Baker v. Carr

Baker v. Carr
Baker v. Carr
	Supreme Court of the United States
Argued April 19–20, 1961; Reargued October 9, 1961; Decided March 26, 1962
Full case name	Charles W. Baker et al. v. Joe. C. Carr et al.
Citations	369 U.S. 186 ( more ) 82 S. Ct. 691; 7 L. Ed. 2d 663; 1962 U.S. LEXIS 1567
Case history
Prior	179 F. Supp. 824 (M.D. Tenn. 1959), probable jurisdiction noted, 364 U.S. 898(1960). Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee
Subsequent	On remand, 206 F. Supp. 341 (M.D. Tenn. 1962)
Holding
	The redistricting of state legislative districts is not a political question. Therefore, cases related to the aforementioned are justiciable by the federal courts.
Court membership
	Chief Justice Earl Warren Associate Justices Hugo Black · Felix Frankfurter ; William O. Douglas · Tom C. Clark ; John M. Harlan II · William J. Brennan Jr. ; Charles E. Whittaker · Potter Stewart
Case opinions
Majority	Brennan, joined by Warren, Black, Douglas, Clark, Stewart
Concurrence	Douglas
Concurrence	Clark
Concurrence	Stewart
Dissent	Frankfurter, joined by Harlan
Dissent	Harlan, joined by Frankfurter
	Whittaker took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.
Laws applied
	U.S. Const. amend. XIV; U.S. Const. art. III; 42 U.S.C. § 1983; Tenn. Const. art. II
	This case overturned a previous ruling or rulings
	Colegrove v. Green , 328 U.S. 549 (1946) (in part)

Last updated September 05, 2024

Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186 (1962), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that redistricting qualifies as a justiciable question under the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause, thus enabling federal courts to hear Fourteenth Amendment-based redistricting cases. The court summarized its Baker holding in a later decision as follows: "the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment limits the authority of a State Legislature in designing the geographical districts from which representatives are chosen either for the State Legislature or for the Federal House of Representatives." ( Gray v. Sanders , 372 U.S. 368 (1963)). The court had previously held in Gomillion v. Lightfoot that districting claims over racial discrimination could be brought under the Fifteenth Amendment.

The case arose from a lawsuit against the state of Tennessee, which had not conducted redistricting since 1901. Tennessee argued that the composition of legislative districts constituted a nonjusticiable political question, as the U.S. Supreme Court had held in Colegrove v. Green (1946). In a majority opinion joined by five other justices, Justice William J. Brennan Jr. held that redistricting did not qualify as a political question, though he remanded the case to the federal district court for further proceedings. 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.

The case did not have any immediate effect on electoral districts, but it set an important precedent regarding the power of federal courts to address redistricting. In 1964, the Supreme Court handed down two cases, Wesberry v. Sanders and Reynolds v. Sims , that required the United States House of Representatives and state legislatures to establish electoral districts of equal population on the principle of one person, one vote.

Background

Plaintiff Charles Baker was a Republican who lived in Shelby County, Tennessee, and had served as the mayor of Millington, near Memphis.^[1] The Tennessee State Constitution required that the Tennessee General Assembly's legislative districts be redrawn every ten years to provide for districts of substantially equal population (as was to be done for congressional districts). Baker's complaint was that Tennessee had not redistricted since 1901, in response to the 1900 census.

By the time of Baker's lawsuit, the population had shifted such that his district in Shelby County had about ten times as many residents as some of the rural districts. Rural citizens' votes were thus overrepresented compared to those of urban citizens. Baker's argument was that this discrepancy was causing him to fail to receive the "equal protection of the laws" the Fourteenth Amendment requires. Defendant Joe Carr was sued in his position as Tennessee Secretary of State. Carr was not the person who set the district lines – the state legislature had done that – but was sued ex officio as the person ultimately responsible for the conduct of elections in the state and the publication of district maps.

