NOTICE: This opinion is subject to
formal revision before publication in the preliminary print of the
United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter
of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington,
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															SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

															_________________

															No. 14–940

															_________________

															SUE EVENWEL, et al., APPELLANTS v. GREG ABBOTT, governor of texas, et al.

															on appeal from the united states district
court for the western district of texas

															[April 4, 2016]

															Justice Ginsburg delivered the opinion of the
Court.

															Texas, like all other States, draws its
legislative districts on the basis of total population.
Plaintiffs-appellants are Texas voters; they challenge this uniform
method of districting on the ground that it produces un-equal
districts when measured by voter-eligible population.Voter-eligible
population, not total population, they urge, must be used to ensure
that their votes will not be devalued in relation to citizens’
votes in other districts. We hold, based on constitutional history,
this Court’s decisions, and longstanding practice, that a State may
draw its legislative districts based on total population.

															I

															A

															This Court long resisted any role in
overseeing the process by which States draw legislative districts.
“The remedy for unfairness in districting,” the Court once held,
“is to secure State legislatures that will apportion prop-erly, or
to invoke the ample powers of Congress.” Colegrove v. Green , 328 U. S. 549, 556 (1946) . “Courts ought not to
enter this political thicket,” as Justice Frankfurter put it. Ibid. Judicial abstention left pervasive
malapportionment unchecked. In the opening half of the 20th
century, there was a massive population shift away from rural areas
and toward suburban and urban communities. Nevertheless, many
States ran elections into the early 1960’s based on maps drawn to
equalize each district’s population as it was composed around 1900.
Other States used maps allocating a certain number of legislators
to each county regardless of its population. These schemes left
many rural districts significantly underpopulated in comparison
with urban and suburban districts. But rural legislators who
benefited from malapportionment had scant incentive to adopt new
maps that might put them out of office.

															The Court confronted this ingrained structural
inequal-ity in Baker v. Carr , 369 U. S. 186 –192
(1962). Thatcase presented an equal protection challenge to a
Tennessee state-legislative map that had not been redrawn since
1901. See also id., at 192 (observing that, in the meantime,
there had been “substantial growth and redistribution” of the
State’s population). Rather than steering clear of the political
thicket yet again, the Court held for the first time that
malapportionment claims are justiciable. Id., at 237 (“We
conclude that the complaint’s allegations of a denial of equal
protection present a justiciable constitutional cause of action
upon which appellants are entitled to a trial and a
decision.”).

															Although the Court in Baker did not reach
the merits of the equal protection claim, Baker ’s
justiciability ruling set the stage for what came to be known as
the one-person, one-vote principle. Just two years after Baker , in Wes-berry v. Sanders , 376 U. S.
1 –8 (1964), the Court invalidated Georgia’s malapportioned
congressional map, underwhich the population of one congressional
district was “two to three times” larger than the population of the
others. Relying on Article I, §2, of the Constitution, the Court
required that congressional districts be drawn with equal
populations. Id., at 7, 18. Later that same Term, in Reynolds v. Sims , 377 U. S. 533, 568 (1964) ,
the Court upheld an equal protection challenge to Alabama’s
malapportioned state-legislative maps. “[T]he Equal Protection
Clause,” the Court concluded, “requires that the seats in both
houses of a bicameral state legislature must be apportioned on a
population basis.” Ibid . Wesberry and Reynolds together instructed that jurisdictions must design both
congressional and state-legislative districts with equal
populations, and must regularly reapportion districts to prevent
malapportionment.[ 1 ]

															Over the ensuing decades, the Court has several
times elaborated on the scope of the one-person, one-vote rule.
States must draw congressional districts with populations as close
to perfect equality as possible. See Kirkpatrick v. Preisler , 394 U. S. 526 –531 (1969). But, when drawing
state and local legislative districts, jurisdictions are permitted
to deviate somewhat from perfect population equality to accommodate
traditional districting objectives, among them , preserving
the integrity of political subdivisions, maintaining communities of
interest, and creating geographic compactness. See Brown v. Thomson , 462 U. S. 835 –843 (1983). Where the maximum
population deviation between the largest and smallest district is
less than 10%, the Court has held, a state or local legislative map
presumptively complies with the one-person, one-vote rule. Ibid. [ 2 ] Maximum
deviations above 10% are presumptively impermissible. Ibid. See also Mahan v. Howell , 410 U. S. 315, 329
(1973) (approving a state-legislative map with maximum population
deviation of 16% to accommodate the State’s interest in
“maintaining the integrity of political subdivision lines,” but
cautioning that this deviation “may well approach tolerable
limits”).

