifty and sixty thousand souls. It will therefore form nearly two districts for the choice of Federal Representatives. [Footnote 39]"
"the House of Representatives will be elected immediately by the people, and represent them and their personal rights individually. [Footnote 42]"
"[A]ll elections ought to be equal. Elections are equal when a given number of citizens in one part of the state choose as many representatives as are chosen by the same number of citizens in any other part of the state. In this manner, the proportion of the representatives and of the constituents will remain invariably the same. [Footnote 46]"
"Who are to be the electors of the Federal Representatives? Not the rich more than the poor; not the learned more than the ignorant; not the haughty heirs of distinguished names more than the humble sons of obscure and unpropitious fortune. The electors are to be the great body of the people of the United States. [Footnote 47]"
Readers surely could have fairly taken this to mean, "one person, one vote." Cf. Gray v. Sanders, 372 U. S. 368, 372 U. S. 381.
Wesberry v. Vandiver, 206 F.Supp. 276, 279-280.
"We do not deem [Colegrove v. Green] . . . to be a precedent for dismissal based on the nonjusticiability of a political question involving the Congress as here, but we do deem it to be strong authority for dismissal for want of equity when the following factors here involved are considered on balance: a political question involving a coordinate branch of the federal government; a political question posing a delicate problem difficult of solution without depriving others of the right to vote by district, unless we are to redistrict for the state; relief may be forthcoming from a properly apportioned state legislature, and relief may be afforded by the Congress."
206 F.Supp. at 285 (footnote omitted).
369 U.S. at 369 U. S. 188.
"The shortness of the time remaining [before the next election] makes it doubtful whether action could, or would, be taken in time to secure for petitioners the effective relief they seek."
328 U.S. at 328 U. S. 565. In a later separate opinion, he emphasized that his vote in Colergove had been based on the "particular circumstances" of that case. Cook v. Fortson, 329 U. S. 675, 329 U. S. 678.
369 U.S. at 369 U. S. 232. Cf. also Wood v. Broom, 287 U. S. 1.
"The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators. . . ."
U.S.Const., Art. I, § 4.
"Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative. . . ."
U.S.Const., Art. I, § 2.
The provisions for apportioning Representatives and direct taxes have been amended by the Fourteenth and Sixteenth Amendments, respectively.
We do not reach the arguments that the Georgia statute violates the Due Process, Equal Protection, and Privileges and Immunities Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.
As late as 1842, seven States still conducted congressional elections at large. See Paschal, "The House of Representatives: Grand Depository of the Democratic Principle'?" 17 Law & Contemp.Prob. 276, 281 (1952).
3 The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (Farrand ed.1911) 14 (hereafter cited as "Farrand").
"Such were the defects, the deformities, the diseases and the ominous prospects for which the Convention were to provide a remedy and which ought never to be overlooked in expounding & appreciating the Constitutional Charter the remedy that was provided."
See, e.g., id. at 197-198 (Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania) id. at 467 (Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts); id. at 286, 465-466 (Alexander Hamilton of New York); id. at 489-490 (Rufus King of Massachusetts); id. at 322, 446-449, 486, 527-528 (James Madison of Virginia); id. at 180, 456 (Hugh Williamson of North Carolina); id. at 253-254, 406, 449-450, 482-484 (James Wilson of Pennsylvania).
"that the States being equal cannot treat or confederate so as to give up an equality of votes without giving up their liberty; that the propositions on the table were a system of slavery for 10 States; that as Va. Masts. & Pa. have 42/90 of the votes, they can do as they please without a miraculous Union of the other ten; that they will have nothing to do but to gain over one of the ten to make them compleat masters of the rest. . . ."
E.g., 1 id. at 324 (Alexander Martin of North Carolina), id. at 437-438, 439-441, 444-445, 453-455 (Luther Martin of Maryland); id. at 490-492 (Gunning Bedford of Delaware).
"We have been told (with a dictatorial air) that this is the last moment for a fair trial in favor of a good Government. . . . The Large States dare not dissolve the confederation. If they do, the small ones will find some foreign ally of more honor and good faith who will take them by the hand and do them justice."
Id. at 532 (Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts). George Mason of Virginia urged an "accommodation" as "preferable to an appeal to the world by the different sides, as had been talked of by some Gentlemen." Id. at 533.
See id. at 193, 342-343 (Roger Sherman); id. at 461-462 (William Samuel Johnson).
