Representation, Reapportionment, and the Supreme Court

Abstract

The reapportionment of congressional and state legislative districts occasioned by decennial censuses has generated intense political and judicial conflict. This conflict has made clearer several obstacles to a deeper understanding of the nature of representation. It has also led to the fashioning of a new equal protection jurisprudence by the Supreme Court in an attempt to grapple with apportionment disputes. The Court has established clear standards for redistricting congressional and state legislative seats. Yet after two decades, the Court has still not produced judicially manageable standards to deal with the problems of partisan gerrymandering, affirmative gerrymandering, ‘political fairness’, and the Court's impact on public policy. A review of the pertinent cases makes it possible to forecast the probable outcome of litigation involving these issues in the 1980 round of reapportionments.