Originally, states were free to re-district as they wished. Some states, such as California and Nevada, followed a “Federal Plan” for their state Senates. For example, each county in Nevada had one state Senator regardless of population; in another case, Los Angeles County had only one of forty state Senate seats despite holding 1/3 of the state’s population. This was struck down by the Supreme Court in the 1960’s under the mantra of “one person, one vote”. But just what does that phrase mean:
“A half-century after the Supreme Court declared the democratic ideal that the voters within a state should be equal to each other, it has indicated that it is finally ready to say how that should be measured. ‘One person, one vote’ was a very simple constitutional slogan. But what does it mean, in the real world of sorting out election opportunity?
“Next Tuesday, December 8, the Court will take up the case of Evenwel v. Abbott, a Texas case in which two voters have complained that, because they were placed in two state senate districts with many other voters, their votes count for less than those in other districts with fewer voters eligible to go to the polls.”
The problem is when the Supreme Court used population overall and voters interchangeably:
“Actually, when the Supreme Court in the 1964 decision in Reynolds v. Sims first mandated equality, it used the idea of population and voters interchangeably. ‘The overriding objective,’ it said, ‘must be substantial equality among the various districts, so that the vote of any citizen is approximately equal in weight to that of any other citizen in the state.’
“…
” Because each district would elect only one state senator, the power of each voter’s ballot would be greater in those districts with fewer actual or potential voters, than those who wound up in districts with larger numbers of voters. For those in the latter group, their votes were said to be diluted — each ballot had less electoral clout when cast.”
Considering that the original decisions of Reynolds v. Sims and Wesberry v. Sanders were about one person’s vote having less weight than another person’s vote, the drawing of districts to equalize the weight and impact of each voter would seem to be paramount such that “one person” would have “one vote” proportionate to others.
However there are arguments to the contrary, some of which are ridiculous. Paramount amongst that is the strange idea that equal representation based on the number of warm bodies in a particular district translates to “one man, one vote“, especially since a denial of unequal representation based on persons does not translate to an unequal representation of voters.
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