While "free Persons" and those "bound to Service for a Term of Years" were counted in determining representation, Indians not taxed were not counted, and "three fifths of all other Persons" (slaves) were included in computing the States' populations. Art. I, § 2. Also, every State was to have "at Least one Representative." Ibid.
"number of people alone [was] the best rule for measuring wealth, as well as representation, and that, if the Legislature were to be governed by wealth, they would be obliged to estimate it by numbers."
2 id. at 3. The rejected thinking of those who supported the proposal to limit western representation is suggested by the statement of Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania that "The Busy haunts of men not the remote wilderness was the proper School of political Talents." 1 id. at 583.
Id. at 457. "Rotten boroughs" have long since disappeared in Great Britain. Today, permanent parliamentary Boundary Commissions recommend periodic changes in the size of constituencies as population shifts. For the statutory standards under which these commissions operate, see House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Acts of 1949, 12 13 Geo. 6, c. 66, Second Schedule, and of 1958, 6 & 7 Eliz. 2, c. 26, Schedule.
See, e.g., 2 Works of Alexander Hamilton (Lodge ed.1904) 25 (statement to New York ratifying convention).
The Federalist, No. 57 (Cooke ed.1961), at 389.
Id. No. 54, at 368. There has been some question about the authorship of Numbers 54 and 57, see The Federalist (Lodge ed.1908) xxiii-xxxv, but it is now generally believed that Madison was the author, see, e.g., The Federalist (Cooke ed.1961) xxvii; The Federalist (Van Doren ed.1945) vi-vii; Brant, "Settling the Authorship of The Federalist," 67 Am.Hist.Rev. 71 (1961).
See, e.g., 2 The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution (2d Elliot ed. 1836) 11 (Fisher Ames, in the Massachusetts Convention) (hereafter cited as "Elliot"); id. at 202 (Oliver Wolcott, Connecticut); 4 id. at 21 (William Richardson Davie, North Carolina); id. at 257 (Charles Pinckney, South Carolina).
See 2 Elliot, at 49 (Francis Dana, in the Massachusetts Convention); id. at 50-51 (Rufus King, Massachusetts); 3 id. at 367 (James Madison, Virginia).
2 The Works of James Wilson (Andrews ed. 1896) 15.
The Federalist, No. 57 (Cooke ed.1961), at 385.
Unfortunately I can join neither the opinion of the Court nor the dissent of my Brother HARLAN. It is true that the opening sentence of Art. I, § 2, of the Constitution provides that Representatives are to be chosen "by the People of the several States. . . ." However, in my view, Brother HARLAN has clearly demonstrated that both the historical background and language preclude a finding that Art. I, § 2, lays down the ipse dixit "one person, one vote" in congressional elections.
Court has so held ever since Smiley v. Holm, 285 U. S. 355 (1932), which is buttressed by two companion cases, Koenig v. Flynn, 285 U. S. 375 (1932), and Carroll v. Becker, 285 U. S. 380 (1932). A majority of the Court in Colegrove v. Green felt, upon the authority of Smiley, that the complaint presented a justiciable controversy not reserved exclusively to Congress. Colegrove v. Green, 328 U. S. 549, 328 U. S. 564, and 328 U. S. 568, n. 3 (1946). Again, in Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186, 369 U. S. 232 (1962), the opinion of the Court recognized that Smiley "settled the issue in favor of justiciability of questions of congressional redistricting." I therefore cannot agree with Brother HARLAN that the supervisory power granted to Congress under Art. I, § 4, is the exclusive remedy.
"equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment forbids . . . discrimination. It does not permit the States to pick out certain qualified citizens or groups of citizens and deny them the right to vote at all. . . . No one would deny that the equal protection clause would also prohibit a law that would expressly give certain citizens a half-vote and others a full vote. . . . Such discriminatory legislation seems to me exactly the kind that the equal protection clause was intended to prohibit."
At 329 U. S. 569.
on the merits. At that hearing, the court should apply the standards laid down in Baker v. Carr, supra.
I would enter an additional caveat. The General Assembly of the Georgia Legislature has been recently reapportioned * as a result of the order of the three-judge District Court in Toombs v. Fortson, 205 F.Supp. 248 (1962). In addition, the Assembly has created a Joint Congressional Redistricting Study Committee which has been working on the problem of congressional redistricting for several months. The General Assembly is currently in session. If, on remand, the trial court is of the opinion that there is likelihood of the General Assembly's reapportioning the State in an appropriate manner, I believe that coercive relief should be deferred until after the General Assembly has had such an opportunity.
* Georgia Laws, Sept.-Oct. 1962, Extra.Sess. 71.
