Baker v. Carr

Notable Items:

Petitioner: Charles W. Baker et al.
Respondent: Joe C. Carr, Secretary of State of the State of Tennessee, et al.
Venue: Supreme Court of the United States
Opinion of the Court: Baker v. Carr (1962) and redacted text for GVPT439C

Issue(s) Before the Court:

whether the Supreme Court have jurisdiction over questions of legislative apportionment?

Petitioner's Claim(s):

... that the 1901 statute, even as of the time of its passage, "made no apportionment of Representatives and Senators in accordance with the constitutional formula ... , but instead arbitrarily and capriciously apportioned representatives in the Senate and House without reference ... to any logical or reasonable formula whatever."
... that "because of. the population changes since 1900, and the failure of the Legislature to reapportion itself since 1901," the 1901 statute became "unconstitutional and obsolete."
... that. "these plaintiffs and others similarly situated, are denied the equal protection of the laws accorded them by the Fourteenth Amendment to the .Constitution of the United States by virtue of the'debasement of their votes."

Restated:
These appellants seek relief in order to protect or vindicate an interest of their own, and of those similarly situated. [emphasis added]
Their constitutional claim is, in substance, that the 1901 statute constitutes arbitrary and capricious state action, offensive to the Fouiteenth Amendment .... [emphasis added]
The injury which appellants assert is that this classification disfavors the voters in the counties in which they reside, placing them in a position. of constitutionally unjustifiable inequality .... [emphasis added]

Respondent's Claim(s):

Holding(s) and Disposition:

Held:
1. The District Court had jurisdiction of the subject matter of the federal constitutional claim asserted in the complaint. Pp. 198-204. [See Part II below]
2. Appellants had standing to maintain this suit. Pp. 204-208. [See Part III below]
3. The complaint's allegations of a denial of equal protection presented a justiciable constitutional cause of action upon which appellants are entitled to a trial and a decision. Pp. 208-237.
Disposition:179 F. Supp. 824, reversed and cause remanded

Material Facts:

The General Assembly of Tennessee consists of the Senate with 33 members and the House of Representatives with 99 members.
An enumeration of the qualified voters, and an apportionment of the Representatives in the General Assembly, shall be made in the year one thousand eight hundred and seventy-one, and within every subsequent term of ten years.
The number of Representatives shall, ... be apportioned among the several counties or districts, according to the number of qualified voters in each; ... Provided, that any county having two-thirds of the ratio shall be entitled to one member.
The number of Senators shall, ... be apportioned among the several counties or districts according to the number of qualified electors in each, and shall not exceed one-third the number of representatives.
In the more than 60 years since that action [reapportionment of 1901], all proposals in both Houses of the General Assembly for reapportionment have failed to pass.

Procedural History:

This civil action was brought under 42 U. S. C. §§ 1983 and 1988 to redress the alleged deprivation of federal constitutional rights.
The complaint, alleging that by means of a 1901 statute of Tennessee apportioning the members of the General Assembly among the State's 95 counties, "these plaintiffs and others similarly situated, are denied the equal protection of the laws accorded them by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States by virtue of the debasement of their votes," was dismissed by a three-judge court convened under 28 U. S. C. §2281 in the Middle District of Tennessee.
The court held that it lacked jurisdiction of the subject matter and also that no claim was stated upon which relief could be granted. 179 F. Supp. 824.

Rationale

Brennan Majority Opinion (Warren, Black, Douglas, Clark, Stewart) (187-237)

