Caseflicks

Supreme Court of the United States • 1964

Wesberry v. Sanders

376 U.S. 1 | 84 S. Ct. 526 | 11 L. Ed. 2d 481 | 1964 U.S. LEXIS 1773

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Takeaway

In short, Wesberry constitutionalized the principle of substantially equal population in congressional districts: as nearly as practicable, one person's vote for the House must carry the same weight as another's.

Background

Georgia's 1931 congressional-districting statute created ten districts with sharply unequal populations. The Fifth District, which included Fulton County and the Atlanta area, had 823,680 people under the 1960 census, while the statewide district average was 394,312 and the Ninth District had only 272,154 people. Thus, one Representative from the Fifth District represented roughly two to three times as many people as Representatives from some other Georgia districts.

Fifth District voters sued the Governor and Secretary of State, seeking a declaration that the districting statute was unconstitutional and an injunction against elections under it. They alleged violations of Article I, § 2, and several provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment. A three-judge federal district court found the disparities grossly unequal but dismissed the suit, reasoning that the matter was essentially political and that equitable relief should be withheld. Judge Tuttle dissented, concluding that Baker v. Carr made the claim justiciable. The Supreme Court reversed and remanded.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether a federal court may adjudicate a challenge to population disparities among congressional districts, or whether the issue is a nonjusticiable political question committed exclusively to Congress.

Holding

Yes. A challenge alleging that unequal congressional districts dilute the weight of a citizen's vote presents a justiciable constitutional claim.

Reasoning

The Court treated Baker v. Carr as controlling on the threshold question. Baker held that voters could bring a justiciable claim challenging population disparities in state legislative districts, and the same vote-debasement injury was alleged here with respect to congressional elections.

The Court also emphasized that prior decisions—especially Smiley v. Holm, Koenig v. Flynn, and Carroll v. Becker—had already established that congressional-redistricting disputes can be adjudicated. Justice Frankfurter's contrary view in Colegrove v. Green, that such questions belonged exclusively to Congress, had not commanded a majority of the Court.

Article I, § 4 gives Congress authority to make or alter state regulations governing congressional elections, but it does not strip courts of their ordinary duty to protect individual constitutional rights. The right to vote for Representatives is too fundamental to be left without judicial protection merely because Congress also has regulatory power.

The district court could not avoid deciding the claim by describing its dismissal as one for “want of equity” rather than nonjusticiability. Its rationale rested on the same generalized political-question concerns rejected by Baker, rather than on case-specific equitable circumstances.

Issue #2

Whether Article I, § 2 requires congressional districts within a State to contain populations as nearly equal as practicable.

Holding

Yes. Article I, § 2 requires that, as nearly as practicable, one person's vote in a congressional election be worth as much as another's.

Reasoning

Article I, § 2 provides that House Members are chosen “by the People of the several States” and are apportioned according to the States' respective numbers. Read in its historical context, the Court held that this language makes equal representation for equal numbers of people the constitutional objective for elections to the House.

The Georgia statute diluted the voting power of residents of the Fifth District. Because that district contained two to three times the population of certain other districts but elected only one Representative, its voters had a correspondingly weaker voice in choosing a Member of Congress.

The Court drew heavily on the Constitutional Convention. The Great Compromise gave States equal representation in the Senate, but it made the House the body representing people as individuals according to population. The Framers' concern with English “rotten boroughs” reinforced the conclusion that unequal representation by population was precisely the kind of defect the House was designed to avoid.

The constitutional principle applies whether Representatives are elected statewide or from single-member districts. In a statewide election, a State could not openly assign greater weight to votes cast in one region than to votes cast elsewhere. The Court concluded that a State likewise may not achieve that same vote dilution indirectly by drawing districts with radically different populations.

Mathematical exactness is not always attainable, but practical difficulties do not excuse severe disparities. The Court therefore held Georgia's 1931 apportionment unconstitutional under Article I, § 2, without reaching the voters' Fourteenth Amendment arguments.

The Court directed the district court to enter a declaratory judgment recognizing the constitutional violation and left the precise form and timing of further relief to that court in light of current circumstances.

Concurrences

Justice Clark

Reasoning

Justice Clark agreed that congressional districting is subject to judicial review. In his view, Smiley v. Holm and its companion cases, later recognized in Baker v. Carr, foreclosed the argument that Article I, § 4 commits the subject exclusively to Congress.

He disagreed, however, with the majority's interpretation of Article I, § 2. He believed the text and historical evidence did not themselves establish a constitutional command of “one person, one vote” for congressional districts.

Instead, Justice Clark would evaluate Georgia's districts under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. A law that effectively gives some qualified citizens a smaller vote than others is the kind of discriminatory voting rule equal protection forbids.

Because the district court had dismissed without deciding the Fourteenth Amendment merits, he would have vacated and remanded for that inquiry under Baker's standards. He also would allow Georgia's legislature a reasonable opportunity to enact a valid plan before coercive relief issued.

Dissents

Justice Harlan

Reasoning

Justice Harlan argued that the majority's decision threatened the validity of congressional districts throughout the Nation. Because substantial population differences existed in most States, he believed the Court had cast doubt on the composition of the sitting House of Representatives without supplying a workable definition of the phrase “as nearly as practicable.”

In his view, Article I draws a critical distinction between apportioning Representatives among States and selecting each State's allotted Representatives. Section 2 generally uses population to apportion seats among States, while Article I, § 4 gives state legislatures initial authority to regulate the times, places, and manner of congressional elections, subject to Congress's supervisory authority.

Justice Harlan rejected the majority's reading of the phrase “chosen ... by the People.” Georgia's Representatives, he reasoned, were elected by Georgia's people even though districts differed in size. He also argued that the Constitution itself departs from absolute population equality by guaranteeing every State at least one Representative and, historically, by using the three-fifths compromise.

The historical materials, in his view, showed that the Framers expected Congress—not courts—to correct unfair districting. Convention and ratification debates discussed the possibility of unequal districts in connection with Congress's Article I, § 4 power, not as a judicially enforceable limitation embedded in Article I, § 2.

Congressional practice further supported his position. Congress had formerly imposed an equal-population requirement by statute, deliberately omitted it in the 1929 reapportionment legislation, and declined later proposals to restore it. Justice Harlan saw the Court as replacing Congress's considered political judgment with its own.

He therefore concluded that voters had no judicially enforceable Article I right to equally populated congressional districts absent legislation enacted by Georgia or Congress. He would have affirmed the dismissal.

Justice Stewart

Reasoning

Justice Stewart joined Justice Harlan's dissent on the merits because he agreed that Article I, § 2 does not require congressional districts within a State to have equal populations.

He expressly declined, however, to endorse any suggestion that the case was nonjusticiable. In his view, the Court had authority to afford relief in a case of this general kind; his disagreement was with the majority's substantive interpretation of Article I, § 2.