Opinion? Good or bad? Is there an opportunity to repeal and destroy the political monopoly of the urban?
 

 
Wiki


Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533 (1964) was a United States Supreme Court case that ruled that state legislature districts had to be roughly equal in population.


In dissent, Justice John Marshall Harlan II criticized the Court for ignoring the original intent of the Equal Protection Clause, which he argued did not extend to voting rights. Harlan claimed the Court was imposing its own idea of "good government" on the states, stifling creativity and violating federalism. Harlan further claimed that if Reynolds was correct, then the US Constitution's own provision for two senators from each state would be Constitutionally suspect since the fifty states don't have "substantially equal populations". "One person, one vote" was extended to Congressional (but not Senate) districts in Wesberry v. Sanders (1964).

Trump   2016

Could by HUUUUUGE.


Srsly though.  I wonder how one would go about challenging that and what the basis for standing would need to be.


 

It was a grossly unconstitutional ruling, along with the other Reapportionment Cases.  I found it remarkable how little reference there is to the Constitution in the ruling.  They paid lip service to it, but essentially, the basis of the ruling is progressive ideology and the progressive need to break a huge barrier to their ability to expand their power and become dominant.  The Warren Court did more damage to this country and the Constitution than most.  The ruling radically altered the balance of power in many States, shifting a ton of power to the Left, probably permanently.  California would not be what it is today without Reynolds vs. Sims and the related cases.

Interestingly, the Republican-backed Texas suit that ended up at the Supreme Court and which lost recently was based on these cases.  It was a logical extension of the rulings.  The fact that even the liberals sided against it and criticized some of the ideas inherent in the Reapportionment Cases shows a potential crack.  Perhaps, with the right case and the right court, something like Reynolds vs. Sims could be overturned.  But conservatives would have to be able to break through a Senate filibuster attempt by the Left and have the Presidency.

Personally, I think those States that still have some hope left for the future should simply defy the courts.  They should geographically draw legislative districts in their upper legislative houses, Congressional Districts, and if they switched from winner-take-all, Electoral College districts (another thing that should be done).  If SCOTUS gets upset, tell them to piss off.

Well said.



Honestly the decision doesn't even stand up to logic let alone Constitutionality. The court said that everything has to be proportional to be fair and that smaller counties shouldn't have the same amount of representation as larger counties because a number of smaller counties could outweigh the vote of a metro area that had a much larger population but was only in a couple counties. Okay, so riddle me this...how is it that Rhode Island has the same number of Senators as California? If you're going by the blanket "one man, one vote, proportionally" guideline that the Court took, then that means that Rhode Island should have 1 Senator and California 14 or so right?. But that's impossible because the Constitution clearly states 2 Senators per state...which leads us back to how the hell did they pass Reynolds v Sims with a straight face?



Yes one is a Federal level legislative issue and the other is a state, but if you're running it up to the USSC and then applying it with a broad brush to all the states, then it clearly makes it a Federal ruling and thereby violates the the Constitution wherein the Founders realized there had to be some basic safeguards against the ability of a larger population center to completely nullify the rest of a constituency even when it was clearly understood that borders (be they states or counties) meant something and regional differences were important to balance against pure population centers be it within states in a union, or counties/districts within a state.



If states could do everything in your last paragraph it would break the cities' hold on legislatures at the state level in many places, and definetly be a step in the right direction when it comes to the electoral votes. But like you said, Democrats will fight it tooth and nail because the only place they clearly win time and time again is with urban centers, and as an extension that bleeds into electoral votes, and they will do everything they can to prevent that from happening.



At least that's how I see it at 0100 with a migraine and insomnia.



 

Because, as originally designed, Senators were not intended to represent people, they were to represent the States.  Two each was by design so that small states would have an equal voice in the Senate with large states.  It's really quite ingenious when you think of it.  

However, once again, the idiots in charge of the country in the early 20th Century fucked that up (like everything else they touched) and turned the Senate into just another populist beauty contest with the 17th Amdt.

Exactly, I was using it as a lead in as to why it was such a bad decision by the court, because one of the arguments in the case was that legislators represented people not territory...yet the Constitution clearly showed that Senators represented territory.





