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University Daily Kansan
Friday, March 6, 1964
U.S. Supreme Court Decision Illuminates District Extremes
WASHINGTON, —(UPI)— Republican Reps. Bruce Alger, John B. Bennett and Harold C. Ostergar are the men at both ends and the middle of the Supreme Court's recent "one person, one vote" decision on congressional redistricting.
The court ruled that state legislatures are supposed to draw congressional districts as close to equal in population as possible. The districts represented by Alger and Bennett show how far from that goal some states have strayed. Ostertag's district shows how close to perfect it is possible to get.
Alger's single vote in the House represents the entire population of Dallas, Tex., which was 951,527 in 1960 and estimated at more than 1.2 million now. It has the largest population of any district.
BENNETT VOTES FOR the 177,431 residents of eight counties in the western part of Michigan's upper peninsula. Its 1960 population was the smallest of any House district.
Oostertag represents a western New York State district which includes part of Rochester, N.Y. The district had 410,432 residents in 1960, which was closer than any other to the 410,481 national average used by the census bureau to apportion the 435 house seats.
The Supreme Court ruled in a suit challenging the makeup of Georgia's 10 districts, which now range in population from the 272,154 represented by Rep. Phil Landrum, D-Ga., to the 823,680 of Rep. Charles L. Weltner, D-Ga. Weltner's district was second only to Alger's in overpopulation.
The Georgia Legislature subsequently overhauled its congressional districts under a formula which put 329,738 residents in the smallest and 455,575 in the largest.
BUT SIMILAR SUITS have been filed in a number of other states, including Michigan, which did away with Bennett's district last year but still left some wide variances in population.
Some states are making an effort to solve the problem before the courts do it for them. The Maryland Legislature, which must deal with districts ranging in population from 711,045 to 243,570, will meet in special session next month to consider new boundaries.
It was this inequality in the relative value of a citizen's vote that the Supreme Court seeks to
Ancient Greek Art Shown in Fraser
A collection of ancient Greek artifacts can be seen in the classical department display case on the second floor of Fraser Hall for the next three weeks.
The relics are examples of model animals or "votive offerings" used by the ancient Greeks in religious sacrifices.
Also there are models of body limbs offered to Asklepios, god of healing, in the hope he would cure an ailing hand, arm or leg.
Stephen L. Glass, instructor of classical archaeology who set up the display, said large deposits of these relics are found in Corinth, Athens and Epidaurus, Greece.
A rooster, the oldest artifact in the collection, dates back to the 5th century B.C., said Glass.
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eliminate. Alger pointed out that his district was roughly five times the population of the neighboring Texas district represented by Rep. Ray Roberts, D-Tex.
The Supreme Court did not say how close to equality a congressional district population should be to comply with its ruling. Nor did it rule on gerrymandering, the practice of deliberately drawing a district's boundaries to favor one party.
A number of congressmen have addressed themselves to the problem of fair redictricting and tried to set up standards and methods to enforce them.
Chairman Emanuel Cellar, D.N.Y., of the House Judiciary Committee has been pushing for years a bill that would require congressional districts to be compact, have an unbroken boundary and vary no more than 20 per cent from the average derived by dividing each state's population by the number of congressional seats it is allocated.
A study by the Library of Congress last year showed that there were 125 congressional districts whose population was 20 per cent more or less than the state average. But this was somewhat misleading, because a state with one malapportioned district probably would have to redraw the boundaries of all its districts.
THEREFORE, THE 125 seats pinpointed by the study actually represent a far bigger redistricting job—the 30 states in which they occur have a total of 318 seats.
However, some observers believe the 20 per cent variation allowed by Cellar and Mathias would not fall within the Supreme Court's decision that "as nearly as is practicable one man's vote in a congressional election is to be worth as much as another's".
The Library of Congress in its 1963 study also listed the congressional districts which vary by 10 per cent or more from the state average. There were 235 districts in this category, but they occurred in 38 states with a total of 417 seats.
This list includes New York, which drew up new districts after the 1960 census and got every one within 15 per cent of the perfect figure.
But 13 of the 41 districts varied more than 10 per cent. And if that was the cutoff, the whole job might have to be done over.
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