Mr. Beat presents
Supreme Court Briefs
Millington, Tennessee 1961
Charles Baker, a member of the Millington Board of Aldermen and former mayor of the town, was
frustrated. For decades, he and his fellow Shelby County residents had felt helpless as they got
less and less government assistance and less and less representation in government. You see, Shelby
County is part of the Memphis metropolitan area, and its population had DRAMATICALLY grown since
1901. Tennessee, and the entire country overall, had become MUCH more urban in that timespan.
Wait, why did I randomly bring up the year 1901? Well that was the year the Tennessee
General Assembly had last redrawn legislative and congressional districts! Now, the Tennessee State
Constitution said all districts had to be redrawn every ten years…ya know, after the census…to make
it so that every district had as equal number of people living in it as possible. Well,
as I said earlier, in the 50 years since the Tennessee General Assembly last redrew districts,
the population had shifted in a way that Shelby County had about ten times as many residents
as some of the rural districts of the state. The Memphis, Nashville, and Knoxville metropolitan
areas had 63% of the population of the state but only 13 of the 33 state senate seats. In
other words, the votes of rural citizens were way overrepresented compared to those of urban
citizens of the state. Baker wasn’t the only one mad about it, bruh. After the Tennessee
government refused to redraw districts again after the 1960 census results, he and a bunch of people
sued them. Well specifically, they sued Joe Carr, a state official in charge of Tennessee elections.
Baker argued that the votes of Tennesseans who lived in urban areas didn’t count nearly
as much as the votes of Tennesseans who lived in rural areas. Simply put,
the Tennessee legislature didn’t reflect the state's population, and this went against the
Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, and dangit,
every vote should be counted equally! One person, one vote, and stuff.
Well Carr was like “heh, heh, heh” because he had precedent on his side. You see,
the Supreme Court had historically not got involved with what state governments
did when it came to “political questions.” Political questions are ones that involve,
ya know, politics, or how power is distributed, and the Court had consistently tried to stay
as apolitical as possible…meaning if a case was too political they didn’t want to touch it.
But come on. Almost everything is political, for crying out.
Anyway, the Supreme Court had brought up what became known as the “political question
doctrine” in several cases before 1961. The most relevant case to the Tennessee government’s
shenanigans was Colegrove v. Green, decided in 1946. In it, the Supreme Court
ruled that it couldn’t step in after the Illinois government hadn’t redrawn ITS
congressional districts since 1901, which led to rural votes counting way more than urban votes.
And I call not drawing up new districts “shenanigans” not only since it went
against the Tennessee Constitution, but in the context of the Civil Rights Movement. You see,
the Tennessee government knew what it was doing. It was giving more power to
the rural parts of the state because those parts were more “white,” and it was giving
less power to the urban parts of the state which had more people of color.
Well, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee dismissed the lawsuit,
saying it couldn’t do anything because it was a political question and citing the Colegrove
case. So, Baker appealed to the Supreme Court, and boy were they nervous to take it on because
they knew whatever they decided would be a big freaking deal, but they agreed to anyway, hearing
oral arguments on April 19th and 20th, 1961. That’s right, TWO DAYS. And apparently that wasn’t
long enough, because the justices just couldn’t settle on an answer to the question: “Should we,
as the Supreme Court, have the power to step in over questions of legislative apportionment?” They
argued back and forth, with justices Hugo Black, William Douglas, Earl Warren, and William Brennan
on the “yes” side and Felix Frankfurter, John Harlan, and Tom Clark on the “no” side. Justices
Potter Stewart and Charles Evans Whittaker were the swing votes. They just didn’t know
what side to choose, man. They DID know that if they said “yes,” the implications would be huge.
The pressure was too much for Whittaker, so he disappeared. Seriously. He left Washington,
D.C. and retreated to a cabin in a remote Michigan forest. But solitude didn’t improve his health
much, and he eventually suffered a nervous breakdown and apparently became suicidal.
Whitaker did return to the Court when they reconvened in the fall. They heard
more oral arguments on October 9th. Flash forward
to March 1962 and Frankfurter had convinced Whittaker to join the “no” side. However,
by that time, Whittaker’s mental health was in such poor shape that he checked into Walter Reed
Hospital. He would never return to the Court, and officially retired from it a few days later.
And here’s the thing, as it turns out, they didn’t even need Whitaker’s vote
since not only Potter Stewart, but also Tom Clark had shifted to the “yes” side.
On March 26th, the Court had announced that it had sided with Baker. It was
6-2 since Whittaker’s name was removed from the dissenting opinions. So yeah, the Court
ruled that they DID have the authority to rule on questions of legislative reapportionment.
This, along with other future cases, created the basis for the ONE PERSON, ONE VOTE doctrine,
which said that states had to at least try their very best to divide up their representatives in
a way that represented ALL citizens equally so that NO votes counted any more or less than any
other vote. In other words, the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause DID imply that every
vote ought to count equally. Following this decision and other future decisions,
most states had to redraw up their districts to make sure that rural votes
didn’t count more than urban votes. While this did lead to much more equal representation,
one unintended consequence of this decision was it leading to more gerrymandering,
which is arguably a bigger problem today than it ever has been, although the Court did address
racial gerrymandering in the case Shaw v. Reno. Yes I have a video about that case. Check it out.
And finally, this case made it so that the Court would likely be much more busy from now on.
Before this decision, the Court avoided getting involved with political questions.
Now, it was clear oh they gettin’ involved alright, although justice Brennan did identify
six situations in which the Court would NOT look at political questions, and here they are:
(yeah I’m not reading that. You can pause this and read it if you want to) But yeah,
basically from now on the Court would jump in on some kinds of politics in SOME cases, alright?
Baker v. Carr is one of the most important Supreme Court cases in American history.
It really opened up the floodgates. Although the Court has always been at least somewhat political,
I’d argue this case made it much more political. I’d also argue that no
Supreme Court case in American history has ever tested our justices more so
than this case. I mean, it led to one justice having a nervous breakdown, for crying out loud.
I’ll see you for the next Supreme Court case, jury!
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So this was another landmark Supreme Court case, which just means it was freaking important…ya
know, had a lot of impact. Believe it or not, there are other landmark decisions that
I have yet to cover for this series. Which one should I cover next? Let me know down below. Oh,
and if you’re in school watching this right now you ought to turn to your teacher and tell them
they’re doing a wonderful job. It’s not easy being a teacher. Trust me.