Jordan v. Silver
The Supreme Court summarily affirmed a federal district court ruling that struck down California's state Senate districting system, which had allocated seats partly by county and geography instead of strictly by population.
The decision applied the Court's recent one-person-one-vote rulings to California's decades-old 'federal plan' Senate, even though state voters had approved and repeatedly reaffirmed that system at the ballot box.
How it got here: A federal district court ruled California's Senate apportionment unconstitutional; the State Senate appealed directly to the Supreme Court, which summarily affirmed.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Since 1926, California voters had approved a "federal plan" for the state Senate, giving each county at least some representation regardless of population, so that Los Angeles County and California's three smallest counties combined each had one senator. Voters rejected several later attempts to change this system. Challengers sued, arguing the scheme violated the constitutional guarantee of equal representation, and the California Senate defended the arrangement on appeal.
The question before the Court
Could California keep electing its state Senate under a "federal plan" that gave seats by county and area rather than strictly by population, even though voters had repeatedly approved it?
Why it matters
California had to redraw its state Senate districts on a population basis, shifting political power toward the state's fast-growing cities and away from rural counties that had long held outsized influence in the upper chamber. The ruling showed that even a system voters had approved multiple times could not survive the Court's new population-equality requirement.
What changes now
The summary affirmance leaves in place the district court's ruling that California's Senate apportionment is unconstitutional, meaning the state must redraw its Senate districts on a population basis. The Court's brief order does not specify what remedy the district court may order or which parts of the state constitution's apportionment provisions remain valid, leaving those questions for further proceedings below.
What this does not decide
Justice Harlan's concurrence notes that the affirmance does not address what relief the district court may ultimately order, nor does it settle how much of the California Constitution's apportionment provisions remain binding on the legislature as it drafts a new districting plan.
Concurrences and dissents
How the Justices voted
Separate writings (1). Justice Harlan (author of a concurrence).
Concurrence — Justice Harlan
“The Court today summarily affirms the decree of the District Court holding this senatorial apportionment, consistently approved by a majority of the people of California voting in general elections, to be invalid under the decisions of this Court in Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U. S. 533, and companion cases.”Harlan describes the majority's summary affirmance striking down California's voter-approved Senate apportionment.
Justice Harlan reluctantly agreed with the result only because he found it squarely controlled by Lucas v. Forty-fourth General Assembly, decided the prior Term. He stressed that California's apportionment system was the product of a flexible, direct democratic process that voters had repeatedly and knowingly approved, and suggested he would have preferred to consider the case more fully if there were any room under the Court's precedents to let voters choose their own legislative structure. Read the full concurrence →
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court applied its recently announced rule that both chambers of a state legislature must be apportioned substantially on the basis of population, the core requirement from Reynolds v. Sims and its companion cases decided the prior Term.
- Because California's Senate districts were deliberately drawn to favor counties and geographic area over population, similar to the design of the United States Senate, the arrangement conflicted with this population-based standard for state legislative chambers.
- The Court treated Lucas v. Forty-fourth General Assembly, a companion case that struck down a similar federal-style state senate plan even after it had been approved by popular referendum, as controlling and indistinguishable from California's situation.
- Because popular approval of an apportionment plan does not exempt it from the population-equality requirement, the Court concluded the lower court's ruling invalidating California's Senate districts was correct.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Reynolds v. Sims (377 U.S. 533)
The Court relied on this decision's rule that both legislative chambers must be apportioned by population.
Reaffirms Lucas v. Forty-fourth General Assembly (377 U.S. 713)
The Court treated this decision as controlling and requiring the same result for California's similar plan.