Supreme Court Refuses to Get Involved in Dispute Over Size of U.S. House of Representatives

Following up on this post, the Supreme Court has rejected the appeal in Clemons v. U.S. on the size of the U.S. House. When I wrote last night about a possible cert. denial, I had forgotten that this was an appeal from a three-judge court, meaning that the court does not grant cert or deny cert in such cases. It usually issues either a summary disposition (affirming or reversing) or notes probable jurisdiction and sets the case for argument.

Today, the Court did something a bit different in its summary disposition: it vacated the earlier judgment and directed the district court to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction. Apparently the Court views questions about the size of the U.S. House as a political question, and did not want to keep the three-judge court's opinion, which includes a lengthy historical and political analysis of the size of the House on the books. This is true even though the district court agreed with the government that the suit should be dismissed.