We revisit one of the most important Supreme Court cases you’ve probably never heard of: Baker v. Carr, a redistricting case from the 1960s, which challenged the justices to consider what might happen if they stepped into the world of electoral politics.
[Archive Reading, The New York Times]: A habitual womanizer, heavy drinker and uncaring parent. Douglas was married four times. Cheating on each of his first three wives with her eventual successor.[Archive Clip, Justice William O. Douglas]: Oh, sure.Suzie Lechtenberg: This is footage from his last marriage, to his wife Kathleen. He was 67. She was 23.Sam Issacharoff: So, yes, yes. That is William Douglas.Mike Seidman: And ...Mike Seidman: …they hated each other. They just despised each other.
Tara Grove: He believed that many matters should be left up to the political process. And that courts should stay out of those issues. Kate Whittaker: Can you imagine? Pushing the plow along in the fields. And then lecturing and arguing cases to the cows, or to the horses, or whatever.Alan Kohn: Oh, and on the side he would hunt. He would hunt squirrels.Alan Kohn: And he amassed, I think, $700.Kate Whittaker: My understanding is that he simultaneously went to law school and high school.Suzie Lechtenberg: Yeah.
[Archive Clip, Justice Charles Whittaker]: I hesitate. You had so many interruptions. But I have a question or two. I wonder if I might have the privilege of asking you?[Archive Clip, Justice Charles Whittaker]: I think it may last … [Archive Clip, Justice John Roberts]: It's my job to call balls and strikes. And not to pitch or bat.Suzie Lechtenberg: Frankly, that seems how a justice should be. That you are approaching it without a political agenda and that you're deciding it.
[Archive Clip, Justice Charles Whittaker]: She was found in her bedroom by a fireman and taken outside. And soon thereafter pronounced dead. Suzie Lechtenberg: He ends up being so undecided on this death penalty case that he forces the Court to delay the vote until the next term. And there were a series of cases like this.Suzie Lechtenberg: Where the law would be fuzzy, ideologies would harden. And Whittaker, he would be right in the middle.
Suzie Lechtenberg: Like Memphis. Because in those 60 years, people had moved to the cities in droves.Suzie Lechtenberg: But the Tennessee State legislature had refused to update its count. And it was still giving more representation to those rural areas.Suzie Lechtenberg: NYU law professor Sam Issacharoff. For people that don't understand it, how does it actually dilute your vote?
[Archive Clip, Justice William O. Douglas]: I say there's nothing in the Constitution of the United States of America that ordains, and nothing in the Constitution of Tennessee that ordains that state government is, and must remain, an agricultural commodity. And there's nothing in either one of those Constitutions that said, it takes 20 city residents to equal one farmer.
Suzie Lechtenberg: If we end up doing this in Tennessee pretty soon we'll be intervening in California.Suzie Lechtenberg: South Carolina. Pretty soon we'll be rewriting the entire U.S. legislative map. Craig Smith: It's a philosophy rooted in the notion that unelected lifetime judges should not be substituting their will for the will of the people's elected representatives.
Doug Smith: The federal court that first heard the case recognized the situation and actually referred to it as an evil. [Archive Clip, Tennessee lawyer]: Is it worse for the legislature of Tennessee not to reapportion? Or is it worse for the Federal District Courts to violate the age old doctrine of separation of powers.
Guy Charles: And fundamentally, electoral representatives knew that if they redrew the lines, that they would be voting themselves out of political power.Guy Charles: So they had an incentive not to do anything about this. Doug Smith: During that first argument, he asked a number of questions that suggested a great deal of sympathy with the plaintiffs.
Craig Smith: And the whole time looking directly at Whittaker. There was one account that I heard where Frankfurter went on for four hours. For hours.Suzie Lechtenberg: This guy.Suzie Lechtenberg: At one point, one of the justices on the liberal side, Justice Hugo Black, he took Whittaker aside. Doug Smith: Interestingly enough, Whittaker said he remained deeply divided. That he'd actually written memos on both sides of the issue.
Alan Kohn: Frankfurter needed desperately. He had to get Whittaker. And he kept after him like a dog after a bone. Trying to persuade them. And that harassing he got, I have to make a point here. It was a nightmare. And I saw the nightmare.Guy Charles: Well, he was a nervous wreck, and like a cat on a hot tin roof.Craig Smith: To try to overcome what he thought was just work-related stress. Well clearly, something was taking hold of him.
Craig Smith: And when Whittaker decided that he really had to get back to work, then his protege would say to him,"No. Just relax. Just take it easy, and get yourself together before you decide to go back."Kent Whittaker: Back to Washington for a few days.Kent Whittaker: We found my father to be really in extremis and I think borderline suicidal.Kent Whittaker: There was an instance in which my brother found my father going upstairs to get a shotgun.
Tara Grove: Well, the thing that I find perhaps most extraordinary, is that less than two weeks after the decision in Baker versus Carr came down.Tara Grove: And Frankfurter's secretary found him sprawled on the floor of his office from a stroke.Tara Grove: And while he was in the hospital, Solicitor General Archibald Cox visited Frankfurter. And Frankfurter, he was in a wheelchair, and could barely speak.
Malaysia Latest News, Malaysia Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Opinion | Union Sabotage at the Supreme CourtFrom WSJopinion: Glacier Northwest v. Teamsters is worth highlighting, because it’s another example of the wild things unions believe they’re entitled to do
Read more »
Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling striking down pro-life laws can be easily fixed by legislature'The Oklahoma Supreme Court decided that three recently enacted pro-life laws violated the state constitution. While abortion advocates are claiming victory, the state legislature can easily correct those narrow decisions.' -Thomas Jipping
Read more »
Hawaii allows more concealed carry after US Supreme Court ruling, but bans guns in most placesHawaii Gov. Josh Green has signed legislation that will allow more people to carry concealed firearms
Read more »
Hawaii allows more concealed carry after US Supreme Court ruling, but bans guns in most placesHawaii Gov. Josh Green on Friday signed legislation that will allow more people to carry concealed firearms but at the same time prohibit people from taking guns to a wide range of places.
Read more »
Hawaii allows more concealed carry after US Supreme Court ruling, but bans guns in most placesHawaii Gov. Josh Green has signed legislation that will allow more people to carry concealed firearms.
Read more »