Only a demonstration which could not be avoided would justify this Court in rendering a decision the effect of which, inescapably, as I see it, is to declare constitutionally defective the very composition of a coordinate branch of the Federal Government. The Court's opinion not only fails to make such a demonstration, it is unsound logically on its face, and demonstrably unsound historically.
"Section 2. The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature."
"Section 4. The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators."
"Section 5. Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members. . . ."
"1. that congressional Representatives are to be apportioned among the several States largely, but not entirely, according to population;"
"2. that the States have plenary power to select their allotted Representatives in accordance with any method of popular election they please, subject only to the supervisory power of Congress; and"
"3. that the supervisory power of Congress is exclusive. "
Fifth District unqualified to vote for Representatives to the State House of Representatives, they could not vote for Representatives to Congress, according to the express words of Art. I, § 2. Other provisions of the Constitution would, of course, be relevant, but, so far as Art. I, § 2, is concerned, the disqualification would be within Georgia's power. How can it be, then, that this very same sentence prevents Georgia from apportioning its Representatives as it chooses? The truth is that it does not.
provision for it. [Footnote 2/8] Although many, perhaps most, of them also believed generally -- but assuredly not in the precise, formalistic way of the majority of the Court [Footnote 2/9] -- that, within the States, representation should be based on population, they did not surreptitiously slip their belief into the Constitution in the phrase "by the People," to be discovered 175 years later like a Shakespearian anagram.
each have a Representative in Congress, although their respective populations are 226,167, 285,278, and 330,066. [Footnote 2/12] In entire disregard of population, Art. I, § 2, guarantees each of these States and every other State "at Least one Representative." It is whimsical to assert in the face of this guarantee that an absolute principle of "equal representation in the House for equal numbers of people" is "solemnly embodied" in Article I. All that there is is a provision which bases representation in the House, generally but not entirely, on the population of the States. The provision for representation of each State in the House of Representatives is not a mere exception to the principle framed by the majority; it shows that no such principle is to be found.
alter such regulations. There is nothing to indicate any limitation whatsoever on this grant of plenary initial and supervisory power. The Court's holding is,of course, derogatory not only of the power of the state legislatures, but also of the power of Congress, both theoretically and as they have actually exercised their power. See infra, pp. 376 U. S. 42-45. [Footnote 2/13] It freezes upon both, for no reason other than that it seems wise to the majority of the present Court, a particular political theory for the selection of Representatives.
"The delegates referred to rotten borough apportionments in some of the state legislatures as the kind of objectionable governmental action that the Constitution should not tolerate in the election of congressional representatives."
"The necessity of a Genl. Govt. supposes that the State Legislatures will sometimes fail or refuse to consult the common interest at the expense of their local conveniency or prejudices. The policy of referring the appointment of the House of Representatives to the people, and not to the Legislatures of the States, supposes that the result will be somewhat influenced by the mode, [sic] This view of the question seems to decide that the Legislatures of the States ought not to have the uncontrouled right of regulating the times places & manner of holding elections. These were words of great latitude. It was impossible to foresee all the abuses that might be made of the discretionary power. Whether the electors should vote by ballot or viva voce, should assemble at this place or that place, should be divided into districts or all meet at one place, shd all vote for all the representatives, or all in a district vote for a number allotted to the district, these & many other points would depend on the Legislatures. [sic] and might materially affect the appointments.
Whenever the State Legislatures had a favorite measure to carry, they would take care so to mould their regulations as to favor the candidates they wished to succeed. Besides, the inequality of the Representation in the Legislatures of particular States would produce a like inequality in their representation in the Natl. Legislature, as it was presumable that the Counties having the power in the former case would secure it to themselves in the latter. What danger could there be in giving a controuling power to the Natl. Legislature? [Footnote 2/17]"
(Emphasis added.) These remarks of Madison were in response to a proposal to strike out the provision for congressional supervisory power over the regulation of elections in Art. I, § 4. Supported by others at the Convention, [Footnote 2/18] and not contradicted in any respect, they indicate as clearly as may be that the Convention understood the state legislatures to have plenary power over the conduct of elections for Representatives, including the power to district well or badly, subject only to the supervisory power of Congress. How, then, can the Court hold that Art. I, § 2, prevents the state legislatures from districting as they choose? If the Court were correct, Madison's remarks would have been pointless. One would expect, at the very least, some reference to Art. I, § 2, as a limiting factor on the States. This is the "historical context" which the Convention debates provide.
