Number of inhabitants or number of registered voters? I always thought redistricting was determined by population/census counts, not who is registered to vote. What did I miss?
Sorry, here is the link.
It’s not about registered voters but those eligible to vote. It’s always been about equalizing total population but without a Supreme Court choosing to weigh in before. The case challenges that. Since demographics vary that means districts actually represent different numbers of those eligible to vote (whether they’ve registered or voted.)
They’ve settled the issue in Ankh Morpork.
Thanks DinoR. I always thought districts were determined by just the gross population, based upon the 10 year census.
So far, they *have *mostly been based on census population but just as an assumption that this was what was expected, by reference to the constitutional language for congressional seats which refers to apportionment according to “the whole number of Free persons” in the jurisdiction as counted by the decennial census (more on this later).
The idea behind the thinking in the 1P1V cases that extends the population-based criteria to statehouses is that the legislators must equally represent the interest and well being of the humans in the districts, not the acreage or the property value. Those decisions were a response to a prior state-level system of *geographic *districting that disproportionately favored rural over urban, and underrepresented minority communities (e.g. seats assigned per county, so some county out in the sticks with 40,000 people could have the same weight as an urban county with a half million).
Recall that original method for apportionment of congressional seats in the Constitution had exclusions for “Indians not taxed” and the undercounting of 3/5 for slaves, but otherwise made the apportionment according to “the whole number of Free persons” (including indentured servants, BTW) so on the one hand the constitutional precedent for limiting the apportionment count to only the “right” kind of inhabitant was odious, and on the other it refers to “all… persons”, which IIRC usually is construed to refer to *all people *“under the jurisdiction” regardless of citizenship status. Thus there are also considerations of what about weighing representation of *citizens *not eligible to vote (overwhelmingly minors, NOT felons) and of *legal *immigrants who are a permanent constructive part of society.
Somewhat random thought:
I wonder if proportioning based on number of actual voters would increase turnout?
They are, but a state would not necessarily have to use that method. Some Texans think the fact that Texas does is unfair. I’m a little surprised they’d take the case, but it’s possible that the number of residents who are not eligible to vote is higher now than in past years.
I do wonder if this will affect districting for federal offices. The challengers will be shooting themselves in the foot if their districts get biggers but Texas loses lots of seats in the House.
I don’t think this would affect apportionment of seats in Congress (as opposed to redistricting), which is explicitly in the Constitution as only being based on the “the whole number of persons in each State.” In addition, the same section of the 14th Amendment implicitly endorses the practice of apportionment counts including residents who are prohibited from voting because they’re felons, non-citizens, women, or underage. States are only penalized by having their census count docked if they disenfranchise male citizens over the age of 21 who have not been convicted of crimes.
What would happen if the court struck down representation by population and then applied it to congressional redistricting would be that states would get to claim people as theirs when receiving the right of representation in Congress, but then the states would get to abandon those same people when it came time to actually exercise that right on their behalf. (It’s arguable that the state doesn’t act on behalf of non-citizens, but it does act on behalf of children and felons.)
I find it pretty revealing that the SC decided to take the case - I think that definitely indicates that they are leaning towards the plaintiffs, since the current situation (correct me if I’m wrong) is that the state can decide to use either the total population or the total eligible voters criteria at state’s discretion and since most (all?) states use the total population criteria, there would be nothing to “fix” otherwise.
No doubt the plaintiffs would immediately embark on a massive voter-registration effort in the areas of Texas that would otherwise lose representation due to the change.
Right?
The one person, one vote doctrine in the U.S. came about through a series of Supreme Court decisions in the sixties. In the first one (in 1962), Baker v. Carr, the court ruled that courts can address legal questions regarding the drawing of legislative districts.
The other two happened in 1964. In Wesberry v. Sanders the court ruled that congressional districts must have roughly equal populations. In Reynolds v. Sims the court ruled the same thing for state legislative districts.
The bases for the rulings were different in the two cases. In Wesberry v. Sanders, the court held that the framers intended that the House of Representatives give equal representation to all people, based on the text of the Constitution and the debates of the Constitutional Convention.
In Reynolds v. Sims, the court based its ruling on the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment. That is, equal protection guarantees that all people in a state have equal representation in the state’s legislature.
It looks to me like this case that the Supreme Court just agreed to hear is about state legislative districts (the article says the case is about the Texas Senate). I haven’t read anywhere that the case will also cover congressional districts. So it’s a fourteenth amendment case.
Here’s the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment:
It says “person,” not “voter” or “eligible voter.” It’s hard for me to see how the court could allow only eligible voters be counted for the purpose of drawing districts while still maintaining that the basis of one-person, one-vote is the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment.