Baker v Carr

Context (Baker v Carr)

Decided in 1962, Tennessee hadn’t redrawn voting districts for over 60 years. Rural voters therefor had much more disproportional power than urban voters, when districts did not have the proper amounts of votes representative of population. The SCOTUS decided questions of redistricting were not justiciable - the court couldnt rule on this as it was a political question, not judicial.

Constitutional principle (Baker v Carr)

14th Amendment and especially the Equal Protection Clause

“no state shall make or enforce any law which shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws”

(state infringements)

Baker’s argument (Baker v Carr)

Baker was the plantiff: By refusing to redraw the districts & reapportion representation, all citizens were in fact not equally protected under the laws and therefor this question is justiciable as a violation of the 14th Amendment

Carr’s argument (Baker v Carr)

Carr represented the state of Tennessee. He argued that this issue in entirety was not justiciable and should not have been brought to the courts.

Decision (Baker v Carr)

Ruled in favor of Baker [6-2] that the issues of reapportionment were justiciable.

SCOTUS did have the power to rule on reapportioning matters

Matters (Baker v Carr)

• Established “one person, one vote” doctrine

• Altered the nature of political representation across the US

• Many states also had to redistrict due to this case

• Got SCOTUS involved in matters priorly unavailable concerning some political issues

• Established a 6-part test for the future judges to see if they should get involved in the case (political or justiciable?)