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." Frankfurter believed that relief for legislative malapportionment had to be won through the political process.^[3]

Decision

Baker v. Carr was one of the most wrenching decisions in the Court's history. The case had to be put over for reargument because in conference no clear majority emerged for either side of the case. Justice Charles Evans Whittaker was so torn over the case that he eventually had to recuse himself for health reasons. The arduous decision process in Baker is often blamed for Whittaker's health problems, which forced him to retire from the Court in 1962.^[4]

The opinion was finally handed down in March 1962, nearly a year after it was initially argued. The Court split 6 to 2 in ruling that Baker's case was justiciable, producing, in addition to the opinion of the Court by Justice William J. Brennan, three concurring opinions and two dissenting opinions. Brennan reformulated the political question doctrine, identifying six factors to help in determining which questions are "political" in nature. Cases that are political in nature are marked by:

"Textually demonstrable constitutional commitment of the issue to a coordinate political department"; as an example, 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"; and
"The potentiality of embarrassment from multifarious pronouncements by various departments on one question."

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 that could have granted relief for Baker. Instead, the Supreme Court remanded the case to the District Court.

The large majority in this case can in many ways be attributed to Brennan, who convinced Justice Potter Stewart that the case was a narrow ruling dealing only with the right to challenge the statute. Brennan also talked down Justices Hugo Black and William O. Douglas from their usual absolutist positions to achieve a compromise.^[5]

Dissent by Justices Frankfurter and Harlan

Frankfurter, joined by Justice John Marshall Harlan II, dissented vigorously and at length, arguing that the Court had cast aside history and judicial restraint, and violated the separation of powers between legislatures and Courts.^[6] He wrote:

Appellants invoke the right to vote and to have their votes counted. But they are permitted to vote and their votes are counted. They go to the polls, they cast their ballots, they send their representatives to the state councils. Their complaint is simply that the representatives are not sufficiently numerous or powerful.

Aftermath

Having declared redistricting issues justiciable in Baker, the court laid out a new test for evaluating such claims. The Court formulated the famous "one person, one vote" standard under American jurisprudence for legislative redistricting, holding that every person had to be weighted equally in legislative apportionment. This affected numerous state legislatures that had not redistricted congressional districts for decades, despite major population shifts. It also ultimately affected the composition of state legislative districts, which in Alabama and many other states had overrepresented rural districts and underrepresented urban districts with much greater populations.

This principle was formally enunciated in Reynolds v. Sims (1964). The Court decided that in states with bicameral legislatures, like Alabama, the state in this case, both houses had to be apportioned on this standard. This voided the Alabama Constitution's provision for two state senators from each county and similar provisions elsewhere. Similarly, the Tennessee Constitution prevented counties from being split and portions of a county from being attached to other counties or parts of counties in creating a legislative district. This was overridden on the principle of basing districts on population. Today counties are frequently split among districts in forming Tennessee State Senate districts. "One person, one vote" was first applied as a standard for Congressional districts in Wesberry v. Sanders . State legislatures were supposed to redistrict according to population changes, but many had not for decades.

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. This reapportionment increased urban areas' political power and reduced that of more rural areas.^[7] After he left the Court, Chief Justice Earl Warren called the Baker v. Carr line of cases the most important in his tenure as Chief.^[8]

Related Research Articles

In United States constitutional law, the political questiondoctrine holds that a constitutional dispute that requires knowledge of a non-legal character or the use of techniques not suitable for a court or explicitly assigned by the Constitution to the U.S. Congress, or the President of the United States, lies within the political, rather than the legal, realm to solve, and judges customarily refuse to address such matters. The idea of a political question is closely linked to the concept of justiciability, as it comes down to a question of whether or not the court system is an appropriate forum in which to hear the case. This is because the court system only has the authority to hear and decide a legal question, not a political one. Legal questions are deemed to be justiciable, while political questions are nonjusticiable. One scholar explained:

The political question doctrine holds that some questions, in their nature, are fundamentally political, and not legal, and if a question is fundamentally political ... then the court will refuse to hear that case. It will claim that it doesn't have jurisdiction. And it will leave that question to some other aspect of the political process to settle out.

Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S. 1 (1964), was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that districts in the United States House of Representatives must be approximately equal in population. Along with Baker v. Carr (1962) and Reynolds v. Sims (1964), it was part of a series of Warren Court cases that applied the principle of "one person, one vote" to U.S. legislative bodies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Felix Frankfurter</span> US Supreme Court justice from 1939 to 1962

Felix Frankfurter was an Austrian-born American jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1939 until 1962, during which he was an advocate of judicial restraint.

Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533 (1964), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that the electoral districts of state legislative chambers must be roughly equal in population. Along with Baker v. Carr (1962) and Wesberry v. Sanders (1964), it was part of a series of Warren Court cases that applied the principle of "one person, one vote" to U.S. legislative bodies.

The Warren Court was the period in the history of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1953 to 1969 when Earl Warren served as the chief justice. The Warren Court is often considered the most liberal court in U.S. history.

"One person, one vote" or "one vote, one value" is a slogan used to advocate for the principle of equal representation in voting. This slogan is used by advocates of democracy and political equality, especially with regard to electoral reforms like universal suffrage, direct elections, and proportional representation.

Luther v. Borden, 48 U.S. 1 (1849), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States established the political question doctrine in controversies arising under the Guarantee Clause of Article Four of the United States Constitution .

League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry, 548 U.S. 399 (2006), is a Supreme Court of the United States case in which the Court ruled that only District 23 of the 2003 Texas redistricting violated the Voting Rights Act. The Court refused to throw out the entire plan, ruling that the plaintiffs failed to state a sufficient claim of partisan gerrymandering.

The Guarantee Clause, also known as the Republican Form of Government Clause, is in Article IV, Section 4 of the United States Constitution. It requires the United States to guarantee every state a republican form of government and provide protection from foreign invasion and domestic violence.

Vieth v. Jubelirer, 541 U.S. 267 (2004), was a United States Supreme Court ruling that was significant in the area of partisan redistricting and political gerrymandering. The court, in a plurality opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia and joined by Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Clarence Thomas, with Justice Anthony Kennedy concurring in the judgment, upheld the ruling of the District Court in favor of the appellees that the alleged political gerrymandering was not unconstitutional. Subsequent to the ruling, partisan bias in redistricting increased dramatically in the 2010 redistricting round.

Colegrove v. Green, 328 U.S. 549 (1946), was a United States Supreme Court case. Writing for a 4–3 plurality, Justice Felix Frankfurter held that the federal judiciary had no power to interfere with malapportioned Congressional districts. The Court held that the Elections Clause in Article I, section IV of the U.S. Constitution left to the legislature of each state the authority to establish the time, place, and manner of holding elections for Congressional Representatives, and that only Congress could determine whether individual state legislatures had fulfilled their responsibility to secure fair representation for citizens.

Constitutional avoidance is a legal doctrine of judicial review in United States constitutional law that dictates that United States federal courts should refuse to rule on a constitutional issue if the case can be resolved without involving constitutionality. In Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority (1936), the Supreme Court of the United States established a seven-rule test for the justiciability of controversies presenting constitutional questions:

Collusive lawsuit rule: The Court will not [rule] upon the constitutionality of legislation in a friendly, nonadversary, proceeding, declining because to decide such questions "is legitimate only in the last resort, and as a necessity in the determination of real, earnest and vital controversy between individuals. It never was the thought that, by means of a friendly suit, a party beaten in the legislature could transfer to the courts an inquiry as to the constitutionality of the legislative act."
Ripeness: The Court will not "anticipate a question of constitutional law in advance of the necessity of deciding it."
Minimalism: The Court will not "formulate a rule of constitutional law broader than is required by the precise facts to which it is to be applied."
Last resort rule: The Court will not [rule] upon a constitutional question, although properly presented by the record, if there is also present some other ground upon which the case may be disposed of. ... [I]f a case can be decided on either of two grounds, one involving a constitutional question, the other a question of statutory construction or general law, the Court will decide only the latter.
Standing; Mootness: The Court will not [rule] upon the validity of a statute upon complaint of one who fails to show that he is injured by its operation.
Constitutional estoppel: The Court will not [rule] upon the constitutionality of a statute at the instance of one who has availed himself of its benefits.
Constitutional avoidance canon: "When the validity of an act of the Congress is drawn in question, and even if a serious doubt of constitutionality is raised, it is a cardinal principle that this Court will first ascertain whether a construction of the statute is fairly possible by which the question may be avoided."

American Electric Power Company v. Connecticut, 564 U.S. 410 (2011), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court, in an 8–0 decision, held that corporations cannot be sued for greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) under federal common law, primarily because the Clean Air Act (CAA) delegates the management of carbon dioxide and other GHG emissions to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Brought to court in July 2004 in the Southern District of New York, this was the first global warming case based on a public nuisance claim.