In sharp contrast to this unanimous silence on the issue of this case when Art. I, § 2, was being discussed, there are repeated references to apportionment and related problems affecting the States' selection of Representatives in connection with Art. I, § 4. The debates in the ratifying conventions, as clearly as Madison's statement at the Philadelphia Convention, supra, pp. 376 U. S. 32-33, indicate that, under § 4, the state legislatures, subject only to the ultimate control of Congress, could district as they chose.
"a borough of but two or three cottages has a right to send two representatives to Parliament, while Birmingham, a large and populous manufacturing town, lately sprung up, cannot send one. [Footnote 2/20]"
"The back parts of Carolina have increased greatly since the adoption of their constitution, and have frequently attempted an alteration of this unequal mode of representation, but the members from Charleston, having the balance so much in their favor, will not consent to an alteration, and we see that the delegates from Carolina in Congress have always been chosen by the delegates of that city. [Footnote 2/22]"
"The representatives . . . from that state [South Carolina], will not be chosen by the people, but will be the representatives of a faction of that state. [Footnote 2/23]"
to the people their equal and sacred rights of election. Perhaps it then will be objected that, from the supposed opposition of interests in the federal legislature, they may never agree upon any regulations; but regulations necessary for the interests of the people can never be opposed to the interests of either of the branches of the federal legislature, because that the interests of the people require that the mutual powers of that legislature should be preserved unimpaired in order to balance the government. Indeed, if the Congress could never agree on any regulations, then certainly no objection to the 4th section can remain; for the regulations introduced by the state legislatures will be the governing rule of elections, until Congress can agree upon alterations. [Footnote 2/24]"
"might be so construed as to deprive the states of an essential right, which, in the true design of the Constitution, was to be reserved to them. [Footnote 2/25]"
". . . that each state shall be divided into as many districts as the representatives it is entitled to, and that each representative shall be chosen by a majority of votes. [Footnote 2/27]"
"[Resolved] . . . that nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to prevent the legislature of any state to pass laws, from time to time, to divide such state into as many convenient districts as the state shall be entitled to elect representatives for Congress, nor to prevent such legislature from making provision, that the electors in each district shall choose a citizen of the United States, who shall have been an inhabitant of the district, for the term of one year immediately preceding the time of his election, for one of the representatives of such state. [Footnote 2/30]"
Despite this careful, advertent attention to the problem of congressional districting, Art. I, § 2, was never mentioned. Equally significant is the fact that the proposed resolution expressly empowering the States to establish congressional districts contains no mention of a requirement that the districts be equal in population.
which is represented by thirty members. Should the people of any state by any means be deprived of the right of suffrage, it was judged proper that it should be remedied by the general government. It was found impossible to fix the time, place, and manner, of the election of representatives in the Constitution. It was found necessary to leave the regulation of these, in the first place, to the state governments, as being best acquainted with the situation of the people, subject to the control of the general government, in order to enable it to produce uniformity and prevent its own dissolution. And, considering the state governments and general government as distinct bodies, acting in different and independent capacities for the people, it was thought the particular regulations should be submitted to the former, and the general regulations to the latter. Were they exclusively under the control of the state governments, the general government might easily be dissolved. But if they be regulated properly by the state legislatures, the congressional control will very probably never be exercised. The power appears to me satisfactory, and as unlikely to be abused as any part of the Constitution. [Footnote 2/31]"
(Emphasis added.) Despite the apparent fear that § 4 would be abused, no one suggested that it could safely be deleted because § 2 made it unnecessary.
to the suggestion that the Congress would favor the seacoast, he asserted that the courts would not uphold, nor the people obey, "laws inconsistent with the Constitution." [Footnote 2/33] (The particular possibilities that Steele had in mind were apparently that Congress might attempt to prescribe the qualifications for electors or "to make the place of elections inconvenient." [Footnote 2/34]) Steele was concerned with the danger of congressional usurpation, under the authority of § 4, of power belonging to the States. Section 2 was not mentioned.
In the Pennsylvania convention, James Wilson described Art. I, § 4, as placing "into the hands of the state legislatures" the power to regulate elections, but retaining for Congress "self-preserving power" to make regulations lest "the general government . . . lie prostrate at the mercy of the legislatures of the several states." [Footnote 2/35] Without such power, Wilson stated, the state governments might "make improper regulations" or "make no regulations at all." [Footnote 2/36] Section 2 was not mentioned.
