West v. Barnes

first Monday in October

The Judiciary Act of 1789 is passed by Congress and signed by President George Washington, establishing the Supreme Court of the United States as a tribunal made up of six justices who were to serve on the court until death or retirement.

A lack of political question, previous court intervention in apportionment affairs and equal protection under the 14th amendment gave the court enough reason to rule on legislative apportionment. Court gained power to rule on apportionment laws. Bicameral states became equally apportioned.

Reynolds v. Sims (1964), the Supreme Court ruled that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires that the legislative districts across states be equal in population.

Carr, (1962), U.S. Supreme Court case that forced the Tennessee legislature to reapportion itself on the basis of population. Traditionally, particularly in the South, the populations of rural areas had been overrepresented in legislatures in proportion to those of urban and suburban areas.

Terms in this set (3) the Court held that there were no such questions to be answered in this case and that legislative apportionment was a justiciable issue. Brennan concluded that the Fourteenth Amendment equal protection issues which Baker and others raised in this case merited judicial evaluation.

Justice Brennan wrote the majority opinion of the court, essentially stating that dilution of votes was, in fact, denying the residents of Tennessee equal protection of the Fourteenth Amendment. Justice Douglas wrote a concurring opinion, stating that voters should have a full constitutional value of their vote.

Carr, 369 U.S. 186 (1962): Overturning Colegrove; Redistricting qualifies as a justiciable question….Subsequent Cases Regarding Size/Proportionality:

• Gray v. Sanders, 372 U.S. 368 (1963): Statewide elections (US Senator, Governor, etc.)
• Wesberry v.
• Reynolds v.
• WMCA, Inc.
• Maryland Committee v.
• Roman v.
• Lucas v.
• Swann v.

Case Summary Baker argued that because of population changes in the state, specifically migration to cities, his vote in an urban area had much less weight than that of a voter in a rural district, thus constituting a “debasement of [his] votes.”

This case made it possible for unrepresented voters to have their districts redrawn by federal courts, initiating a decade of lawsuits that would eventually result in a redrawing of the nation’s political map.

Which of the following best describes the holding in Baker v. Carr (1961)? Unequal representation of citizens in legislative districts is unconstitutional and may be reviewed by the courts. In which of the following ways could the president try to limit the impact of a Supreme Court decision?

Justice Harlan’s dissent asserted that the plaintiffs had failed to state a valid constitutional claim for which relief could be granted because the Equal Protection Clause did not require that all votes for a state legislature be weighed equally.

In Reynolds v. Sims (1964), using the Supreme Court’s precedent set in Baker v. Carr (1962), Warren held that representation in state legislatures must be apportioned equally on the basis of population rather than geographical areas, remarking that “legislators represent people, not acres or trees.” In…

Sims, 377 U.S. 533 (1964), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that the electoral districts of state legislative chambers must be roughly equal in population. Along with Baker v. Carr (1962) and Wesberry v.

In an 8-to-1 decision, the Court upheld the challenge to the Alabama system, holding that Equal Protection Clause demanded “no less than substantially equal state legislative representation for all citizens….” Noting that the right to direct representation was “a bedrock of our political system,” the Court held that …

The court’s decision Douglas wrote the majority opinion and said “The concept of political equality…can mean only one thing—one person, one vote”. The court found that the separation of voters in the same election into different classes was a violation of the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection.

Sanders, 376 U.S. 1 (1964), was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that districts in the United States House of Representatives must be approximately equal in population. The case arose from a challenge to the unequal population of congressional districts in the state of Georgia. …

Since the beginning of the 20th century, the State of Georgia used a county unit system for counting votes in primary elections. Sanders claimed that the county unit system violated the Equal Protection Clause and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Seventeenth Amendment.