Summer 2016: Lindsey Nicholson, Ayesha Hussain, Mouctar Bokoum, Courtney Jones. Facts. He alleged that such a failure was a violation of Tennessee’s Constitution because they were supposed to do so every ten years. Plaintiff sued the Secretary of State of Tennessee for the legislature’s failure to redraw legislative voting districts since 1901.
It is no coincidence that by 1964, only two years later, 26 States had reapportioned their legislative districts, three under court-drawn plans, many more under judicial pressure. "Textually demonstrable constitutional commitment of the issue to a coordinate political department;" as an example of this, Brennan cited issues of foreign affairs and executive war powers, arguing that cases involving such matters would be "political questions", "A lack of judicially discoverable and manageable standards for resolving it;", "The impossibility of deciding without an initial policy determination of a kind clearly for 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. This was overridden under the principle of basing districts on population.
Most importantly, it did not interfere with the court’s “legislative judgment.”, CaseBriefSummary.comCopyright © 2013 | All Rights Reserved, National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius.
Failure to reapportion their district lines left residents feeling deprived of their constitutional rights. Since Baker is an individual bringing suit against the state government, no separation of power concerns result. The dissenting and concurring opinions confuse which issues are presented in this case. Baker, a Republican citizen of Shelby County, brought suit against the Secretary of State claiming that the state had not been redistricted since 1901 and Shelby County had more residents than rural districts. The opinion was finally handed down in March 1962, nearly a year after it was initially argued. Traditionally, particularly in the South, the populations of rural areas had been overrepresented in legislatures in proportion to those of urban and suburban areas.
Future contributors, please revise the coding in the majority, concurring, and dissenting opinions.
Prior to the Baker case, the Supreme Court had refused to intervene in apportionment cases; in 1946 in Colegrove v. Green the court said apportionment was a “political thicket” into which the judiciary should not intrude. No. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.
[1] The Tennessee State Constitution required that legislative districts for the Tennessee General Assembly be redrawn every ten years according to the federal census to provide for districts of substantially equal population (as was to be done for congressional districts). This line of cases helped equalize representation between country and city dwellers in an increasingly urbanized nation.
Plaintiff Charles Baker was a Republican who lived in Shelby County, Tennessee, and had served as the mayor of Millington, Tennessee, near Memphis. Baker v. Carr (1962) Case Summary. The case started in the district court in a middle Tennessee court and was sent to Supreme Court but the supreme court reversed the decision and remanded the lower court’s decision.
The Court decided that in states with bicameral legislatures, as had Alabama, the state in this suit, both houses had to be apportioned on this standard.
(Similarly, the Tennessee Constitution had a provision that prevented counties from being split and portions of a county being attached to other counties or parts of counties in the creation of a legislative district. “Reynolds v. Sims.” PBS. He sought a court order which would disallow future elections until the correct redistricting had been undertaken. Phone: (909) 621-8159, Rose Award for Excellence in Public Service, Webinars: 2020 Census and the New Redistricting Cycle, COVID-19, the CARES Act and State and Local Government, Kosmont-Rose Institute Cost of Doing Business Survey. Douglas stated that if a voter’s’ rights were in any way being restricted, in that he does not have the full constitutional value of his vote, then that voter must be able to bring this to the attention of the court. Having declared redistricting issues justiciable in Baker, the court laid out a new test for evaluating such claims. Following is the Case Brief for Baker v. Carr, United States Supreme Court, (1962).
The purpose was to adjust to changes in the state’s population. Baker's argument was that this discrepancy was causing him to fail to receive the "equal protection of the laws" required by the Fourteenth Amendment.
In a 6-2 decision the Supreme Court held that legislative apportionment was not a political question, and therefore was judicable. The majority’s three rulings should be no more than whether: In addition, the proper place for this trial is the trial court, not here. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); http://landmarkcases.c-span.org/Case/10/Baker-V-Carr, https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/369/186. The state of Tennessee argued that the composition of legislative districts was essentially a political question, not a judicial one, as had been held by Colegrove v. Green',[2] a plurality opinion of the Court in which Justice Felix Frankfurter declared that "Courts ought not to enter this political thicket." Charles W. Baker and other Shelby County, Tennessee residents filed a lawsuit claiming that they were underrepresented in their legislative district. Associate Justice Felix Frankfurter strongly dissented, arguing that the Court's decision cast aside history and judicial restraint and violated the separation of powers between legislatures and courts.
Baker petition to the United States Supreme Court. The district court did not agree and held that such a decision belonged to the state legislature.
Constitutional Law for a Changing America: Rights, Liberties and Justice. Do courts have the authority to rule on legislative apportionment through the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth, Baker v. Carr established that apportionment cases were a judicable issue due to the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Yes, the Supreme Court does have authority to hear apportionment cases through the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Due to federal census requirements, every ten years district lines should have been redrawn to reflect the amount of people being represented. Several years earlier the Supreme Court heard Colegrove v. Green (1946), a similar case involving malapportionment. This principle allowed for the vote of a person in one area, to be counted the same as a person in another area. Cases that are political in nature are marked by: Justice Tom C. Clark switched his vote at the last minute to a concurrence on the substance of Baker's claims, which would have enabled a majority which could have granted relief for Baker. Baker claimed the malapportionment of state legislatures is justiciable and the state of Tennessee argued such an issue is a political question not capable of being decided by the courts. “Baker v. Carr.” Wikipedia. By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to news, offers, and information from Encyclopaedia Britannica. Associate Justice Charles Evans Whittaker was so torn over the case that he eventually had to recuse himself for health reasons. Urban areas, which had grown greatly in population since 1901, were underrepresented. Textually demonstrable constitutional commitment to another political branch; Lack of judicially discoverable and manageable standards for resolving the issue; Impossibility of deciding the issue without making an initial policy determination of a kind not suitable for judicial discretion; Unusual need for unquestioning adherence to a political decision already made; or. Baker v. Carr and subsequent cases fundamentally changed the nature of political representation in the United States, requiring not just Tennessee but nearly every state to redistrict during the 1960s, often several times. “Baker v. Carr: New Light on the Constitutional Guarantee of Republican Government.”.