{"id":54753,"date":"2022-02-28T16:47:57","date_gmt":"2022-02-28T21:47:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/content.findlaw-admin.com\/ability-legal\/supreme\/supreme-court-insights\/baker-v-carr-the-political-question-doctrine.html"},"modified":"2022-02-28T16:47:57","modified_gmt":"2022-02-28T21:47:57","slug":"baker-v-carr-the-political-question-doctrine","status":"publish","type":"supreme","link":"https:\/\/supreme.findlaw.com\/supreme-court-insights\/baker-v-carr-the-political-question-doctrine.html","title":{"rendered":"Baker v. Carr: The Political Question Doctrine"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Baker v. Carr: The Political Question Doctrine<\/h1>\n
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\n By Joseph Fawbush, Esq.<\/a> | Legally reviewed by Laura Temme, Esq.<\/a>\n | Last reviewed\n
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The last updated date refers to the last time this article was reviewed by FindLaw or one of our contributing authors<\/a>. We make every effort to keep our articles updated. For information regarding a specific legal issue affecting you, please contact an attorney in your area<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/details>\n<\/section>\n

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The federal judiciary is intended to be the least political branch of the U.S. government. While federal courts cannot help but wade into political matters with regularity, if courts consider a case to be centered on a "political question," it will not take up the case. This is known as the political question or justiciability doctrine.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n\n

One of the most notable cases involving the political question doctrine is\u00a0Baker v. Carr<\/i>, a 1962 opinion in which the U.S. Supreme Court set the standard courts use to weigh justiciability. It involved the issue of legislative apportionment and to what extent federal courts can hear cases over the way states elect lawmakers.
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The Political Question Doctrine<\/h2>\r\n

How best to resolve disputes over legislative apportionment is not a new question. Even at the time of the nation’s founding, questions over how to best represent the will of the people in state legislatures and Congress was a pressing question. That is why Article I, section 4 of the U.S. Constitution allows Congress to pass laws and set conditions on state apportionment plans.\u00a0The Voting Rights Act of 1965<\/a>\u00a0is an example of Congress using its authority under the Constitution to set conditions on state apportionment plans.<\/p>\r\n

Courts have been debating the meaning of the political question doctrine for just as long. In\u00a0Marbury v. Madison<\/a><\/i>, the founding-era opinion that set up judicial review, Chief Justice John Marshall wrote that “Questions, in their nature political, or which are, by the constitution and laws, submitted to the executive, can never be made in this court.” In other words, if the Constitution reserves the question at issue to the Executive or Legislative branches of government, then it is not something that courts have jurisdiction over. It was the beginning of the political question doctrine.<\/p>\r\n

The court would continue to weigh in on the political question doctrine over the years, particularly cases involving redistricting issues. In 1932, for example, the Supreme Court held redistricting plans for three states were unconstitutional because the governors of those states had not signed off on the plans. Those cases are\u00a0Smiley v. Holm<\/a><\/i>,\u00a0Koenig v. Flynn<\/a><\/i>, and\u00a0Carroll v. Becker<\/a><\/i>. However, they did not explicitly say that apportionment was (or was not) a non-justiciable political question.<\/p>\r\n

The most important decision on this issue before\u00a0Baker\u00a0<\/i>was\u00a0Colegrove v. Green<\/a>.\u00a0<\/i>In\u00a0Colegrove<\/i>, a plurality of justices held that a challenge to Illinois’ Congressional reapportionment plan was a non-justiciable issue. Justice Frankfurter wrote the opinion for the plurality. He would go on to write a dissent in\u00a0Baker<\/i>.<\/p>\r\n

Factual Background to Baker v. Carr<\/h2>\r\n

Tennessee passed a law in 1901 to apportion seats for its general assembly, the state’s legislative branch. In the following decades, Tennessee’s population soared, particularly in urban areas such as Memphis. Yet Tennessee’s districts remained unchanged, leading to a situation where one-third of Tennessee residents in rural areas were electing two-thirds of the state’s lawmakers.<\/p>\r\n

Charles Baker, a Tennessee resident, sued the Tennessee Secretary of State in federal court to reapportion the state so that it was more representative of Tennessee’s population, alleging that the law as it stood violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. However, the district court dismissed the case, finding that the court lacked subject matter jurisdiction and the litigation involved a nonjusticiable issue. The case made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which then had to resolve the question: Does the federal judiciary have jurisdiction over questions of state legislative appointments?<\/p>\r\n

The Holding in Baker v. Carr<\/h2>\r\n

The question before the court was whether a state’s apportionment plan was purely a question for the state’s lawmakers to tackle. The Warren Court, in a 6-2 decision, held that federal courts do have jurisdiction over reapportionment issues. The U.S. Constitution gives courts authority over “. . . all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution . . .” Since the complaint alleged that Tennessee’s apportionment law violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, Justice Brennan, writing for the majority, wrote that “it is clear that the cause of action is one which arises under the Federal Constitution.”<\/p>\r\n

Justice Brennan then wrote extensively on precedents that attempted to establish just what the political question doctrine entailed. Broadly, Justice Brennan said political questions are non-justiciable if they involve at least one of the following circumstances:<\/p>\r\n