Juridsiction:
An unbroken line of our precedents sustains the federal courts' jurisdiction .... The first cases involved the redistricting of States for the purpose of electing Representatives to the Federal Congress[: Ohio ex rel. Davis v. Hildebran; Minnesota Smiley v. Holm; New York Koenig v. Flynn; Missouri Carroll v. Becker; Mississippi Wood v. Broom; Kentucky Mahan v. Hume;]
The appellees refer to Colegrove v. Green, 328 U. S. 549, as authority that the District Court lacked jurisdiction of the subject matter. Appellees misconceive the holding of that case. The holding was precisely contrary to their reading of it.
Standing:
They are asserting "a plain, direct and adequate interest in maintaining the effectiveness of their votes," Coleman v. Miller, 307 U. S., at 438, not merely a claim of "the right, possessed by every citizen, to require that the Government be administered according to law ..." Fairchild v. Hughes, 258 U. S. 126, 129; compare Leser v. Garnett,258 U. S. 130.
Justicibility:
The nonjusticiability of a political question is primarily a function of the separation of powers.
... analyze representative cases and to infer from them the analytical threads that make up the political question doctrine.
[these cases and threads are:] Foreign relations; Dates of duration of hostilities; Validity of enactments; The status of Indian tribes
Specifically, we have said that such claims are not held nonjusticiable because they touch matters of state governmental organization.
We conclude that the complaint's allegations of a denial of equal protection present a justiciable constitutional cause of action upon which appellants are entitled to a trial and a decision. The right asserted is within the reach of judicial protection under the Fourteenth Amendment.
A full description of the rationale is available below

Douglas Concurrance (241-250)

We have here a phase of the recurring problem of the relation of the federal courts to state agencies.
More particularly, the question is the extent to which a State may weight one person's vote more heavily than it does another's.
So far as voting rights are concerned, there are large gaps in the Constitution. Yet the right to vote is inherent in the republican form of government envisaged by Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution.
Race, color, or previous condition of servitude is an impermissible standard by reason of the Fifteenth Amendment, and that alone is sufficient to explain Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339. [See Taper, Gomillion versus Lightfoot (1962), pp. 12-17.}
Sex is another impermissible standard by reason of the Nineteenth Amendment.
There is a third barrier to a State's freedom in prescribing qualifications of voters and that is the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the provision invoked here.
There is no doubt that the federal courts have jurisdiction of controversies concerning voting rights.
The right to vote in both federal and state elections was protected by the judiciary long before that right received the explicit protection it is now accorded by [28 USC] § 1343 (4).
With the exceptions of Colegrove v. Green, 328 U. S. 549; MacDougall v. Green, 335 U. S. 281; South v. Peters, 339 U. S. 276, and the decisions they spawned, the Court has never thought that protection of voting rights.
Today's treatment of those cases removes the only impediment to judicial cognizance of the claims stated in the present complaint.
The justiciability of the present claims being established, any relief accorded can be fashioned in the light of well-known principles of equity.

Clark Concurrance (251-264)

Note: Clark concluded that citizens denied equal voting power had no political recourse; their only recourse was to the federal judiciary.

Stewart Concurrance (265-266)

Note: Stewart considered the issue justicible, but he refused to address the merits of reapportionment in the case.
... I think it appropriate, in joining the opinion of the Court, to emphasize in a few words what the opinion does and does not say.
The Court today decides three things and no more: (a) ... jurisdiction ... (b) ... justiciable ... (c) ... the appellants have standing ....
The complaint in this case asserts that Tennessee's system of apportionment is utterly arbitrary -- without any possible justification in rationality.
... this Court quite properly expresses no view on the subiect.
... the Court does not say or imply that "state legislatures must be so structured as to reflect with approximate equality the voice of every voter."
... The Court does not say or imply that there is anything in the Federal Constitution "to prevent a State, acting not irrationally, from choosing any electoral legislative structure it thinks best ....
... the Court most assuredly does not decide the question, "may a State weight the vote of one county or one district more heavily than it weights the vote in another?"
Clark has made a convincing prima facie showing that Tennessee's system of apportionment is in fact utterly arbitrary-without any possible justification in rationality.
The defendants have not yet had an opportunity to be heard in defense of the State's system of apportionment; indeed, they have not yet even filed an answer to the complaint.
As in other cases, the proper place for the trial is in the trial court, not here.

