Reynolds v. Sims
Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533 (1964), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that the electoral districts of state legislative chambers must be roughly equal in population. Along with Baker v. Carr (1962) and Wesberry v. Sanders (1964), it was part of a series of Warren Court cases that applied the principle of "one person, one vote" to U.S. legislative bodies.
| Reynolds v. Sims | |
|---|---|
| Argued November, 1963 Decided June 15, 1964 | |
| Full case name | Reynolds, Judge, et al. v. Sims, et al. |
| Citations | 377 U.S. 533 (more) 84 S. Ct. 1362; 12 L. Ed. 2d 506; 1964 U.S. LEXIS 1002 |
| Argument | Oral argument |
| Case history | |
| Prior | Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama |
| Holding | |
| State senate districts must have roughly equal populations based on the principle of "one person, one vote". | |
| Court membership | |
| |
| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Warren, joined by Black, Douglas, Brennan, White, Goldberg |
| Concurrence | Clark |
| Concurrence | Stewart |
| Dissent | Harlan |
| Laws applied | |
| U.S. Const. amend. XIV (Equal Protection Clause) | |
This case overturned a previous ruling or rulings | |
| Colegrove v. Green, 328 U.S. 549 (1946) (in part) | |
Prior to the case, numerous state legislative chambers had districts containing unequal populations; for example, in the Nevada Senate, the smallest district had 568 people, while the largest had approximately 127,000 people. Some states refused to engage in regular redistricting, while others enshrined county by county representation (like the U.S. constitution does with state by state representation) in their constitutions. The case of Reynolds v. Sims arose after voters in Birmingham, Alabama, challenged the apportionment of the Alabama Legislature; the Constitution of Alabama provided for one state senator per county regardless of population differences.
In a majority opinion joined by five other justices, Chief Justice Earl Warren ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause requires states to establish state legislative electoral districts roughly equal in population. Warren held that "legislators represent people, not trees or acres. Legislators are elected by voters, not farms or cities or economic interests." In his dissenting opinion, Associate Justice John Marshall Harlan II argued that the Equal Protection Clause was not designed to apply to voting rights. The decision had a major impact on state legislatures, as many states had to change their system of representation.