petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to grant ... - Election Law Blog

2created city council districts that, while roughly equalin total population, are remarkably malapportioned withregard to eligible voters. The district in question (District1) has approximately half the number of voters of at leasttwo other districts in the City (District 3 and District 6).The vote of those in District 1 who are eligible to casta ballot is thus worth twice as much as those of votersresiding elsewhere in the City. The court of appealsnevertheless held that “equalizing total population, butnot [voter] population of each district, does not violate theEqual Protection Clause.” App. 2a.This petition thus presents an important questionthat remains undecided. Nearly fifty years ago, the Courtheld that the Equal Protection Clause of the FourteenthAmendment guarantees all electors—regardless of wherethey may reside—an equally weighted vote. Reynolds v.Sims, 377 U.S. 533 (1964). As the Court explained, “it isinconceivable that a state law to the effect that, in countingvotes for legislators, the votes of citizens in one part ofthe State would be multiplied by two, five, or 10, whilethe votes of persons in another area would be countedonly at face value, could be constitutionally sustainable.”Reynolds, 377 U.S. at 562. Indeed, the massive populationdisparities created by the City’s redistricting plan are perse unconstitutional if voter population is the appropriatebenchmark for measuring vote dilution. Mahan v. Howell,410 U.S. 315, 329 (1973). Thus, “[t]he one-person, onevoteprinciple may … be of little consequence if … eachjurisdiction can choose its own measure of population.”Chen v. City of Houston, 121 S. Ct. 2020 (2001) (Thomas,J., dissenting from denial of certiorari).