"It is a fundamental principle of the proposed Constitution that, as the aggregate number of representatives allotted to the several States is to be determined by a federal rule founded on the aggregate number of inhabitants, so the right of choosing this allotted number in each State is to be exercised by such part of the inhabitants as the State itself may designate. The qualifications on which the right of suffrage depend are not perhaps the same in any two States. In some of the States, the difference is very material. In every State, a certain proportion of inhabitants are deprived of this right by the Constitution of the State who will be included in the census by which the Federal Constitution apportions the representatives. In this point of view, the southern States might retort the complaint by insisting, that the principle laid down by the Convention required that no regard should be had to the policy of particular States towards their own inhabitants, and consequently that the slaves as inhabitants should have been admitted into he census according to their full number, in like manner with other inhabitants, who, by the policy of other States, are not admitted to all the rights of citizens. [Footnote 2/39]"
"It will not be alledged that an election law could have been framed and inserted into the Constitution which would have been always applicable to every probable change in the situation of the country, and it will therefore not be denied that a discretionary power over elections ought to exist somewhere. It will, I presume, be as readily conceded that there were only three ways in which this power could have been reasonably modified and disposed, that it must either have been lodged wholly in the National Legislature, or wholly in the State Legislatures, or primarily in the latter and ultimately in the former. The last mode, has with reason, been preferred by the Convention. They have submitted the regulation of elections for the Federal Government in the first instance to the local administrations, which, in ordinary cases, and when no improper views prevail, may be both more convenient and more satisfactory; but they have reserved to the national authority a right to interpose whenever extraordinary circumstances might render that interposition necessary to its safety. [Footnote 2/41]"
(Emphasis added.) Thus, in the number of The Federalist which does discuss the regulation of elections, the view is unequivocally stated that the state legislatures have plenary power over the conduct of congressional elections subject only to such regulations as Congress itself might provide.
are all in strong and consistent direct contradiction of the Court's holding. The constitutional scheme vests in the States plenary power to regulate the conduct of elections for Representatives, and, in order to protect the Federal Government, provides for congressional supervision of the States' exercise of their power. Within this scheme, the appellants do not have the right which they assert, in the absence of provision for equal districts by the Georgia Legislature or the Congress. The constitutional right which the Court creates is manufactured out of whole cloth.
The unstated premise of the Court's conclusion quite obviously is that the Congress has not dealt, and the Court believes it will not deal, with the problem of congressional apportionment in accordance with what the Court believes to be sound political principles. Laying aside for the moment the validity of such a consideration as a factor in constitutional interpretation, it becomes relevant to examine the history of congressional action under Art. I, § 4. This history reveals that the Court is not simply undertaking to exercise a power which the Constitution reserves to the Congress; it is also overruling congressional judgment.
nearly as practicable an equal number of inhabitants, . . . no one district electing more than one Representative. [Footnote 2/45]"
"It was manifestly the intention of the Congress not to reenact the provision as to compactness, contiguity, and equality in population with respect to the districts to be created pursuant to the reapportionment under the Act of 1929."
"This appears from the terms of the act, and its legislative history shows that the omission was deliberate. The question was up, and considered."
"the States ought to have their own way of making up their apportionment when they know the number of Congressmen they are going to have. [Footnote 2/51]"
Debates over apportionment in subsequent Congresses are generally unhelpful to explain the continued rejection of such a requirement; there are some intimations that the feeling that districting was a matter exclusively for the States persisted. [Footnote 2/52] Bills which would have imposed on the States a requirement of equally or nearly equally populated districts were regularly introduced in the House. [Footnote 2/53] None of them became law.
"by reason of subsequent changes in population, the Congressional districts for the election of Representatives in the Congress created by the Illinois Laws of 1901 . . . lacked compactness of territory and approximate equality of population."
"the Constitution has conferred upon Congress exclusive authority to secure fair representation by the States in the popular House. . . . If Congress failed in exercising its powers, whereby standards of fairness are offended, the remedy ultimately lies with the people."
"an aspect of government from which the judiciary, in view of what is involved, has been excluded by the clear intention of the Constitution. . . ."
Today's decision has portents for our society and the Court itself which should be recognized. This is not a case in which the Court vindicates the kind of individual rights that are assured by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, whose "vague contours," Rochin v. California, 342 U. S. 165, 342 U. S. 170, of course, leave much room for constitutional developments necessitated by changing conditions in a dynamic society. Nor is this a case in which an emergent set of facts requires the Court to frame new principles to protect recognized constitutional rights. The claim for judicial relief in this case strikes at one of the fundamental doctrines of our system of government, the separation of powers. In upholding that claim, the Court attempts to effect reforms in a field which the Constitution, as plainly as can be, has committed exclusively to the political process.