Frankfurter Dissent (Harlan) (266-330)

[Part I]
[Part II]
[Part III]
[Part IV] (325)
The argument is that ... the Tennessee Legislature may not abridge the rights which, on its face, its own constitution appears to give, without by that act denying equal protection of the laws.
It is said that the law of Tennessee, as expressed by the words of its written constitution, has made the basic choice among policies in favor of representation proportioned to population, and that it is no longer open to the State to allot its voting power on other principles.
This reasoning does not bear analysis.
Appellants complain of a practice which, by their own allegations, has been the law of Tennessee for sixty years. [since 1901]
They allege that the Legislature has since 1901 purposefully retained unequal districts. - And the Supreme Court of Tennessee has refused to invalidate the law establishing these unequal districts. [refused to enforce the apportionment determined by the Tennessee Constitution]
In these circumstances, what was said in the [Nashville, C. & St. L. R. Co. v.] Browning[, 310 U. S. 362] case at 369, clearly governs this case: Deeply embedded traditional ways of carrying out state policy, such as those of which petitioner complains, are, often tougher and truer law than the dead words of the written text.
Tennessee's law and its policy respecting apportionment re. what 60 years of practice show them to be, not what appellants cull from the unenforced and, according to its own judiciary, unenforceable words of its Constitution. [Contrast state practices regarding Negro voting ... delete the Fifteenth Amendment.]
In all of the apportionment cases which have come before the Court, a consideration which has been weighty in determining their non-justiciability has been the difficulty or impossibility of devising effective judicial remedies in this class of case. [And there is nothing we can do anyways ... in three years this "problem" was addressed in Reynolds-Sims (1964) ]
... the case is of that class of political controversy which, by the nature of its subject, is unfit for federal judicial action.
The judgment of the District Court, in dismissing the complaint, for failure to state a claim on which relief can be granted, should therefore be affirmed.

Harlan Dissent (Frankfurter) (330-349)

Once one cuts through the thicket of discussion devoted to "jurisdiction," "standing," "justiciability," and "political question," there emerges a straightforward issue which, in my view, is determinative of this case.
Does the complaint disclose a violation of a federal constitutional right, in other words, a claim over which a United States District Court would have jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. § 1343 (3) and 42 U. S. C. § 1983? [emphasis added]
However, in my opinion, appellants' allegations, accepting all of them as true, do not, parsed down or as a whole; show an infringement by Tennessee of any rights assured by the Fourteenth Amendment. Accordingly, I believe the complaint should have been dismissed for "failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted." Fed. Rules Civ. Proc., Rule 12(b)(6).
The issue here relates ... solely to the right of a State to fix the basis of representation in its own legislature. [Tennessee Constitution Art. II Sect. 5 & 6 cited below.]
The appellants' claim .... asserted that Tennessee has violated the Equal Protection Clause by maintaining in effect a system of apportionment that grossly favors in legislative representation the rural sections of the State as against its urban communities.
... the complaint purports to set forth three constitutional claims of varying breadth:
1. The Equal Protection Clause requires that each vote cast in state legislative elections be given approximately equal weight.
2. Short of this, the existing apportionment of state legislators is so unreasonable as to amount to an arbitrary and capricious act of classification on the part of the Tennessee Legislature, which is offensive to the Equal Protection Clause.
3. In any event, the existing apportionment is rendered invalid under the Fourteenth Amendment because it flies in the face of the Tennessee Constitution. [Harlan: See Frankfurter 325-327]
For reasons given in Mr. Justice Frankfurter's opinion, ante, pp. 325-327, the last of these propositions is manifestly untenable, and need not be dealt with further. I turn to the other two.
[Part I -- Any(?) weighting of representation is acceptable.] (332)
I can find nothing in the Equal Protection Clause or elsewhere in the Federal Constitution which expressly or impliedly supports the view that state legislatures must be so structured as to reflect with approximate equality the voice of every voter. [emphasis added]
It is surely beyond argument that those who have the responsibility for devising a system of representation may permissibly consider that factors other than bare numbers should be taken into account. The existence of the United States Senate is proof enough of that. [Determined by the Tennessee Constitution Art. II Sect. 5: The number of Representatives shall, ... be apportioned among the several counties or districts, according to the number of qualified voters in each .... and Sect. 6: The number of Senators shall, ... be apportioned among the several counties or districts according to the number of qualified electors in each ....]
... Frankfurter so conclusively proves (ante, pp. 308-317), no intention to fix immutably the means of selecting representatives for state-governments could have been in the minds of either the Founders or the draftsmen of the Fourteenth Amendment.
... settled by MacDougall v. Green, 335 U. S. 281, in which the Court observed (at p. 283) that to "assume that political power is a function exclusively of numbers is to disregard the practicalities of government," and reaffirmed by South v. Peters, 339 U. S.276. A State's choice to distribute electoral strength among geographical units, rather than according to a census of population, is certainly no less a rational decision of policy than would be its choice to levy a tax on property rather than a tax on income.
[Part II] (338)
It is not inequality alone that calls for a holding of unconstitutionality; only if the inequality is based on an impermissible standard may this Court condemn it.
Thus reduced to its essentials, the charge of arbitrariness and capriciousness rests entirely on the consistent refusal of the Tennessee Legislature over the past 60 years to alter a pattern of apportionment that was reasonable when conceived.
And so long as there exists a possible rational legislative policy for retaining an existing apportionment, such a legislative decision cannot be said to breach the bulwark against arbitrariness and caprice that the Fourteenth Amendment affords.

