Wesberry v. Sanders (1964)
Wesberry v. Sanders (1964)
376 U.S. 1
Georgia had a long-established system of single-member districts for congressional elections, but since 1931 it had failed to realign the state’s districts to equalize the population of each district. As a result, the Fifth Congressional District by 1960 had a population of 823,680, more than double the average population of other districts in the state. Several voters in the Fifth District filed a class-action suit in federal court, claiming that the population disparities deprived them and other voters in the district of a right to have their votes for members of Congress given the same weight as the votes of other Georgians. A three-judge district court, though acknowledging that the population of the Fifth District was “grossly out of balance” with those of other districts, dismissed the complaint for “want of equity.” The voters then appealed their case to the US Supreme Court.
Opinion of the Court: Black, Warren, Douglas, Brennan, White, Goldberg.
Concurring opinion: Clark.
Dissenting opinion: Harlan, Stewart (in part).
JUSTICE BLACK delivered the opinion of the Court.
Baker v. Carr (1962) considered a challenge to a 1901 Tennessee statute providing for apportionment of State Representatives and Senators under the State’s constitution, which called for apportionment among counties or districts “according to the number of qualified voters in each.” The complaint there charged that the State’s constitutional command to apportion on the basis of the number of qualified voters had not been followed in the 1901 statute and that the districts were so discriminatorily disparate in number of qualified voters that the plaintiffs and persons similarly situated were, “by virtue of the debasement of their votes,” denied the equal protection of the laws guaranteed them by the Fourteenth Amendment. The cause there of the alleged “debasement” of votes for state legislators—districts containing widely varying numbers of people—was precisely that which was alleged to debase votes for Congressmen in Colegrove v. Green (1946) and in the present case. The Court in Baker pointed out that the opinion of Justice Frankfurter in Colegrove, upon the reasoning of which the majority below leaned heavily in dismissing “for want of equity,” was approved by only three of the seven Justices sitting. After full consideration of Colegrove, the Court in Baker held (1) that the District Court had jurisdiction of the subject matter; (2) that the qualified Tennessee voters there had standing to sue; and (3) that the plaintiffs had stated a justiciable cause of action on which relief could be granted.
The reasons which led to these conclusions in Baker are equally persuasive here.
This brings us to the merits. We agree with the District Court that the 1931 Georgia apportionment grossly discriminates against voters in the Fifth Congressional District. A single Congressman represents from two to three times as many Fifth District voters as are represented by each of the Congressmen from the other Georgia congressional districts. The apportionment statute thus contracts the value of some votes and expands that of others. If the Federal Constitution intends that when qualified voters elect members of Congress each vote be given as much weight as any other vote, then this statute cannot stand.
We hold that, construed in its historical context, the command of Art. I, §2, that Representatives be chosen “by the people of the several States” means that as nearly as is practicable one man’s vote in a congressional election is to be worth as much as another’s. This rule is followed automatically, of course, when Representatives are chosen as a group on a state-wide basis, as was a widespread practice in the first 50 years of our Nation’s history. It would be extraordinary to suggest that in such state-wide elections the votes of inhabitants of some parts of a State, for example, Georgia’s thinly populated Ninth District, could be weighed at two or three times the value of the votes of people living in more populous parts of the State, for example, the Fifth District around Atlanta. We do not believe that the Framers of the Constitution intended to permit the same vote-diluting discrimination to be accomplished through the device of districts containing widely varied numbers of inhabitants. To say that a vote is worth more in one district than in another would not only run counter to our fundamental ideas of democratic government, it would cast aside the principle of a House of Representatives elected “by the People,” a principle tenaciously fought for and established at the Constitutional Convention. The history of the Constitution, particularly that part of it relating to the adoption of Art. I, §2, reveals that those who framed the Constitution meant that, no matter what the mechanics of an election, whether state-wide or by districts, it was population which was to be the basis of the House of Representatives….
No right is more precious in a free country than that of having a voice in the election of those who make the laws under which, as good citizens, we must live. Other rights, even the most basic, are illusory if the right to vote is undermined. Our constitution leaves no room for classification of people in a way that unnecessarily abridges this right. In urging the people to adopt the Constitution, Madison said in No. 57 of The Federalist:
Who are to be the electors of the Federal Representatives? Not the rich more than the poor; not the learned more than the ignorant; not the haughty heirs of distinguished names, more than the humble sons of obscure and unpropitious fortune. The electors are to be the great body of the people of the United States….