This Court, no less than all other branches of the Government, is bound by the Constitution. The Constitution does not confer on the Court blanket authority to step into every situation where the political branch may be thought to have fallen short. The stability of this institution ultimately depends not only upon its being alert to keep the other branches of government within constitutional bounds, but equally upon recognition of the limitations on the Court's own functions in the constitutional system.
What is done today saps the political process. The promise of judicial intervention in matters of this sort cannot but encourage popular inertia in efforts for political reform through the political process, with the inevitable result that the process is itself weakened. By yielding to the demand for a judicial remedy in this instance, the Court, in my view, does a disservice both to itself and to the broader values of our system of government.
Representatives were elected at large in Alabama (8), Alaska (1), Delaware (1), Hawaii (2), Nevada (1), New Mexico (2), Vermont (1), and Wyoming (1). In addition, Connecticut, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio, and Texas each elected one of their Representatives at large.
The five States are Iowa, Maine, New Hampshire, North Dakota, and Rhode Island. Together, they elect 15 Representatives.
The populations of the largest and smallest districts in each State and the difference between them are contained in an Appendix to this opinion.
The only State in which the average population per district is greater than 500,000 is Connecticut, where the average population per district is 507,047 (one Representative being elected at large). The difference between the largest and smallest districts in Connecticut is, however, 370,613.
The Court's "as nearly as is practicable" formula sweeps a host of questions under the rug. How great a difference between the populations of various districts within a State is tolerable? Is the standard an absolute or relative one, and, if the latter, to what is the difference in population to be related? Does the number of districts within the State have any relevance? Is the number of voters or the number of inhabitants controlling? Is the relevant statistic the greatest disparity between any two districts in the State, or the average departure from the average population per district, or a little of both? May the State consider factors such as area or natural boundaries (rivers, mountain ranges) which are plainly relevant to the practicability of effective representation?
There is an obvious lack of criteria for answering questions such as these, which points up the impropriety of the Court's wholehearted but heavy-footed entrance into the political arena.
The 37 "constitutional" Representatives are those coming from the eight States which elected their Representatives at large (plus one each elected at large in Connecticut, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio, and Texas) and those coming from States in which the difference between the populations of the largest and smallest districts was less than 100,000. See notes 1 and 2, supra. Since the difference between the largest and smallest districts in Iowa is 89,250, and the average population per district in Iowa is only 393,934, Iowa's 7 Representatives might well lose their seats as well. This would leave a House of Representatives composed of the 22 Representatives elected at large plus eight elected in congressional districts.
These conclusions presume that all the Representatives from a State in which any part of the congressional districting is found invalid would be affected. Some of them, of course, would ordinarily come from districts the populations of which were about that which would result from an apportionment based solely on population. But a court cannot erase only the districts which do not conform to the standard announced today, since invalidation of those districts would require that the lines of all the districts within the State be redrawn. In the absence of a reapportionment, all the Representatives from a State found to have violated the standard would presumably have to be elected at large.
Since I believe that the Constitution expressly provides that state legislatures and the Congress shall have exclusive jurisdiction over problems of congressional apportionment of the kind involved in this case, there is no occasion for me to consider whether, in the absence of such provision, other provisions of the Constitution, relied on by the appellants, would confer on them the rights which they assert.
Although it was held in Ex parte Yarbrough, 110 U. S. 651, and subsequent cases, that the right to vote for a member of Congress depends on the Constitution, the opinion noted that the legislatures of the States prescribe the qualifications for electors of the legislatures and thereby for electors of the House of Representatives. 110 U.S. at 110 U. S. 663. See ante, p. 376 U. S. 17, and infra, pp. 376 U. S. 45-46.
"possessing a freehold of the value of twenty pounds, . . . or [who] have rented a tenement . . . of the yearly value of forty shillings, and been rated and actually paid taxes to this State."
"no serious inroads had yet been made upon the privileges of property, which, indeed, maintained in most states a second line of defense in the form of high personal property qualifications required for membership in the legislature."
Id. at 16 (footnote omitted).
Women were not allowed to vote. Thorpe, op. cit. supra, 93-96. See generally Sait, op. cit. supra, 49-54. New Jersey apparently allowed women, as "inhabitants," to vote until 1807. See Thorpe, op. cit. supra, 93. Compare N.J.Const., 1776, Art. XIII, with N.J.Const., 1844, Art. II, � 1.
