One Person, One Vote, 435 Seats: Interstate Malapportionment and Constitutional Requirements Is Our Constitutional Order Broken - Structural and Doctrinal Questions in Constitutional Law: Gerrymandering, Congressional Representation, and Trust in the Political System

Beginning in the 1960s and 1970s, the Supreme Court began to establish and enforce a constitutional requirement for the apportionment of legislative districts at the national, state, and local levels. This requirement, the “one person, one vote” principle, has become a benchmark of the constitutional jurisprudence as well as a conceptualization of the fundamental democratic norm of political equality. Since these early cases, apportionment plans that violate this constitutional requirementeven with levels of intrastate malapportionment of less than 1%have been held to be unconstitutional. Yet, there is a much more severe form of malapportionment that continues today and will worsen with the reapportionment of the United States House of Representatives after the 2010 Census: interstate malapportionment. The levels of interstate malapportionment are over 9,000% greater than the levels of intrastate malapportionment already found unconstitutional. This Article explores the causes and possible solutions to this problem. It concludes that the constitutional requirement of “one person, one vote” can only be constitutionally addressedto any considerable degreeby reconsidering the twentieth century statutory requirement that fixed the size of the House at 435 seats

One Person, One Vote, 435 Seats: Interstate Malapportionment and Constitutional Requirements Is Our Constitutional Order Broken - Structural and Doctrinal Questions in Constitutional Law: Gerrymandering, Congressional Representation, and Trust in the Political System

Beginning in the 1960s and 1970s, the Supreme Court began to establish and enforce a constitutional requirement for the apportionment of legislative districts at the national, state, and local levels. This requirement, the “one person, one vote” principle, has become a benchmark of the constitutional jurisprudence as well as a conceptualization of the fundamental democratic norm of political equality. Since these early cases, apportionment plans that violate this constitutional requirementeven with levels of intrastate malapportionment of less than 1%have been held to be unconstitutional. Yet, there is a much more severe form of malapportionment that continues today and will worsen with the reapportionment of the United States House of Representatives after the 2010 Census: interstate malapportionment. The levels of interstate malapportionment are over 9,000% greater than the levels of intrastate malapportionment already found unconstitutional. This Article explores the causes and possible solutions to this problem. It concludes that the constitutional requirement of “one person, one vote” can only be constitutionally addressedto any considerable degreeby reconsidering the twentieth century statutory requirement that fixed the size of the House at 435 seats

One Person, One Vote: Principle versus Reality! in Congressional Reapportionments!!!!!!!!

Abstract: Ever since the Supreme Court instituted the one person, one vote principle in congressional elections based on its decision in Wesberry v. Sanders (1964), intrastate deviations from equal district populations have become smaller and smaller after each decennial reapportionment. Relying on equal total population as the standard to meet the Court’s one person, one vote principle, though, raises serious constitutional questions stemming from, most basically, not every person has the right to vote. As such, the application of the equal population rule creates a considerable level of malapportionment across districts, both within and between states. This study systematically analyzes the differences between district total populations vs. district voting age populations (VAPs), documenting just how far off the use of the district total population is from the one person, one vote principle. Further, we consider how congressional reapportionments would change if instead of total state population, the measure for redistributing seats was based on the VAP and the voting eligible population (VEP). The analyses are performed for each reapportionment year beginning in 1972. Line drawers can do a much better job at meeting the Court’s one person, one vote principle by relying on better measures of voter equality and that by failing to do this, we are much further away than we need to be in trying to meet the one person, one vote standard

The devil's in the details: evaluating the one person, one vote principle in American politics

Ever since the Supreme Court instituted the one person, one vote principle in congressional elections based on its decision in Wesberry v. Sanders (1964), intrastate deviations from equal district populations have become smaller and smaller after each decennial reapportionment. Relying on equal total population as the standard to meet the Court's principle, though, has raised some constitutional and practical questions stemming from, most basically, not every person has the right to vote. Specifically, there is considerable deviation between the current redistricting practices and a literal interpretation of this constitutional principle. This study systematically analyzes the differences between districts' total populations and their voting age populations (VAPs). Further, we consider how congressional reapportionments since 1972 would change if, instead of states' total populations, the standard for reapportioning seats were based on the VAP or the voting eligible population (VEP). Overall, the results indicate that the debate surrounding the appropriate apportionment and redistricting standard is not just normative, it also has notable practical consequences