Our national government has a bicameral legislature where there is one house representing the people and a second house representing the states.
The states also have bicameral legislatures with one house representing people and a second house representing the counties.
The principle of "One man one vote" is a catchy phrase that is misunderstood. While this principle applies in the House of Representatives and the principle of "One State and Two Votes" applies to representation in the Senate,
Representation in the House of Representatives is based on proportional representation while representation in the senate is based of equal representation.
If representation in both the House and the Senate are based on proportional representation, the senate becomes a second version of the House of Representatives. The courts have ruled in the Reynolds v Sims case that the representatives in both houses of the state legislatures must be apportioned based on the "One man one vote" premise. The court ruled that state senators must represent people rather than counties.
If this ruling was applied to the Federal Government and U.S. Senators were apportioned based on population, the states would no longer be equally represented in the Senate.
When the urban counties in a state control the state assembly and the rural counties control the senate, all legislation must be approved of both houses. When the metropolitan counties control both houses, the voice of the people in the rural counties is irrelevant.
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If the Court has ruled that representation in the state legislative bodies must consist of districts nearly equal in size. While the principle of "One man one vote" applies in legislatures at the state level, but not the national level. In the state of Montana, 989,000 people are equal to 553,000 people living in Wyoming,
Districts is the State legislatures are required by law to be nearly equal in size to every other district in their states, but the legislative districts in other states are not required to be nearly equal in size.
The principle of "One man one vote" needs to guarantee that all Congressional Districts in all of the states need to be nearly equal in size.
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Keith,
You make a good point, but that isn't even the tip of the iceberg. Equal size is one thing, but our founding fathers are rolling over in their respective graves because of the size of today's districts.
When I get the argument that "exceed" can be lawfully misconstrued to mean "no more than" and only that, I cannot disagree more vehemently and am forced to consider the second definition of the word exceed, to whit;
"...to go beyond what is allowed or stipulated by a set limit, especially of (going beyond) one's authority.
Therefore, if Article I, 2, 3 says "...one for every thirty Thousand,..", then I automatically lean to the people and must interpret that to mean SHALL NOT EXCEED!
There's the real problem!
Congressional Districts are now about 750,000 and growing without end? That was not the intent of Article I, Section 2, Clause 3, nor the intent of the first census, the second census , the third nor was it intended to tell the people to sit down and shut up.
Why does this law NOT apply today?
Reapportionment Act of 1929
The Reapportionment Act of 1929 (ch. 28, 46 Stat. 21, 2 U.S.C. § 2a) was a combined census and apportionment bill passed by the United States Congress on June 18, 1929, that established a permanent method for apportioning a constant 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives according to each census.
This act would have to be repealed and possibly a constitutional amendment passed in order to do so.
I would say unlawfully "passed by Congress on June 18th, 1929."
And all it established is that the people are asleep at the wheel; Have been since about 1830. That's the last time Representation was reasonable at around 40,000 people per district. This is the issue that began to split the states, north and south and along with severe, uneven taxation of the southern states was the real cause of the Civil War.
That aside, messing with Representation in the people's House is not one of the enumerated powers in Article I, Section 8. Therefore it is unlawful and unconstitutional.
What, realistically, can we do about it?
Voting sure doesn't work, nor does writing anyone.
I believe you could start HERE and tell me what you think.