Last year, a lawsuit was filed arguing that the disparity in U.S. House districts violates the 14th amendment. Montana has one U.S. House seat and contains approximately 900,000 residents. Wyoming has one U.S. House seat and contains approximately 500,000 residents. Plaintiffs argue that “one person, one vote” principles must apply to U.S. House districts, and that Congress is constitutionally required to create greater equality in the population of U.S. House districts.
Congress could create greater equality of population either by providing that U.S. House districts need not necessarily align with state boundaries, or it could increase the number of members of the U.S. House. Plaintiffs argue that one or the other of these solutions is required. The case is Clemons v U.S. Department of Commerce, 3:09-cv-104, filed in the Northern District of Mississippi. The briefs in this interesting case are posted at www.apportionment.us. See here. The latest brief was filed in February.
The web page also includes articles about the case. The case was filed in Mississippi because Mississippi is home to some of the plaintiffs, and because Mississippi U.S. House districts are substantially more populous than the average U.S. House district. Other states that are injured include Delaware and South Dakota. Utah is also currently injured but Utah’s injury is almost certainly going to be alleviated after the 2010 census and the 2011 reapportionment.
as I write this post Chris Strunk is filing such (expanding number of house seats) as an OP (original proceeding) at USCA-DC Circuit as well as also today filing a separate interpleader civil action (with its on CV number to be assigned also today) related to Taitz v Obama USDC-DC 10-cv-0151 quo warranto in front of USDC-DC chief justice Lamberth.
One more brain dead MORON case.
14th Amdt, Sec. 2.
The Supremes approved the use of the method of equal proportions to apportion the gerrymander seats.
How about the 2 U.S.A. Senators per gerrymander State — a TOTAL subversion of one person, one vote ???
P.R. and nonpartisan A.V. — to END the EVIL mess.
I have no problem with increasing the size of the House to roughly 450 members or something like that.
Plaintiffs definitely do not argue for interstate districts.
The plaintiffs brief asserts that there are the following constitutional requirements:
• *no district may be composed of fewer than 30,000 persons,
• no state shall have fewer than one representative,
• a district cannot cross state lines, and
• population variances in legislative districts are tolerated only if they “are unavoidable despite a good-faith effort to achieve absolute equality, or for which justification is shown.”
Since there is no constitutional requirement for election of representatives from districts, these can be restated as:
• *the number of persons per representative for a state may not be fewer than 30,000 persons.
• no state shall have fewer than one representative,
• a representative can only represent persons of one state, and
• population variances in the number of persons per representative are tolerated only if they “are unavoidable despite a good-faith effort to achieve absolute equality, or for which justification is shown.”
The plaintiffs have not shown that the maintenance of the same number of representatives (435) since 1910 has resulted in increasing inequality, so they are probably stuck with showing that all apportionment since 1790 has been unconstitutional.
Plaintiffs have not shown that either of their Plans A or Plan B would produce a remotely stable size for the House of Representatives. In effect, they would invite continued litigated after every census, demanding addition of several 100s of representatives after one census and elimination of several 100 after the next.
* Arguably, George Washington, on the basis of bad advice from Thomas Jefferson, misinterpreted this provision of the Constitution as being applicable to each state, rather than the total number of representatives, when he vetoed the more equitable apportionment plan originally approved by Congress.
The nearly DEAD Constitution has NO MAXIMUM population per gerrymander seat — as can be detected by anybody with some operational brain cells — unlike MORON plaintiffs.
Obviously in ALL methods there are some States with fractions near 0.5 that can NOT get the last marginal added seat — with the census population stuff.
P.R. and nonpartisan A.V. = REDUCE the mob scene in the U.S.A. House of Reps. (which seriously got going in 1873, repeat 1873 — due to the 13th Amdt and 14th Amdt, Sec. 2 — i.e. a HIGHER percentage of the gerrymander seats in the ex-slave States). Thus more seats added for northern / western Elephants back then.
#4: Where is the Constitutional provision that the size of the U.S. House must be a ‘stable’ number? What am I missing?
Alternatively, the Constitution does permit the admission of new states carved from the territory of existing states with the consent of the state(s) affected and the Congress. See Section 3 of Article IV.
Enlarging the number of states would ease the inequality of districts between states.
Or, just Call a Constitutional Convention to focus the minds of the people on the decrepitude of what now passes for a constitution.
#6 The plaintiffs agree that the current apportionment scheme is constitutional with respect to no more than one representative per 30,000 persons; at least one representative per person; and no interstate representatives. What they disagree is whether the variance between states in constitutional.
In particular they want the court to apply the same standard to interstate apportionment as is used for intrastate districting:
• population variances in legislative districts are tolerated only if they “are unavoidable despite a good-faith effort to achieve absolute equality, or for which justification is shown.â€
The plaintiffs have suggested a standard that they consider tolerable. Meeting that standard in one decade might require a House with 1760 members, and in the next decade 2800, and then the next decade 2300. And what would be the justification for stopping at 1760, when 9000 would reduce the variances even more?
Enlarging the number of states in general would increase the inequality of districts between states.
check out this related census litigation case
http://www.scribd.com/doc/28894349/STRUNK-s-DC-Circuit-Petition-for-Writ-of-Mandamus-for-Census-w-Exhibits-and-Endnotes-DCC-10-5077-OP