Baker V. Carr - Aftermath

Aftermath

Having declared redistricting issues justiciable in Baker, the court laid out a new test for evaluating such claims. The Court formulated the famous "one person, one vote" standard under American jurisprudence for legislative redistricting, holding that each individual had to be weighted equally in legislative apportionment; this principle was formally enunciated in the 1964 case Reynolds v. Sims. The Court decided that in states with bicameral legislatures both houses had to be apportioned on this standard, voiding the provision of the Arizona Constitution which had provided for two state senators from each county and similar provisions elsewhere. (Even the Tennessee Constitution, enforcement of which was the original basis for the case, has a provision which prevented counties from being split and portions of a county being attached to other counties or parts of counties in the creation of a district which was overridden, and today counties are frequently split among districts in forming Tennessee State Senate districts.) However, "One person, one vote" was first applied as a standard for Congressional districts.

Baker v. Carr and subsequent cases fundamentally altered the nature of political representation in America, requiring not just Tennessee but nearly every state to redistrict during the 1960s, often several times. This re-apportionment increased the political power of urban areas and reduced the influence of more rural areas. After he left the Court, Chief Justice Earl Warren called the Baker v. Carr line of cases the most important in his tenure as Chief Justice.