Reapportionment in the Supreme Court and Congress: Constitutional Struggle for Fair Representation

Fair representation is the ultimate goal. At the time of the Reapportionment Decisions, much change was overdue in some states, and at least some change was overdue in most states. We are a democratic people and our institutions presuppose according population a dominant role in formulas of representation. However, by its exclusive focus on bare numbers, the Court may have transformed one of the most intricate, fascinating, and elusive problems of democracy into a simple exercise of applying elementary arithmetic to census data.

In so doing, the Court may have disabled itself from effectively considering the more subtle issues of representation. Reapportionment is a political power struggle, but one looks in vain in the controlling opinions in the Reapportionment Decisions for an awareness and concern regarding the group dynamics of American politics.