[EL] FW: Re: The Supreme Court's Decision to Decide Whether It's One Person, One Vote or One Voter, One Vote

[David Ely]

I always like to look at the Federalist Papers when thinking about issues like this (when I should be doing something else).  Here are a couple of extracts:

 

Federalist #39

The House of Representatives will derive its powers from the people of America; and the people will be represented in the same proportion, and on the same principle, as they are in the legislature of a particular State. So far the government is NATIONAL, not FEDERAL. The Senate, on the other hand, will derive its powers from the States, as political and coequal societies; and these will be represented on the principle of equality in the Senate, as they now are in the existing Congress. So far the government is FEDERAL, not NATIONAL.



This makes clear that the apportionment logic for House of Representatives was intended to be the same as for State legislatures, while the Senate was a different thing entirely.

 

Federalist #54

It is not contended that the number of people in each State ought not to be the standard for regulating the proportion of those who are to represent the people of each State.
...


It is a fundamental principle of the proposed Constitution, that as the aggregate number of representatives allotted to the several States is to be determined by a federal rule, founded on the aggregate number of inhabitants, so the right of choosing this allotted number in each State is to be exercised by such part of the inhabitants as the State itself may designate. The qualifications on which the right of suffrage depend are not, perhaps, the same in any two States. In some of the States the difference is very material.

In every State, a certain proportion of inhabitants are deprived of this right by the constitution of the State, who will be included in the census by which the federal Constitution apportions the representatives.
...

 

The “fundamental principle”  is representation apportioned by total population, regardless of number eligible to vote.  Main point of this paper is that this principle was not in dispute but that inclusion of slaves in the total population was, and that the 3/5th rule was a compromise which treated them as “debased by servitude below the equal level of free inhabitants”.  Plaintiff in the case at hand wish to require that non-voters be treated as  debased by the lack of suffrage to 0.  While it makes sense to consider the Equal Protection Clause to require States to grant suffrage according to consistent rules, it makes no sense to interpret it to require States to  eliminate apportionment of representation for those not granted suffrage.

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