															In contrast to repeated disputes over the
permissibility of deviating from perfect population equality,
little controversy has centered on the population base
jurisdictions must equalize. On rare occasions, jurisdictions have
relied on the registered-voter or voter-eligible populations of
districts. See Burns v. Richardson , 384 U. S. 73
–94 (1966) (holding Hawaii could use a registered-voter population
base because of “Hawaii’s special population problems”—in
particular, its substantial temporary military population). But, in
the overwhelming majority of cases, jurisdictions have equalized
total population, as measured by the decennial census. Today, all
States use total-population numbers from the census when designing
congressional and state-legislative districts, and only seven
States adjust those census numbers in any meaningful way.[ 3 ]

															B

															Appellants challenge that consensus. After the
2010 census, Texas redrew its State Senate districts using a
total-population baseline. At the time, Texas was subject to the
preclearance requirements of §5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
52 U. S. C. §10304 (requiring jurisdictions to receive
approval from the U. S. Department of Justice or the
U. S. District Court for the District of Columbia before
implementing certain voting changes). Once it became clear that the
new Senate map, S148, would not receive preclearance in advance of
the 2012 elections, the U. S. District Court for the Western
District of Texas drew an interim Senate map, S164, which also
equalized the total population of each district. See Davis v. Perry , No. SA–11–CV–788 (Nov. 23, 2011).[ 4 ] On direct appeal, this Court observed that
the District Court had failed to “take guidance from the State’s
recently enacted plan in drafting an interim plan,” and therefore
vacated the District Court’s map. Perry v. Perez , 565
U. S. ___, ___, ___–___ (2012) ( per curiam ) (slip op.,
at 4, 8–10).

															The District Court, on remand, again used census
data to draw districts so that each included roughly the same size
total population. Texas used this new interim map, S172, in the
2012 elections, and, in 2013, the Texas Legislature adopted S172 as
the permanent Senate map. See App. to Brief for Texas Senate
Hispanic Caucus et al. as Amici Curiae 5 (reproducing
the current Senate map). The permanent map’s maximum
total-population deviation is 8.04%, safely within the
presumptively permissible 10% range. But measured by a
voter-population baseline—eligible voters or registered voters—the
map’s maximum population deviation exceeds 40%.

															Appellants Sue Evenwel and Edward Pfenninger
live in Texas Senate districts (one and four, respectively) with
particularly large eligible- and registered-voter populations.
Contending that basing apportionment on total population dilutes
their votes in relation to voters in other Senate districts, in
violation of the one-person, one-vote principle of the Equal
Protection Clause,[ 5 ]
appellants filed suit in the U. S. District Court for the
Western District of Texas. They named as defendants the Governor
and Secretary of State of Texas, and sought a permanent injunction
barring use of the existing Senate map in favor of a map that would
equalize the voter population in each district.

															The case was referred to a three-judge District
Court for hearing and decision. See 28 U. S. C. §2284(a); Shapiro v. McManus , 577 U. S. ___, ___–___
(2015) (slip op., at 5–7). That court dismissed the complaint for
failure to state a claim on which relief could be granted.
Appellants, the District Court explained, “rel[y] upon a theory
never before accepted by the Supreme Court or any circuit court:
that the metric of apportionment employed by Texas (total
population) results in an unconstitutional apportionment because it
does not achieve equality as measured by Plaintiffs’ chosen
metric—voter population.” App. to Juris. Statement 9a. Decisions of
this Court, the District Court concluded, permit jurisdictions to
use any neutral, nondiscriminatory population baseline, including
total population, when drawing state and local legislative
districts. Id., at 13a–14a.[ 6 ]

															We noted probable jurisdiction, 575 U. S.
___ (2015), and now affirm.

															II

															The parties and the United States advance
different positions in this case. As they did before the District
Court, appellants insist that the Equal Protection Clause requires
jurisdictions to draw state and local legislative districts with
equal voter-eligible populations, thus protecting “voter equality,” i.e., “the right of eligible voters to an equal vote.” Brief
for Appellants 14.[ 7 ] To comply
with their proposed rule, appellants suggest, jurisdictions should
design districts based on citizen-voting-age-population (CVAP) data
from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS), an annual
statistical sample of the U. S. population. Texas responds
that jurisdic-tions may, consistent with the Equal Protection
Clause, design districts using any population baseline—including
total population and voter-eligible population—so long as the
choice is rational and not invidiously discriminatory. Although its
use of total-population data from the census was permissible, Texas
therefore argues, it could have used ACS CVAP data instead. Sharing
Texas’ position that the Equal Protection Clause does not mandate
use of voter-eligible population, the United States urges us not to
address Texas’ separate assertion that the Constitution allows
States to use alternative population baselines, including
voter-eligible population. Equalizing total population, the United
States maintains, vindicates the principle of representational
equality by “ensur[ing] that the voters in each district have the
power to elect a representative who represents the same number of
constituents as all other representatives.” Brief for United States
as Amicus Curiae 5.

															In agreement with Texas and the United States,
we reject appellants’ attempt to locate a voter-equality mandate in
the Equal Protection Clause. As history, precedent, and practice
demonstrate, it is plainly permissible for jurisdictions to measure
equalization by the total population of state and local legislative
districts.

															A

															We begin with constitutional history. At the
time of the founding, the Framers confronted a question analogous
to the one at issue here: On what basis should congressional
districts be allocated to States? The Framers’ solution, now known
as the Great Compromise, was to provide each State the same number
of seats in the Senate, and to allocate House seats based on
States’ total populations. “Representatives and direct Taxes,” they
wrote, “shall be apportioned among the several States which may be
included within this Union, according to their respective
Numbers .” U. S. Const., Art. I, §2, cl. 3 (emphasis
added). “It is a fundamental principle of the proposed
constitution,” James Madison explained in the Federalist Papers,
“that as the aggregate number of representatives allotted to the
several states, is to be . . . 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 Federalist No.
54, p. 284 (G. Carey & J. McClellan eds. 2001). In other words,
the basis of representation in the House was to include all
inhabitants—although slaves were counted as only three-fifths of a
person—even though States remained free to deny many of those
inhabitants the right to participate in the selection of their
representatives.[ 8 ] Endorsing
apportionment based on total population, Alexander Hamilton
declared: “There can be no truer principle than this—that every
individual of the commu-nity at large has an equal right to the
protection of govern-ment.” 1 Records of the Federal Convention of
1787, p. 473 (M. Farrand ed. 1911).[ 9 ]

															When debating what is now the Fourteenth
Amendment, Congress reconsidered the proper basis for apportioning
House seats. Concerned that Southern States would not willingly
enfranchise freed slaves, and aware that “a slave’s freedom could
swell his state’s population for purposes of representation in the
House by one person, rather than only three-fifths,” the Framers of
the Fourteenth Amendment considered at length the possibility of
allocating House seats to States on the basis of voter population.
J. Sneed, Footprints on the Rocks of the Mountain: An Account of
the Enactment of the Fourteenth Amendment 28 (1997). See also id., at 35 (“[T]he apportionment issue consumed more time in
the Fourteenth Amendment debates than did any other topic.”).

															In December 1865, Thaddeus Stevens, a leader of
the Radical Republicans, introduced a constitutional amendment that
would have allocated House seats to States “according to their
respective legal voters”; in addition, the proposed amendment
mandated that “[a] true census of the legal voters shall be taken
at the same time with the regular census.” Cong. Globe, 39th Cong.,
1st Sess., 10 (1866). Supporters of apportionment based on voter
population employed the same voter-equality reasoning that
appellants now echo. See, e.g., id., at 380 (remarks
of Rep. Orth) (“[T]he true principle of representation in Congress
is that voters alone should form the basis, and that each voter
should have equal political weight in our
Government. . . .”); id., at 404 (remarks of
Rep. Lawrence) (use of total population “disregards the fundamental
idea of all just representation, that every voter should be equal
in political power all over the Union”).