I'm with you on the 17th Amendment too, the guys that wrote the Constitution understood why direct democracy at every level was a very bad idea. But to a liberal like Wilson, that didn't matter because the country was becoming more urban and changing it would help his party out. Even if it basically took a shit all over the original intent as to how Congress would operate. Right now the main difference between the Houses is the number of bums (literally) that each state gets to sit on seats in each one.
 

Yeah, the court basically said that the plan of government prescribed for the national government is unconstitutional if applied by the states, because it conflicted with Warren's political theory that "the conception of political equality from the Declaration of Independence, to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, to the Fifteenth, Seventeenth and Nineteenth Amendments can mean only one thing--one person, one vote."  Warren's reasoning in general is poor and includes statements like, "the 15t and 19th amendments prohibit a state from overweighting or diluting votes on the basis of race or sex.  How then can one person be given twice or ten times the voting power of another person...merely because he lives in a rural area?"  Those amendments say nothing about the weight of votes, just that the franchise shall not be denied on those particular bases, and gives only Congress the power to remedy the situation if that is violated.  It says nothing at all about voters in rural areas or other things identified by Warren as "issues."  And again, it flies in the face of the fact that the Senate arrangement was constitutional but violated this political principle that Warren was writing into the constitution.

I like Robert Bork's criticism of the decision: "Chief Justice Warren's opinions in this series of [state legislative apportionment] cases are remarkable in their inability to muster a single respectable supporting argument.  The principle of one man, one vote...runs counter to the text of the fourteenth amendment, the history surrounding its adoption and ratification and the political practice of Americans from Colonial times up to the day the Court invented the new formula."

And yeah, the States that need the fix the most are the ones which will not adopt it because of the political circumstances created there in the first place.  It was done to get the Left in power, and now that they have it, they will not allow it to be diminished.  But Republicans in the swing States that they controul would be well advised to take action, and as the demographics shift more and more, more Republican-controlled States would be once again well-advised to reconstitute their governments in this way.  Such would halt the march against liberty for a good while.  And if Congressional Districts were drawn geographically, e.g. having each district represent an approximately equal number of counties within each State, the House would be solidly Republican; the Electoral College would be a tougher nut for Democrats to crack if the Republican-controlled swing States were to have their Electors chosen on such a basis.  Based on modeling that I did, a State like Virginia would mostly go Red in a Presidential Election, as would a State like Florida.  And this is modeling using electoral statistics favourable towards Democrats.

What is especially ingenious about the constitution of government is that a lot of it was the result of compromise, and not central design.  There were competing legislative models.  Some wanted the whole legislature to be popularly based, some wanted the whole legislature to treats States equally or nearly so, some wanted to just abolish the States altogether, and other things, but we got what we got.  The Senate is a reflection of State sovereignty, granting those governments representation, a check on the people by being non-popular, a check on the rest of the national government by the state governments, and an aristocratic body that it was hoped would have the patience, wisdom, and longevity such as to make it at least somewhat analogous to the House of Lords.

How soon some forget (if they ever knew).

That has been tried before. The last time, the 101st came to town. Guess who prevailed?

Is the 101st going to redraw districts, print ballots, and go to every polling precinct in every State that's going to do it?  Ridiculous notion.  They were used to deal with a much narrower situationn back then, and were in that case also enforcing an unconstitutional ruling.  Although, it should be said that the reason why some of the Founders supported a strong State militia was to deter and if necessary stand up to such Federal usurpations.  Those who support increased centralization were often opposed to the very idea of State militias.

The idea that the states are going to defy the Federal government certainly is a ridiculous notion, nearly as ridiculous as the idea that the franchise will someday be restricted.
First, the politicians who run the states agree with most of what the Federal government does. They sometimes complain about some actions to fool the rubes. Obviously, it works
Second, the politicians who run the states are addicted to federal dollars. It is money they get to spend but don't have to raise through taxes on their citizens. The best possible outcome for a politician. Defying the federal government would risk being cut off from the flow of dollars. That's not going to happen.

The discussion is about what should be done, not what is likely to be done, and what law is bad law.  Perhaps if you paid more attention you would have noticed that.