Even that is not strictly true unless the word "solely" is deleted. The "three-fifths compromise" was a departure from the principle of representation according to the number of inhabitants of a State. Cf. The Federalist, No. 54, discussed infra pp. 376 U. S. 39-40. A more obvious departure was the provision that each State shall have a Representative regardless of its population. See infra, pp. 376 U. S. 28-29.
The fact that the delegates were able to agree on a Senate composed entirely without regard to population and on the departures from a population-based House, mentioned in note 8, supra, indicates that they recognized the possibility that alternative principles, combined with political reality, might dictate conclusions inconsistent with an abstract principle of absolute numerical equality.
On the apportionment of the state legislatures at the time of the Constitutional Convention, see Luce, Legislative Principles (1930), 331-364; Hacker, Congressional Districting (1963), 5.
It is surely beyond debate that the Constitution did not require the slave States to apportion their Representatives according to the dispersion of slaves within their borders. The above implications of the three-fifths compromise were recognized by Madison. See The Federalist, No. 54, discussed infra pp. 376 U. S. 39-40.
"There can be no shadow of question that populations were accepted as a measure of material interests -- landed, agricultural, industrial, commercial, in short, property."
U.S. Bureau of the Census, Census of Population: 1960 (hereafter, Census), xiv. The figure is obtained by dividing the population base (which excludes the population of the District of Columbia, the population of the Territories, and the number of Indians not taxed) by the number of Representatives. In 1960, the population base was 178,559,217, and the number of Representatives was 435.
Section 5 of Article I, which provides that "Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members," also points away from the Court's conclusion. This provision reinforces the evident constitutional scheme of leaving to the Congress the protection of federal interests involved in the selection of members of the Congress.
I Farrand, Records of the Federal Convention (1911) (hereafter Farrand), 48, 86-87, 134-136, 288-289, 299, 533, 534; II Farrand 202.
"The assemblage at the Philadelphia Convention was by no means committed to popular government, and few of the delegates had sympathy for the habits or institutions of democracy. Indeed, most of them interpreted democracy as mob rule, and assumed that equality of representation would permit the spokesmen for the common man to outvote the beleaguered deputies of the uncommon man."
Hacker, Congressional Districting (1963), 7-8. See Luce, Legislative Principles (1930), 356-357. With respect to apportionment of the House, Luce states: "Property was the basis, not humanity." Id. at 357.
"It is a fundamental principle of the proposed Constitution that, as the aggregate number of representatives allotted to the several States is to be determined by a federal rule founded on the aggregate number of inhabitants, so the right of choosing this allotted number in each State is to be exercised by such part of the inhabitants as the State itself may designate. . . . In every State, a certain proportion of inhabitants are deprived of this right by the Constitution of the State, who will be included in the census by which the Federal Constitution apportions the representatives."
"They [the electors] are to be the same who exercise the right in every State of electing the correspondent branch of the Legislature of the State."
References to Old Sarum (ante, p. 376 U. S. 15), for example, occurred during the debate on the method of apportionment of Representatives among the States. I Farrand 449-450, 457.
See the materials cited in notes 41-42 44-45 of the Court's opinion ante, p. 16. Ames' remark at the Massachusetts convention is typical: "The representatives are to represent the people." II Elliot's Debates on the Federal Constitution (2d ed. 1836) (hereafter Elliot's Debates), 11. In the South Carolina Convention, Pinckney stated that the House would "be so chosen as to represent in due proportion the people of the Union. . . ." IV Elliot's Debates 257. But he had in mind only that other clear provision of the Constitution that representation would be apportioned among the States according to population. None of his remarks bears on apportionment within the States. Id. at 256-257.
The Federalist, No. 57 (Cooke ed.1961), 389.
Act of June 25, 1842, § 2, 5 Stat. 491.
Act of May 23, 1850, 9 Stat. 428.
Act of July 14, 1862, 12 Stat. 572.
Act of Feb. 2, 1872, § 2, 17 Stat. 28.
Act of Feb. 25, 1882, § 3, 22 Stat. 5, 6; Act of Feb. 7, 1891, § 3, 26 Stat. 735; Act of Jan. 16, 1901, § 3, 31 Stat. 733, 734; Act of Aug. 8, 1911, § 3, 37 Stat. 13, 14.
Act of June 18, 1929, 46 Stat. 21.
Act of Apr. 25, 1940, 54 Stat. 162; Act of Nov. 15, 1941, 55 Stat. 761.
H.R. 11725, 70th Cong., 1st Sess., introduced on Mar. 3, 1928, 69 Cong.Rec. 4054.
