I want to hear your opinion on Baker vs. Carr case.?

Question

I want to hear your opinion on Baker vs. Carr court case.

Answer 1

I believe that if neither chamber of the Tennessee state legislature (or any other state legislature) was apportioned in a manner based on population, approximately like the U.S. House of Reps., then the courts should have ordered the legislature to re-apportion one of the two chambers. At least one chamber should resemble the U.S. House of Reps. so that the people of the state will be represented with approximate equality.

But the Supreme Court went too far in demanding that both chambers must be based on population. Their theory had nothing at all to do with the historic purpose of the 14th Amendment nor did it have anything at all to do with any other provision of the Constitution. The U.S. Constitution designed the Congress to be bi-cameral with one chamber not being proportionally representative of the people. Why can't the people of any state choose to do the same thing with their state legislature?

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I like cogito's answer below me. And I also like one part of Justice Frankfurter's dissenting opinion in that decision, ....

"There is not, under our Constitution, a judicial remedy for every political mischief. In a democratic society like ours, relief must come through an aroused popular conscience that sears the conscience of the people's representatives." -- Justice Frankfurter, dissenting opinion in Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 270 (1962).

Answer 2

Baker v. Carr is a decision of the United States Supreme Court rendered in about 1962, when I was still in law school and would have read it very carefully.

It is commonly referred to as the "one man, one vote" decision. I don't recall the reasoning of the majority, authored, if I recall correctly, by Mr. Justice Brennan, which I found unpersuasive, but I vaguely recall that Mr. Justice Frankfurter wrote a dissenting opinion that I found very persuasive, in which he criticized the majority for unwisely entering the "political thicket," which the Court for a long time had assiduously and wisely avoided.

Further Affiant sayeth not.

Answer 3

The voters wanted to have an equal apportionment of the votes in Tennessee since they were deprived of it due to a 1901 statute. The lower court dismissed the case but on appeal the case was reversed on the ground that there a denial of the constitutional rights of equal protection of laws on the part of the complainants.