Progressing the Constitution - One Man One Vote III

ArticleVBlog ^ | July 9th 2018 | Rodney Dodsworth

[Jacquerie]

I long for the days when federal courts distanced themselves from political and societal matters. Thanks to scotus, the federal judiciary is wrapped around the axle of several issues that do not lend themselves to judicial standards but toward personal policy preferences that are best dealt with by the political branches of the state or national governments.

The shape, size and composition of state legislative and congressional districts is one such matter.

Congressional and state assembly/senate districts of unequal population were common until a couple of scotus decisions in the early 1960s. “One Man One Vote” (OMOV) emerged from these decisions. On the surface, who can disagree with the concept? I don’t. What roils originalists is the never-ending involvement of the judiciary in political matters, and few things are more political than electoral district design.

Such is the modern judicial mess of representation, gerrymandering, and race/party considerations as applied to congressional districts, I encourage the reader to scan at least the first few paragraphs of Gill et al. v. Whitford et al., a June 2018 scotus decision. In Gill, some Wisconsin Democrats challenged a statewide redistricting plan because they felt that legislative seats held by democrats should reflect the state-wide party registration. Despite admitting, “It is a case about group political interests, not individual legal rights,” scotus kept this nonsense alive by remanding the case back to the district court “to give the plaintiffs an opportunity to prove concrete and particularized injuries using evidence that would tend to demonstrate a burden on their individual votes.”

Before OMOV, electoral districts of equal population just weren’t that big a deal and certainly weren’t the business of any court. Our colonial ancestors adopted, more or less, the English parliamentary approach of allotting legislative seats. Counties and the few towns . . .

[CIB-173RDABN]

One man - One Vote gave us CALIFORNIA where the densely populated coastal area has the ONLY voice in state government.

Changing the electoral college will simply mean the two largest populated state will win every election regardless of what the rest want.

Does anyone think the politicians would ever visit small states again in an election - of course not.

Please keep your hands off my Consitution

[Paine in the Neck]

This perverted interpretation allows big cities to dominate whole states politically even though much/most of the state is contrarily aligned to the city. The Constitution’s guarantee of “a republican form of government” ought to be interpreted as state legislatures being structured in parallel to the federal structure, i.e., a bicameral legislature with one house being based on equal population and the other based on land area. This would balance (the key element of the US Constitution, balance) the interests of urban vs. rural so that neither could dominate. What we have now are city states not too different from ancient times - an all-powerful urban center which completely dominating the surrounding countryside.

[PGalt]

Thanks for posting. Informative. Educational.

[i_robot73]

Fine. Keep OMOV. Except move the districts to a ‘per county’.

The cities will no longer dominate the masses, the State, as a whole, would need to join up together...

[Jacquerie]

Thanks PG!

[Jacquerie]

Next week I hope to look behind the curtain of the 14th Amendment regarding scotus’ equal protection abuse. The dissenting opinions by Frankfurter and Harlan in the early 1960s are as good as those written by Clarence Thomas.