''Colegrove v. Green'', 328 U.S. 549 (1946), was a

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

case. Writing for a 4–3 plurality, Justice

Felix Frankfurter Felix Frankfurter (November 15, 1882 – February 22, 1965) was an Austrian-American jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1939 until 1962, during which period he was a noted advocate of judic ...

held that the federal judiciary had no power to interfere with malapportioned Congressional districts.. The Court held that the

Elections Clause Article One of the United States Constitution establishes the legislative branch of the federal government, the United States Congress. Under Article One, Congress is a bicameral legislature consisting of the House of Representatives and the ...

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 (and thus not the federal judiciary) could determine whether individual state legislatures had fulfilled their responsibility to secure fair representation for citizens. However, in ''

Baker v. Carr ''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, thus enabling federal courts to hear Fourteen ...

'', 369 U.S. 186 (1962) the United States Supreme Court distinguished the ''Colegrove'' decision holding that malapportionment claims under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment were not exempt from judicial review under Article IV, Section 4, as the equal protection issue in this case was separate from any political questions. The "

one person, one vote "One man, one vote", or "one person, one vote", expresses the principle that individuals should have equal representation in voting. This slogan is used by advocates of political equality to refer to such electoral reforms as universal suffrage, ...

" doctrine which requires electoral districts to be apportioned according to population, thus making each district roughly equal in population, was further cemented in the cases that followed ''Baker v. Carr'', including '' Gray v. Sanders'', 372 U.S. 368 (1963), which concerned state county districts; ''

Reynolds v. Sims ''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'' (19 ...

'', 377 U.S. 533 (1964), which concerned state legislature districts; '' Wesberry v. Sanders'', 376 U.S. 1 (1964), which concerned U.S. Congressional districts; and ''

Avery v. Midland County ''Avery v. Midland County'', 390 U.S. 474 (1968), is a United States Supreme Court case that ruled that local government districts had to be roughly equal in population. Background Having already held in 1965 in '' Reynolds v. Sims'' that disp ...

'', 390 U.S. 474 (1968), which concerned

local government Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of public administration within a particular sovereign state. This particular usage of the word government refers specifically to a level of administration that is both geographically-l ...

districts, a decision which was upheld in ''

Board of Estimate of City of New York v. Morris ''Board of Estimate of City of New York v. Morris'', 489 U.S. 688 (1989), was a case argued before the United States Supreme Court regarding the structure of the New York City Board of Estimate. Background Under the charter of the City of Greater ...

'', 489 U.S. 688 (1989).

Ruling

''Colegrove'' arose from the failure of Illinois to redistrict its Congressional delegation since 1901, despite

internal migration Internal migration or domestic migration is human migration within a country. Internal migration tends to be travel for education and for economic improvement or because of a natural disaster or civil disturbance, though a study based on the full ...

that had left wide population disparities between various districts. Three voters sued, asserting what would now be known as

malapportionment Apportionment is the process by which seats in a legislative body are distributed among administrative divisions, such as states or parties, entitled to representation. This page presents the general principles and issues related to apportionmen ...

: a rural county of 1,000 and an urban county of 100,000 would have an equal vote. The court characterized the case as "an appeal to the federal courts to reconstruct the electoral process of Illinois in order that it may be adequately represented in the councils of the Nation. Because the Illinois legislature has failed to revise its Congressional Representative districts in order to reflect great changes, during more than a generation, in the distribution of its population, we are asked to do this, as it were, for Illinois." The court decided that this was a

nonjusticiable Justiciability concerns the limits upon legal issues over which a court can exercise its judicial authority. It includes, but is not limited to, the legal concept of standing, which is used to determine if the party bringing the suit is a party ...

question: "The remedy for unfairness in districting is to secure State legislatures that will apportion properly, or to invoke the ample powers of Congress."

Dissent by Justice Black

Dissenting, Justice Hugo Black argued that the Constitution required each citizen's vote carry equal weight.Eisler, 169. "While the Constitution contains no express provision requiring that congressional election districts established by the States must contain approximately equal populations," Black wrote, "the constitutionally guaranteed right to vote, and the right to have one's vote counted clearly imply the policy that state election systems, no matter what their form, should be designed to give approximately equal weight to each vote cast." Black thought it wrong that a citizen living in a district of 900,000 people had a much smaller percentage of a vote than someone living in a district with 112,000.

Plurality opinion

The ''Colegrove'' case was decided by a 4–3 plurality.

Plurality opinion A plurality opinion is in certain legal systems the opinion from one or more judges or justices of an appellate court which provides the rationale for the disposition of an appeal when no single opinion received the support of a majority of th ...

s result when a majority of Justices (usually five or more but in this rare occasion, four) agree on the result in a particular case but no single rationale or opinion garners five votes. The case was voted on by seven rather than nine justices because Chief Justice Stone had just died, and

Justice Robert Jackson Robert Houghwout Jackson (February 13, 1892 – October 9, 1954) was an American lawyer, jurist, and politician who served as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1941 until his death in 1954. He had previously served as Uni ...

had taken leave to serve as chief prosecutor of the

Nuremberg Trials The Nuremberg trials were held by the Allies against representatives of the defeated Nazi Germany, for plotting and carrying out invasions of other countries, and other crimes, in World War II. Between 1939 and 1945, Nazi Germany invaded m ...

Aftermath

The plaintiff responded with a second suit demonstrating that the Illinois State Legislature districts were even more malapportioned than the Congressional districts (so how then was he to succeed in using either the powers of State Legislatures or Congress when they are both heavily biased against him?). This second case arrived as appeal to the Supreme Court in ''Colegrove v. Barrett'',

330 __NOTOC__ Year 330 ( CCCXXX) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Gallicanus and Tullianus (or, less frequently, year 1 ...

U.S. The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

804 (1947) for which Frankfurter was with the majority again issuing ''Per Curiam'' dismissal for want of a substantial federal question. Critics of ''Colegrove'' complained that it deprived state citizens of federal remedies, and that the outdated apportionments – dating to 1901, 45 years prior – were the vehicle by which rural, conservative interests were allowed to keep a disproportionate influence over the country's politics. Until it was overruled by ''Baker'', ''Colegrove'' made it almost impossible for citizens' groups to get help from the federal courts in apportioning legislative and congressional districts. An exception to the reach of ''Colegrove'' was allowed in a 1960 case called ''

Gomillion v. Lightfoot ''Gomillion v. Lightfoot'', 364 U.S. 339 (1960), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that found an electoral district with boundaries created to disenfranchise African Americans violated the Fifteenth Amendment. Bac ...

'', in which the appellants showed that the boundary lines of a district in Alabama had deliberately been drawn to minimize the voting rights of black residents. Frankfurter wrote the opinion in this case as well, making sure that ''Colegrove'' would not be seen as allowing blatant racial gerrymandering by recasting the issue as a Fifteenth Amendment case.Eisler, 169–170. One week after the ''Gomillion'' ruling was handed down, Justice Black persuaded his colleagues to hear arguments in ''

'', the case which would ultimately overrule ''Colegrove''.Eisler, 170.

References

External links