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

27Importantly, then, the Fourteenth Amendment doesnot create a freestanding right to equally populated votingdistricts. “[T]he Equal Protection Clause requires thatthe seats in both houses of a bicameral state legislaturemust be apportioned on a population basis,” Reynolds, 377U.S. at 568, to secure the equal-protection rights of voters,id. at 579. “[T]he overriding objective must be substantialequality of population among the various districts, so thatthe vote of any citizen is approximately equal in weightto that of any other citizen in the State.” Id. (emphasisadded); see Connor v. Finch, 421 U.S. 407, 416 (1977)(“The Equal Protection Clause requires that legislativedistricts be of nearly equal population, so that eachperson’s vote may be given equal weight in the election ofrepresentatives.”) (emphasis added). Population equalityis not an end—it is a means of protecting electors fromhaving their votes diluted in the redistricting process. Inthose cases where the difference is material, using totalpopulation to equalize voting districts is irreconcilablewith that objective.Indeed, protecting eligible voters from vote dilution isthe foundation on which the Court’s one-person, one-votejurisprudence is built. In Baker v. Carr, which was thefirst case to find a challenge to a legislative apportionmentclaim justiciable under the Equal Protection Clause, theplaintiffs were eligible voters claiming that they had been“denied the equal protection of the laws accorded themby the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of theUnited States by virtue of the debasement of their votes.”369 U.S. 186, 188 (1962) (internal quotation omitted). TheCourt found that the plaintiffs had standing as “votersof the State of Tennessee,” id. at 204, and that “voterswho allege facts showing disadvantage to themselves asindividuals have standing to sue,” id. at 206.