Equal Protection Clause: Difference between revisions

In the [[United States]], the "one person, one vote" principle was invoked in a series of cases by the [[Warren Court]] in the 1960s, during the height of related civil rights activities.<ref>Richard H. Fallon, Jr. (2013). ''The Dynamic Constitution''. Cambridge University Press, 196.</ref><ref name=Smith2014>Douglas J. Smith (2014). ''On Democracy's Doorstep: The Inside Story of How the Supreme Court Brought "One Person, One Vote" to the United States''. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.</ref><ref>"One person, one vote", in David Andrew Schultz (2010). ''Encyclopedia of the United States Constitution''. Infobase Publishing, 526.</ref><ref name=Ansolabehere>this footnote is named 'Ansolabehere'</ref>{{efn|Justice Douglas, ''[[Gray v. Sanders]]'' (1963): "The conception of political equality from the [[Declaration of Independence]], to [[Abraham Lincoln|Lincoln]]'s [[Gettysburg Address]], to the [[Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fifteenth]], [[Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Seventeenth]], and [[Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Nineteenth Amendments]] can mean only one thing—one person, one vote."<ref>C. J. Warren, ''Reynolds v. Sims,'' 377 U.S. 533, 558 (1964) (quoting ''Gray v. Sanders'', 372 U.S. 368 (1963)), cited in [https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/quotation/%5Bfield_short_title-raw%5D_185 "One-person, one-vote rule"], Legal Information Institute, Cornell University Law School.</ref>}} Applying the [[Equal Protection Clause]] of the United States Constitution, the [[Supreme Court of the United States|Supreme Court]] majority opinion (5-4) led by [[Chief Justice]] [[Earl Warren]] in ''[[Reynolds v. Sims]]'' (1964) ruled that state legislatures, unlike the [[United States Congress]], needed to have representation in both houses that was based on districts containing roughly equal populations, with redistricting as needed after censuses.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.oyez.org/cases/1963/23|title=Reynolds v. Sims|last=|first=|date=|website=Oyez|language=en|url-status=live|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2019-09-21}}</ref><ref name="governance"/> Some had an upper house based on an equal number of representatives to be elected from each county, which gave undue political power to rural counties. Many states had neglected to redistrict for decades during the 20th century, even as population increased in urban, industrialized areas. In addition, the court ruled in ''[[Wesberry v. Sanders]]'' (1964) that states must also draw federal congressional districts containing roughly equal represented populations<ref name=":0" /> and as such codifying [[Proportionate representation]].