Baker v. Carr: Difference between revisions
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|date=March 26, 1962 | |date=March 26, 1962 | ||
|subject=Constitutional Law | |subject=Constitutional Law | ||
|other_subjects=Voting | |other_subjects=Voting | ||
|case_treatment=Yes | |case_treatment=Yes | ||
|overturned=Colegrove v. Green | |overturned=Colegrove v. Green |
Revision as of 14:39, May 29, 2023
Baker v. Carr | |
Court | Supreme Court of the United States |
---|---|
Citation | 369 U.S. 186 (1962) |
Date decided | March 26, 1962 |
Overturned | Colegrove v. Green |
Facts
Prior to this case, state legislatures weren't organized by populations.[1]
In 1962, the less-populous rural America was over-represented in state legislatures all over the country.
In Colegrove v. Green, (1946), SCOTUS claimed that redistributing is a political question. SCOTUS won't decide on re-districting.Procedural History
Baker was a voter in Tennessee. He sued Joe Carr, the Secretary of State for Tennessee ex officio.
Baker claimed that he as an urban voter wasn't equally represented in the state legislature; Baker claimed a violation of the equal protection clause under the 14th Amendment.
The district court dismissed the case as a political question.Issues
Whether an equal protection challenge to mal-apportionment of state legislatures is a non-justiciable political question.
Holding
Re-districting is a justiciable issue for SCOTUS.
Apportionment cases can involve no federal constitutional right except one resting on the guaranty of a republican form of government, and complaints based on that clause have been held to present political questions which are non-justiciable.Rule
"One person, one vote"
Issues involving political questions:
- a textually demonstrable constitutional commitment of the issue to a coordinate political department
- a lack of judicially discoverable and manageable standards for resolving it
- the impossibility of deciding without an initial policy determination of a kind clearly nonjudicial discretion
- the impossibility of a court’s undertaking independent resolution without expressing lack of the respect due coordinate branches of government
- an unusual need for unquestioning adherence to a political decision already made
- the potentiality of embarrassment from multifarious pronouncements by various departments on one question
Comments
Dissent:
The present case involves all the elements which have made the Guarantee Clause cases non-justiciable.Resources
- Case text at Khan Academy discussion with Theodore Olson & Guy-Uriel Charles
- Case text at Legal Information Institute of Cornell Law School
- Case text at C-SPAN video discussion
- Case text at Quimbee video summary