Majority Full Argument

See Material Facts
See Procedural History
[Part I The District Court's Opinion and Order of Dismissal.] (195)
"The action is presently before the Court upon the defendants' motion to dismiss predicated upon three grounds: first, that the Court lacks jurisdiction of the subject matter; second, that the complaints fail to state a claim upon which relief can be granted; and third, that indispensable party defendants are not before the Court." 179 F. Supp., at 826.
The court proceeded to explain its action " ... the federal courts, whether from a lack of jurisdiction or from the inappropriateness of the subject matter for judicial consideration, will not intervene in cases. of this type to compel legislative reapportionment." 179 F. Supp., at 826. [emphasis added]
" ... But even so the remedy in this situation clearly does not lie with the courts. It has long been recognized and is accepted doctrine that there are indeed some rights guaranteed by the Constitution for the violation of which the courts cannot give redress." 179 F. Supp., at 828.
In light of the District Court's treatment of the case, we hold today only (a) that the court possessed jurisdiction of the subject matter [Part II below]; (b) that a justiciable cause of action is stated upon which appellants would be entitled to appropriate relief [Part III below]; and (c) because appellees raise the issue before this Court, that the appellants have standing to challenge the Tennessee apportionment statutes.' [Part IV below] [emphasis added]
... it is improper now to consider what remedy would be most appropriate if appellants prevail at the trial.
[Part II Jurisdiction of the Subject Matter.] (198)
Our conclusion, see pp. 208-237. infra, that this cause presents no nonjusticiable "political question" settles the only possible doubt that it is a case or controversy.
Under the present heading of "Jurisdiction of the Subject Matter" we hold only that the matter set forth in the complaint does arise under the Constitution and is within 28 U. S. C. § 1343.
Dismissal of the complaint upon the ground of lack of jurisdiction ... justified only if that claim were "so attenuated and unsubstantial as to be absolutely devoid of merit," ... or "frivolous," ....
Since the District Court obviously and correctly did not deem the asserted federal constitutional claim unsubstantial and frivolous, it should not have dismissed the complaint for want of jurisdiction of the subject matter.
An unbroken line of our precedents sustains the federal courts' jurisdiction .... The first cases involved the redistricting of States for the purpose of electing Representatives to the Federal Congress[: Ohio ex rel. Davis v. Hildebran; Minnesota Smiley v. Holm; New York Koenig v. Flynn; Missouri Carroll v. Becker; Mississippi Wood v. Broom; Kentucky Mahan v. Hume;]
The appellees refer to Colegrove v. Green, 328 U. S. 549, as authority that the District Court lacked jurisdiction of the subject matter. Appellees misconceive the holding of that case. The holding was precisely contrary to their reading of it.
[additional review of subject matter jurisdiction with citations]
We hold that the District Court has jurisdiction of the subject matter of the federal constitutional claim asserted in the complaint. [emphasis added]
[Part III Standing] (204)
Have the appellants alleged such a personal stake in the outcome of the controversy as to assure that corncrete adverseness ... ?
This is the gist of the question of standing. It is, of course, a question of federal law.
... Colegrove v. Green, supra, squarely held that voters who allege facts showing disadvantage to themselves as individuals have standing to sue. A number of cases decided after Colegrove recognized the standing of the voters there involved to bring those actions.
These appellants seek relief in order to protect or vindicate an interest of their own, and of those similarly situated. [emphasis added]
Their constitutional claim is, in substance, that the 1901 statute constitutes arbitrary and capricious state action, offensive to the Fouiteenth Amendment .... [emphasis added]
The injury which appellants assert is that this classification disfavors the voters in the counties in which they reside, placing them in a position. of constitutionally unjustifiable inequality .... [emphasis added]
A citizen's right to a vote free of arbitrary impairment by state action ... United States v. Classic; United States v. Mosley; Ex parte Siebold; United States v. Saylor.