The county unit system was a voting system used by the U.S. state of Georgia to determine a victor in statewide primary elections, as well as some Congressional elections, from 1917 until 1962.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gerrymandering in the United States</span> Setting electoral district boundaries to favor specific political interests

Gerrymandering is the practice of setting boundaries of electoral districts to favor specific political interests within legislative bodies, often resulting in districts with convoluted, winding boundaries rather than compact areas. The term "gerrymandering" was coined after a review of Massachusetts's redistricting maps of 1812 set by Governor Elbridge Gerry noted that one of the districts looked like a mythical salamander.

Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, 576 U.S. 787 (2015), was a United States Supreme Court case where the Court upheld the right of Arizona voters to remove the authority to draw election districts from the Arizona State Legislature and vest it in an independent redistricting commission. In doing so, the Court expressly rejected a nascent version of the independent state legislature theory.

Gill v. Whitford, 585 U.S. 48 (2018), was a United States Supreme Court case involving the constitutionality of partisan gerrymandering. Other forms of gerrymandering based on racial or ethnic grounds had been deemed unconstitutional, and while the Supreme Court had identified that extreme partisan gerrymandering could also be unconstitutional, the Court had not agreed on how this could be defined, leaving the question to lower courts to decide. That issue was later resolved in Rucho v. Common Cause, in which the Court decided that partisan gerrymanders presented a nonjusticiable political question.

Rucho v. Common Cause, No. 18-422, 588 U.S. 684 (2019) is a landmark case of the United States Supreme Court concerning partisan gerrymandering. The Court ruled that while partisan gerrymandering may be "incompatible with democratic principles", the federal courts cannot review such allegations, as they present nonjusticiable political questions outside the jurisdiction of these courts.

Virginia House of Delegates v. Bethune-Hill, 587 U.S. ___ (2019), was a case argued before the United States Supreme Court on March 18, 2019, in which the Virginia House of Delegates appealed against the decision in 2018 by the district court that 11 of Virginia's voting districts were racially gerrymandered, and thus unconstitutional. The Court held the "Virginia House of Delegates lacks standing to file this appeal, either representing the state's interests or in its own right." In other words, the court upheld the decision made by a federal district court ruling in June 2018 that 11 state legislative districts were an illegal racial gerrymander. This was following a previous (2017) case, Bethune-Hill v. Virginia State Bd. of Elections.

Smiley v. Holm, 285 U.S. 355 (1932), was a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States involving a governor's power to veto a congressional redistricting proposal passed by a state's legislature. In an opinion by Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, the Court unanimously held that the U.S. Constitution did not prohibit Minnesota's governor from vetoing that state's redistricting map.

References

↑ Johnson, John W., ed. (December 16, 2003). Historic U.S. Court Cases: An Encyclopedia, Vol. 1 (2nd ed.). New York, London: Routledge. p. 293. ISBN 0415930197 . Retrieved March 26, 2016.
↑ Katz, Ellis. 2006. "Colegrove v. Green." Federalism in America: An Encyclopedia.
↑ Colegrove v. Green, 328 U.S. 556
↑ "Whittaker is leaving U.S. Supreme Court". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. March 30, 1962. Retrieved September 26, 2020.
↑ Eisler (1993), p. 13.
↑ "Baker v. Carr, 369 US 186 - Supreme Court 1962 - Google Scholar" . Retrieved January 30, 2023.
↑ Eisler (1993), p. 11.
↑ Schwartz, Bernard. How Justice Brennan Changed America, in Reason and Passio 33 (E. Joshua Rosenkranz and Bernard Schwartz eds., 1997).

External links

Text of Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186(1962) is available from: Google Scholar Justia Library of Congress Oyez (oral argument audio)
Baker v. Carr Case Brief, Lawnix.com
"Supreme Court Landmark Case Baker v. Carr" from C-SPAN's Landmark Cases: Historic Supreme Court Decisions
The Political Thicket a podcast episode on the case from Radiolab More Perfect, WNYC Studios

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[1] Johnson, John W., ed. (December 16, 2003). Historic U.S. Court Cases: An Encyclopedia, Vol. 1 (2nd ed.). New York, London: Routledge. p. 293. ISBN 0415930197 . Retrieved March 26, 2016.

[2] Katz, Ellis. 2006. "Colegrove v. Green." Federalism in America: An Encyclopedia.

[3] Colegrove v. Green, 328 U.S. 556

[Gazette-4] "Whittaker is leaving U.S. Supreme Court". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. March 30, 1962. Retrieved September 26, 2020.

