U.S. Supreme Court

Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S. 1 (1964)

Wesberry v. Sanders

No. 22

Argued November 18-19, 1963

Decided February 17, 1964

376 U.S. 1

Syllabus

Appellants are qualified voters in Georgia’s Fifth Congressional District, the population of which is two to three times greater than that of some other congressional districts in the State. Since there is only one Congressman for each district, appellants claimed debasement of their right to vote resulting from the 1931 Georgia apportionment statute and failure of the legislature to realign that State’s congressional districts more nearly to equalize the population of each. They brought this class action under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1988 and 28 U.S.C. § 1343(3), asking that the apportionment statute be declared invalid and that appellees, the Governor and Secretary of State, be enjoined from conducting elections under it. A three-judge District Court, though recognizing the gross population imbalance of the Fifth District in relation to the other districts, dismissed the complaint for “want of equity.”

Held:

1. As in Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186, which involved alleged malapportionment of seats in a state legislature, the District Court had jurisdiction of the subject matter; appellants had standing to sue, and they had stated a justiciable cause of action on which relief could be granted. Pp. 376 U. S. 5-6.

2. A complaint alleging debasement of the right to vote as a result of a state congressional apportionment law is not subject to

Page 376 U. S. 2

dismissal for “want of equity” as raising a wholly “political” question. Pp. 376 U. S. 6-7.

3. The constitutional requirement in Art. I, § 2,that Representatives be chosen “by the People of the several States” means that, as nearly as is practicable, one person’s vote in a congressional election is to be worth as much as another’s. Pp. 376 U.S. 7-8, 376 U. S. 18.

206 F. Supp. 276, reversed and remanded.

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1801 – The U.S. House of Representatives broke an electoral tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr. Jefferson was elected president and Burr became vice president.

1817 – The first gaslit streetlights appeared on the streets of Baltimore, MD.

1865 – Columbia, SC, burned. The Confederates were evacuating and the Union Forces were moving in.

1876 – Julius Wolff was credited with being the first to can sardines.

1878 – In San Francisco, CA, the first large city telephone exchange opened. It had only 18 phones.

1897 – The National Congress of Mothers was organized in Washington, DC, by Alice McLellan Birney and Phoebe Apperson Hearst. It was the forerunner of the National PTA.

1913 – The Armory Show opened at the 69th Regiment Armory in New York City. The full-scale exhibition was of contemporary paintings and was organized by the Association of Painters and Sculptors.

1924 – Swimmer Johnny Weissmuller set a world record in the 100-yard freestyle. He did it with a time of 57-2/5 seconds in Miami, FL.

1933 – “Newsweek” was first published.

1933 – Blondie Boopadoop married Dagwood Bumstead three years after Chic Young’s popular strip first debuted.

1934 – The first high school automobile driver’s education course was introduced in State College, PA.

1944 – During World War II, the Battle of Eniwetok Atoll began. U.S. forces won the battle on February 22, 1944.

1947 – The Voice of America began broadcasting to the Soviet Union.

1964 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that congressional districts within each state had to be approximately equal in population. (Westberry v. Sanders)

1965 – Comedienne Joan Rivers made her first guest appearances on ” The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson” on NBC-TV.

1968 – The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame opened in Springfield, MA.

1985 – U.S. Postage stamp prices were raised from 20 cents to 22 cents for first class mail.

1992 – In Milwaukee, serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was sentenced to life in prison. In November of 1994, he was beaten to death in prison.

1995 – Colin Ferguson was convicted of six counts of murder in the December 1993 Long Island Rail Road shootings. He was later sentenced to a minimum of 200 years in prison.

1996 – World chess champion Garry Kasparov beat the IBM supercomputer “Deep Blue” in Philadelphia, PA.

1997 – Pepperdine University announced that Kenneth Starr was leaving the Whitewater probe to take a full-time job at the school. Starr reversed the announcement four days later.

2005 – U.S. President George W. Bush named John Negroponte as the first national intelligence director.

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Please Oppose SB 6239 — It Reduces Transparency and Harms Washington Residents

Message: Dear Democratic Legislators,

I am writing to urge you to oppose SB 6239. This bill would require mandatory arbitration for tort claims against state and local government entities, moving these cases out of public courts and into private proceedings.

Arbitration limits transparency, restricts discovery, and reduces the ability of ordinary people to hold government agencies accountable. When the government is the defendant, the public deserves more openness—not less. This bill would disproportionately harm families, Women, students, seniors, and vulnerable individuals who rely on a fair legal process to seek justice.

Please stand with Washington residents and reject SB 6239.

Thank you for your service.

Sincerely, [Your Name] [City or ZIP]

This is just a sample … but this is NOT what WA state should support … This state has a lot of flaws; this bill is an outright violation of Transparency and seemingly puts the right to pursue accountability for families harmed fairly at risk!

It is important that voters know that forced arbitration narrows a victim’s options, especially for people who’ve already been harmed. And your reaction isn’t just emotional — it’s grounded in what many legal scholars, survivor‑advocacy groups, and even some judges have been saying for years.

“The most effective way to reduce settlement costs is to address the misconduct itself, not restrict how victims can seek justice.”