Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186 (1962)
Author:- J. Self

Facts: States who had not reapportioned since the turn of the century were not required by any federal mandate to do so (because of the Court’s earlier ruling in Colgrove v. Green in which the court dismissed the case on the grounds of reapportionment being a “political question” that court was prevented from answering). As a result, there were huge disparities between the voting power of urban and rural citizens. The plaintiff’s brought suit to force legislatures to reapportion, but made the claim not under the Guaranty Clause like Colgrove, but instead under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause claiming that failure to reapportion led to unequal treatment of voters. Federal District court dismissed their suit relying on Colgrove and claiming that the court had already decided that reapportionment was a political question that it could not decide. The case was appealed to the Supreme Court.

Questions/Issues: 1) Does this case follow the precedents of other cases as to what constitutes a nonjusticiable political question?

Decision: 1) No. By a 6-2 vote, the district court decision was reversed and remanded.

Voting Alignment: (+) ‘Brennan’, Black, Clark, Douglas, Stewart, Warren (-) Frankfurter, Harlan not participating: Whittaker

Reasoning of Opinion: Brennan, for the Court: The Guaranty Clause, by which the cases cited as precedent for this case were decided, is what makes those cases nonjusticiable. The Guaranty Clause involves issues that define a political question and for that reason all claims made under it are nonjusticiable. Since this case does not rest on the Guaranty Clause but on the Equal Protection Clause instead, that separates this case and gives the court the ability to rule differently. Since the complaint’s allegations of a denial of equal protection present a justiciable constitutional cause of action, they are entitled to a trial and decision. Therefore, the Court reversed the decision and remanded it to a lower court for trial.

Policy Implications: 1) In the course of writing his opinion, justice Brennan explicitly determined the ground rules for deciding whether a case presents a political question thereby restricting justices from deciding that case.

Clark, concurring, added that he only considers intervention by the Supreme Court because the people have no other course of relief.

Frankfurter, joined by Harlan, dissenting, reasoned that the case involves all of the elements that made previous cases under the Guaranty Clause non justiciable and therefore refute the distinction the other judges seem to have made between the cases. He claims that the case is not justiciable under any clause of the Constitution by virtue of the fact that federal court is not a forum for public debate. The dissenters also state that the claim of discrimination is not valid since they are merely being deprived of their share of political influence, and should the districts be reapportioned, they are always bound to favor some groups over others.