[5] Eisler (1993), p. 13.

[6] "Baker v. Carr, 369 US 186 - Supreme Court 1962 - Google Scholar" . Retrieved January 30, 2023.

[7] Eisler (1993), p. 11.

[8] Schwartz, Bernard. How Justice Brennan Changed America, in Reason and Passio 33 (E. Joshua Rosenkranz and Bernard Schwartz eds., 1997).

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v t e Case law related to redistricting in the United States
Equal population	Colegrove v. Green (1946) Baker v. Carr (1962) Gray v. Sanders (1963) Wesberry v. Sanders (1964) Reynolds v. Sims (1964) Davis v. Mann (1964) Lucas v. Forty-Fourth Gen. Assembly of Colorado (1964) Fortson v. Toomb (1965) Burns v. Richardson (1966) Avery v. Midland County (1968) Kirkpatrick v. Preisler (1969) Wells v. Rockefeller (1969) Hadley v. Junior College District (1970) Mahan v. Howell (1973) Salyer Land Co. v. Tulare Water District (1973) Gaffney v. Cummings (1973) White v. Weiser (1973) Chapman v. Meier (1975) East Carroll Parish Sch. Bd. v. Marshall (1976) Ball v. James (1981) Karcher v. Daggett (1983) Brown v. Thomson (1983) Board of Estimate of City of New York v. Morris (1989) Cox v. Larios (2004) Tennant v. Jefferson County (2012) Evenwel v. Abbott (2016) Harris v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission (2016)
Partisan gerrymandering	Gaffney v. Cummings (1973) Davis v. Bandemer (1986) Vieth v. Jubelirer (2004) League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry (2006) Gill v. Whitford (2018) Benisek v. Lamone (2018) Rucho v. Common Cause / Lamone v. Benisek (2019)
Racial gerrymandering	Gomillion v. Lightfoot (1960) Wright v. Rockefeller (1964) Turner v. Fouche (1970) Connor v. Johnson (1971) Ely v. Klahr (1971) Whitcomb v. Chavis (1971) City of Richmond v. United States (1975) East Carroll Parish Sch. Bd. v. Marshall Beer v. United States (1976) United Jewish Organizations v. Carey (1977) Wise v. Lipscomb (1978) Mobile v. Bolden (1980) City of Rome v. United States (1980) Rogers v. Lodge (1982) Escambia County v. McMillan (1984) Mississippi Republican Executive Committee v. Brooks (1984) Thornburg v. Gingles (1986) Clark v. Roemer (1991) Chisom v. Roemer (1991) Houston Lawyers' Association v. Attorney General of Texas (1991) Presley v. Etowah County Comm'n (1992) Growe v. Emison (1993) Voinovich v. Quilter (1993) Shaw v. Reno (1993) Holder v. Hall (1994) Johnson v. De Grandy (1994) United States v. Hays (1995) Miller v. Johnson (1995) Shaw v. Hunt (1996) Bush v. Vera (1996) Lopez v. Monterey County (1996) Reno v. Bossier Parish School Board (1997) Abrams v. Johnson (1997) Lopez v. Monterey County (1999) Hunt v. Cromartie (1999) Reno v. Bossier Parish School Board (2000) Sinkfield v. Kelley (2000) Easley v. Cromartie (2001) Georgia v. Ashcroft (2003) League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry (2006) Bartlett v. Strickland (2009) Alabama Legislative Black Caucus v. Alabama (2015) Bethune-Hill v. Virginia State Bd. of Elections (2017) Cooper v. Harris (2017) North Carolina v. Covington (2017) Abbott v. Perez (2018) North Carolina v. Covington (2018) Wisconsin Legislature v. Wisconsin Elections Commission (2022) Allen v. Milligan (2023) Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP (2024)
Other	Chappelle v. Greater Baton Rouge Airport Dist. (1977) Upham v. Seamon (1982) Quinn v. Millsap (1989) Utah v. Evans (2002) Branch v. Smith (2003) Lance v. Dennis (2006) Lance v. Coffman (2007) Perry v. Perez (2012) Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission (2015) Shapiro v. McManus (2015) Wittman v. Personhuballah (2016) Virginia House of Delegates v. Bethune-Hill (2019) Moore v. Harper (2023)

Baker v. Carr

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