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

7aAppendix B12 L. Ed. 2d 506 (1964). 1 From this passage, Plaintiffsconclude districts must be drawn to contain equal numbersof citizens with the ability to vote. They insist that theCourt has unequivocally held the one-person, one-voterequirement is premised on the principle of electoralequality. (Docket # 25 at 11.)The United States, as amicus curiae, argues theSupreme Court also recognized in Reynolds v. Sims thattotal population is an appropriate baseline to use andsatisfies the one-person, one-vote principle. (Docket #32-1 at 2-3 citing 377 U.S. at 542 n.7 & 545-46.) Reynoldsstates that “[a]s a basic constitutional standard, theEqual Protection Clause requires that the [seats] mustbe apportioned on a population basis.” Reynolds 377 U.S.at 568. The United States further explains that each andevery jurisdiction in Texas, some 340 state, county, andmunicipality, that has applied for preclearance to theDepartment of Justice under Section 5 of the Voting RightsAct. uses total population in the districting process as thebasis for determining whether population is equal amongdistricts. (Docket # 32-2.)The Reynolds court and others like it that have usedthe terms “citizens” and “persons” interchangeably werenot dealing with whether the one-person, one-vote principlerequires citizen-voter equality or representationalequality. Rather, they were “dealing with situations in1. Plaintiffs also quote the Reynolds passage: “The basicprinciple of representative government remains and must remainunchanged -- the weight of a citizen’s vote cannot be made todepend on where he lives.” 377 U.S. at 567.