70 Cong.Rec. 1499, 1584, 1602, 1604.
70 Cong.Rec. 1499 (remarks of Mr. Dickinson). The Congressional Record reports that this statement was followed by applause. At another point in the debates, Representative Lozier stated that Congress lacked "power to determine in what manner the several States exercise their sovereign rights in selecting their Representatives in Congress. . . ." 70 Cong.Rec. 1496. See also the remarks of Mr. Graham. Ibid.
See, e.g., 86 Cong.Rec. 4368 (remarks of Mr. Rankin), 4369 (remarks of Mr. McLeod), 4371 (remarks of Mr. McLeod); 87 Cong.Rec. 1081 (remarks of Mr. Moser).
H.R. 4820, 76th Cong., 1st Sess.; H.R. 5099, 76th Cong., 1st Sess.; H.R. 2648, 82d Cong., 1st Sess.; H.R. 6428, 83d Cong., 1st Sess.; H.R. 111, 85th Cong., 1st Sess.; H.R. 814, 85th Cong., 1st Sess.; H.R. 8266, 86th Cong., 1st Sess.; H.R. 73, 86th Cong., 1st Sess.; H.R. 575, 86th Cong., 1st Sess.; H.R. 841; 87th Cong., 1st Sess.
"(c) Each State entitled to more than one Representative in Congress under the apportionment provided in subsection (a) of this section, shall establish for each Representative a district composed of contiguous and compact territory, and the number of inhabitants contained within any district so established shall not vary more than 10 percentum from the number obtained by dividing the total population of such States, as established in the last decennial census, by the number of Representatives apportioned to such State under the provisions of subsection (a) of this section."
"(d) Any Representative elected to the Congress from a district which does not conform to the requirements set forth in subsection (c) of this section shall be denied his seat in the House of Representatives and the Clerk of the House shall refuse his credentials."
Similar bills introduced in the current Congress are H.R. 1128, H.R. 2836, H.R. 4340, and H.R. 7343, 88th Cong., 1st Sess.
R.S. § 5508; R.S. § 5520.
Smiley v. Holm, 285 U. S. 355, and its two companion cases, Koenig v. Flynn, 285 U. S. 375; Carroll v. Becker, 285 U. S. 380, on which my Brother CLARK relies in his separate opinion, ante pp. 376 U. S. 18-19, are equally irrelevant. Smiley v. Holm presented two questions: the first, answered in the negative, was whether the provision in Art. I, § 4, which empowered the "Legislature" of a State to prescribe the regulations for congressional elections meant that a State could not by law provide for a Governor's veto over such regulations as had been prescribed by the legislature. The second question, which concerned two congressional apportionment measures, was whether the Act of June 18, 1929, 46 Stat. 21, had repealed certain provisions of the Act of Aug. 8, 1911, 37 Stat. 13. In answering this question, the Court was concerned to carry out the intention of Congress in enacting the 1929 Act. See id. at 376 U. S. 374. Quite obviously, therefore, Smiley v. Holm does not stand for the proposition which my Brother CLARK derives from it. There was not the slightest intimation in that case that Congress' power to prescribe regulations for elections was subject to judicial scrutiny, ante, p. 376 U. S. 18, such that this Court could itself prescribe regulations for congressional elections in disregard, and even in contradiction, of congressional purpose. The companion cases to Smiley v. Holm presented no different issues, and were decided wholly on the basis of the decision in that case.
The Court relies in part on Baker v. Carr, supra, to immunize its present decision from the force of Colegrove. But nothing in Baker is contradictory to the view that, political question and other objections to "justiciability" aside, the Constitution vests exclusive authority to deal with the problem of this case in the state legislatures and the Congress.
Alabama (8) . . . . . .
Alaska (1). . . . . . .
Delaware (1). . . . . .
Hawaii (2). . . . . . .
Nevada (1). . . . . . .
New Mexico (2). . . . .
Vermont (1) . . . . . .
Wyoming (1) . . . . . .
* The populations of the districts are based on the 1960 Census. The districts are those used in the election of the current 88th Congress. The populations of the districts are available in the biographical section of the Congressional Directory, 88th Cong., 2d Sess.
may lurk in MR. JUSTICE HARLAN's dissenting opinion. With this single qualification, I join the dissent because I think MR. JUSTICE HARLAN has unanswerably demonstrated that Art. I, § 2, of the Constitution gives no mandate to this Court or to any court to ordain that congressional districts within each State must be equal in population.
* The quotation is from Mr. Justice Rutledge's concurring opinion in Colegrove v. Green, 328 U.S. at 328 U. S. 565.

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