CONSTITUTIONAL LAW-STATE APPORTIONMENT FOR CONGRESSIONAL ELECTIONS-JUSTICIABILITY OF ISSUE

Authors

L. B. Brody S.Ed., University of Michigan Law SchoolFollow

Abstract

Petitioners, three qualified Illinois voters, filed a proceeding in a United States district court composed of three judges, seeking a determination under the Federal Declaratory Judgment Act that the 1901 State Apportionment Act of Illinois was in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment and Article I of the Constitution, in that it denied to citizens of the United States the equal and unabridged right to vote for Congressmen. On direct appeal to the Supreme Court of a dismissal of the petition by the lower court, the complaint alleged that the statute apportioning the State of Illinois was void in that it failed to provide for compactness of territory and approximate equality of population, with the result of a substantial disparity between the effectiveness of petitioners' votes in their heavily populated districts as compared to those of voters living in more sparsely populated districts. Held, affirmed. The complaint was properly dismissed for want of equity: "due regard for the effective workings of our Government revealed this issue to be of a peculiarly political nature and therefore not meet for judicial determination." Justices Douglas and Murphy joined in Justice Black's dissent. Colegrove v. Green, (U.S. 1946) 66 S. Ct. 1198.

Recommended Citation

L. B. Brody S.Ed., CONSTITUTIONAL LAW-STATE APPORTIONMENT FOR CONGRESSIONAL ELECTIONS-JUSTICIABILITY OF ISSUE, 45 Mich. L. Rev. 368 (1947).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol45/iss3/9