ABSTRACT
In Colegrove v. Green, 328 US 549, the US Supreme Court refused to decide whether legislative malapportionment violated the Constitution, on the grounds that the issue presented a "political question," which the Court has historically declined to address. In the Colegrove case, residents of Illinois brought suit claiming that because the electoral districts in the state had vastly unequal populations, the apportionment violated the principle that every person's vote should count as much as the next person's. In a closely divided opinion, the Supreme Court held that legislative malapportionment was a "political question" and therefore should not be decided by the courts. In 1962, the Supreme Court overturned its holding in Colegrove v. Green. The Baker decision triggered the famous "reapportionment revolution," as a result of which electoral districts across the country were divided along the "one-person, one-vote" principle announced by the Court in Reynolds v. Sims, 377 US 533.