Readers surely could have fairly taken this to mean “one person, one vote.” While it may not be possible to draw congressional districts with mathematical precision, that is no excuse for ignoring our Constitution’s plain objective of making equal representation for equal numbers of people the fundamental goal for the House of Representatives. That is the high standard of justice and common sense which the Founders set for us.
JUSTICE HARLAN, dissenting.
I had not expected to witness the day when the Supreme Court of the United States would render a decision which casts grave doubt on the constitutionality of the composition of the House of Representatives. It is not an exaggeration to say that such is the effect of today’s decision. The Court’s holding that the Constitution requires States to select Representatives either by elections at large or by elections in districts composed “as nearly as is practicable” of equal population places in jeopardy the seats of almost all the members of the present House of Representatives.
In the last congressional election, in 1962, Representatives from 42 States were elected from congressional districts. In all but five of those States, the difference between the populations of the largest and smallest districts exceeded 100,000 persons. A difference of this magnitude in the size of districts the average population of which in each state is less than 500,000 is presumably not equality among districts “as nearly as is practicable,” although the Court does not reveal its definition of that phrase. Thus, today’s decision impugns the validity of the election of 398 Representatives from 37 States, leaving a “constitutional” House of 37 members now sitting….
The Court holds that the provision in Art. I, §2, for election of Representatives “by the People” means that congressional districts are to be “as nearly as is practicable” equal in population. Stripped of rhetoric and a “historical context,” which bears little resemblance to the evidence found in the pages of history, the Court’s opinion supports its holding only with the bland assertion that “the principle of a House of Representatives elected ‘by the People’” would be “cast aside” if “a vote is worth more in one district than in another,” if congressional districts within a State, each electing a single Representative, are not equal in population. The fact is, however, that Georgia’s 10 Representatives are elected “by the People” of Georgia, just as Representatives from other States are elected “by the People of the several States.” This is all that the Constitution requires.
Although the Court finds necessity for its artificial construction of Article I in the undoubted importance of the right to vote, that right is not involved in this case. All of the appellants do vote. The Court’s talk about “debasement” and “dilution” of the vote is a model of circular reasoning, in which the premises of the argument feed on the conclusion. Moreover, by focusing exclusively on numbers in disregard of the area and shape of a congressional district as well as party affiliations within the district, the Court deals in abstractions which will be recognized even by the politically unsophisticated to have little relevance to the realities of political life.
Far from supporting the Court, the apportionment of Representatives among the States shows how blindly the Court has marched to its decision. Representatives were to be apportioned among the States on the basis of free population plus three-fifths of the slave population. Since no slave voted, the inclusion of three-fifths of their number in the basis of apportionment gave the favored States representation far in excess of their voting population. If, then, slaves were intended to be without representation, Article I did exactly what the Court now says it prohibited: it “weighted” the vote of voters in the slave States. Alternatively, it might have been thought that Representatives elected by free men of a State would speak also for the slaves. But since the slaves added to the representation only of their own State, Representatives from the slave States could have been thought to speak only for the slaves of their own States, indicating both that the Convention believed it possible for a Representative elected by one group to speak for another nonvoting group and that Representatives were in large degree still thought of as speaking for the whole population of a State. …
Today’s decision has portents for our society and the Court itself which should be recognized. This is not a case in which the Court vindicates the kind of individual rights that are assured by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, whose “vague contours” of course leave much room for constitutional developments necessitated by changing conditions in a dynamic society. Nor is this a case in which an emergent set of facts requires the Court to frame new principles to protect recognized constitutional rights. The claim for judicial relief in this case strikes at one of the fundamental doctrines of our system of government, the separation of powers. In upholding that claim, the Court attempts to effect reforms in a field which the Constitution, as plainly as can be, has committed exclusively to the political process.
This Court, no less than all other branches of the Government, is bound by the Constitution. The Constitution does not confer on the Court blanket authority to step into every situation where the political branch may be thought to have fallen short. The stability of this institution ultimately depends not only upon its being alert to keep the other branches of government within constitutional bounds but equally upon recognition of the limitations on the Court’s own functions in the constitutional system.
What is done today saps the political process. The promise of judicial intervention in matters of this sort cannot but encourage popular inertia in efforts for political reform through the political process, with the inevitable result that the process is itself weakened. By yielding to the demand for a judicial remedy in this instance, the Court in my view does a disservice both to itself and to the broader values of our system of government.
Believing that the complaint fails to disclose a constitutional claim, I would affirm the judgment below dismissing the complaint.