They are asserting "a plain, direct and adequate interest in maintaining the effectiveness of their votes," Coleman v. Miller, 307 U. S., at 438, not merely a claim of "the right, possessed by every citizen, to require that the Government be administered according to law ..." Fairchild v. Hughes, 258 U. S. 126, 129; compare Leser v. Garnett,258 U. S. 130.
[Part IV Justicibility] (208)
Of course the mere fact that the suit seeks protection of a political right does not mean it presents a political question. Such an objection "is little more than a play upon words." Nixon v. Herndon, 273 U. S.. 536, 540.
We hold that the claim pleaded here neither rests upon nor implicates the Guaranty Clause and that, its justiciability is therefore not foreclosed by our decisions of cases [see footnote 29] involving that clause.
Appellants' claim that they are being denied equal protection is justiciable, and if "discrimination is sufficiently shown, the right to relief under the equal protection clause is not diminished by the fact that the discrimination relates to political rights." Snowden v. Hughes, 321 U. S. 1, 11.
... the Guaranty Clause cases and in the other "political question" cases, it is the relationship between the judiciary and the coordinate branches of the Federal Government, and not the federal judiciary's relationship to the States, which gives rise to the "political question." [emphasis added] [Compare ShelbyCounty-Holder (2013) ]
The nonjusticiability of a political question is primarily a function of the separation of powers.
... analyze representative cases and to infer from them the analytical threads that make up the political question doctrine.
[these cases and threads are:] Foreign relations; Dates of duration of hostilities; Validity of enactments; The status of Indian tribes
Prominent on the surface of any case held to involve a political question is found
- a textually demonstrable constitutional commitment of the issue to a coordinate political department; or
- a lack of judicially discoverable and manageable standards for resolving it; or
- the impossibility of deciding without an initial policy determination of a kind clearly for nonjudicial discretion; or
- the impossibility of a court's undertaking independent resolution without expressing lack of the respect due coordinate branches of government; or
- an unusual need for unquestioning adherence to a political decision already made; or
- the potentiality of embarrassment from multifarious pronouncements by various departments on one question.
Unless one of these formulations is inextricable from the case at bar, there should be no dismissal for nonjusticiability on the ground of a political question's presence.
But it is argued that this case shares the characteristics of decisions that constitute a category not yet considered, cases concerning the Constitution's guaranty, in Art. IV, § 4, of a republican form of government.
We shall discover that Guaranty Clause claims involve those elements which define a "political question," and for that reason and no other, they are nonjusticiable. In particular, we shall discover that the nonjusticiability of such claims has nothing to do with their touching upon matters of state governmental organization.
[Examples:] Republican form of government: Luther v. Borden, 7 How. 1 [rival governments in Rhode Island in 1841 and 1842]
Clearly, several factors were thought by the Court in Luther to make the question there "political": the commitment to the other branches of the decision as to which is the lawful state government; the unambiguous action by the President, in recognizing the charter government as the lawful authority; the need for finality in the executive's decision; and the lack of criteria by which a court could determine which form of government was republican.
The Court has since refused to resort to the Guaranty Clause - which alone had been invoked for the purpose - as the source of a constitutional standard for invalidating state action. [Followed by ~10 examples]
Finally, we emphasize that it is the involvement in Guaranty-Clause claims of the elements thought to define "political questions," and no other feature, which could render them nonjusticiable.
Specifically, we have said that such claims are not held nonjusticiable because they touch matters of state governmental organization.
We conclude that the complaint's allegations of a denial of equal protection present a justiciable constitutional cause of action upon which appellants are entitled to a trial and a decision. The right asserted is within the reach of judicial protection under the Fourteenth Amendment.
The core of the rationale is available above