> > Pre-1962, one could have posed the same question with respect to state
> > governments. At the time, it was quite common for states to have the
> > lower house apportioned by population, and the upper house apportioned
> > on some roughly geographical basis (in tennesse, for example, simply by
> > not making any changes in district lines since 1901). That year, the
> > Supreme Court ruled (Baker v. Carr) that this practice was
> > un-Constitutional. Nowadays, both upper and lower houses in state
> > legislatures have population-based distrists.
> > Paul Rosenberg
>
> point is correct although court case cited is incorrect....
>
> SC ruled in *Baker v Carr* (1962) that reapportionent of Tennessee
> House of Representatives was judicial issue (a 1946 court had
> refused to act on apportionment question in *Colegrove v Green* on
> grounds that it was 'political question')...Baker decision eventually
> forced all states to reapportion lower houses and adhere to principle
> of equal numbers of people (if memory serves, 3% plus or minus is
> allowed) in all legislative districts...ruling did not, however,
> clearly establish whether requirements for equal representation
> applied to both houses...
You're right, Micahel. I was trying to avoid going into all the detail, and losing the main point, and I inadvertantly over-telescoped the process.
I should have written "That year's Supreme Court rulling Baker v. Carr quickly lead to this practice being found un-Constitutional."
Once the Court found that it WAS a matter for the courts to decide--as it did in Baker--the eventual outcome was a foregone conclusion, and everyone involved knew it.
The original point -- to reitterate it -- is that Margaret's objections were "the conventional wisdom" on the state level up until 1962, when they were suddenly thrown out, to be replaced by a new "conventional wisdom" without any appreciable memory that things were ever any different.
The same would very likely happen if we federalized the Seante and elected them all nationwide. In 35 years people would look at you funny if you repeated Margaret's statement to them, and mayber even begin to draw their children closer to them as slow edge away...
-- Paul Rosenberg Reason and Democracy rad at gte.net
"Let's put the information BACK into the information age!"