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

31representatives. It was recognition of that fundamentaltenet that motivated judicial involvement in the first placein what had been called the ‘political thicket’ of legislativeapportionment.”) (citations omitted)).This Court long ago determined in Baker andReynolds that the Fourteenth Amendment includes aone-person, one-vote principle requiring States to equalizethe electoral power of each vote, and the judiciary nowhas an obligation to enforce that rule. Those seminaldecisions were subject to substantial challenge at the time.Baker, 369 U.S. at 267-330 (Frankfurter, J., dissenting);Reynolds, 377 U.S. at 589-625 (Harlan, J., dissenting).If the Court is inclined to overrule them, it should doso forthrightly, not by converting subsidiary issues intounreviewable political questions. Chen, 121 S. Ct. at 2021(Thomas, J., dissenting from the denial of certiorari);Garza, 918 F.2d at 784 (Kozinski, J.). But “as long as [theCourt] sustain[s] the one-person, one-vote principle, [ithas] an obligation to explain to States and localities whatit actually means.” Chen, 121 S. Ct. at 2021 (Thomas, J.,dissenting in the denial of certiorari).B. The City’s Plan Per Se Violates The One-Person, One-Vote Principle.The resolution of the question presented is decisivein this case. If the City is required to equalize the voterpopulation, the Plan is patently unconstitutional. AsCVAP statistics demonstrate, the Plan apportions citycouncil members across voting districts in an obviouslyunequal way, as the votes of electors in District 1 carryalmost twice the weight of those in other districts. No mapwith such a massive disparity can withstand any level ofconstitutional scrutiny.