															Voter-based apportionment proponents encountered
fierce resistance from proponents of total-population
apportionment. Much of the opposition was grounded in the principle
of representational equality. “As an abstract proposition,” argued
Representative James G. Blaine, a leading critic of allocating
House seats based on voter population, “no one will deny that
population is the true basis of representation; for women,
children, and other non-voting classes may have as vital an
interest in the legislation of the country as those who actually
deposit the ballot.” Id., at 141. See also id., at
358 (remarks of Rep. Conkling) (arguing that use of a
voter-population basis “would shut out four fifths of the citizens
of the country—women and children, who are citizens, who are taxed,
and who are, and always have been, represented”); id., at
434 (remarks of Rep. Ward) (“[W]hat becomes of that large class of
non-voting tax-payers that are found in every section? Are they in
no matter to be represented? They certainly should be enumerated in
making up the whole number of those entitled to a
representative.”).

															The product of these debates was §2 of the
Fourteenth Amendment, which retained total population as the
congressional apportionment base. See U. S. Const., Amdt. 14,
§2 (“Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States
according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of
persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed.”). Introducing
the final version of the Amendment on the Senate floor, Senator
Jacob Howard explained:

															“[The] basis of representation is numbers
. . . ; that is, the whole population except untaxed
Indians and persons excluded by the State laws for rebellion or
other crime. . . . The committee adopted numbers as
the most just and satisfactory basis, and this is the principle
upon which the Constitution itself was originally framed, that the
basis of representation should depend upon numbers; and such, I
think, after all, is the safest and most secure principle upon
which the Government can rest. Numbers, not voters; numbers, not
property; this is the theory of the Constitution.” Cong. Globe,
39th Cong., 1st Sess., 2766–2767 (1866).

															Appellants ask us to find in the Fourteenth
Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause a rule inconsistent with this
“theory of the Constitution.” But, as the Court recognized in Wesberry , this theory underlies not just the method of
allocating House seats to States; it applies as well tothe method
of apportioning legislative seats within States. “The debates at
the [Constitutional] Convention,” the Court explained, “make at
least one fact abundantly clear: that when the delegates agreed
that the House should represent ‘people,’ they intended that in
allocating Congressmen the number assigned to each state should be
determined solely by the number of inhabitants.” 376 U. S., at
13. “While it may not be possible to draw congressional districts
with mathematical precision,” the Court acknowledged, “that is no
excuse for ignoring our Constitution’s plain objective of making
equal representation for equal numbers of people the
fundamental goalfor the House of Representatives.” Id., at
18 (emphasis added). It cannot be that the Fourteenth Amendment
calls for the apportionment of congressional districts based on
total population, but simultaneously prohibits States from
apportioning their own legislative districts on the same basis.

															Cordoning off the constitutional history of
congressional districting, appellants stress two points.[ 10 ] First, they draw a distinction
between allocating seats to States, and apportioning seats within States. The Framers selected total population for the
former, appellants and their amici argue, because of
federalism concerns inapposite to intra-state districting. These
concerns included the perceived risk that a voter-population base
might encourage States to expand the franchise unwisely, and the
hope that a total-population base might counter States’ incentive
to undercount their populations, thereby reducing their share of
direct taxes. Wesberry , however, rejected the distinction
appellants now press. See supra, at 12. Even without the
weight of Wesberry , we would find appellants’ distinction
unconvincing. One can accept that federalism—or, as Justice Alito
emphasizes, partisan and regional political advantage, see post, at 6–13—figured in the Framers’ selection of total
population as the basis for allocating congressional seats. Even
so, it remains beyond doubt that the principle of representational
equality figured prominently in the decision to count people,
whether or not they qualify as voters.[ 11 ]

															Second, appellants and Justice Alito urge, see post, at 5–6, the Court has typically refused to analogize
to features of the federal electoral system—here, the
constitutional scheme governing congressional apportionment—when
considering challenges to state and local election laws. True, in Reynolds , the Court rejected Alabama’s argument that it had
permissibly modeled its State Senate apportionment scheme—one
Senator for each county—on the United States Senate. “[T]he federal
analogy,” the Court explained, “[is] inapposite and irrelevant to
state legislative districting schemes” because “[t]he system of
representation in the two Houses of the Federal Congress” arose
“from unique historical circumstances.” 377 U. S., at 573–574.
Likewise, in Gray v. Sanders , 372 U. S. 368
–372, 378 (1963), Georgia unsuccessfully attempted to defend, by
analogy to the electoral college, its scheme of assigning a certain
number of “units” to the winner of each county in statewide
elections. Reynolds and Gray , however,
involved features of the federal electoral system that contravene
the principles of both voter and representational equality
to favor interests that have no relevance outside the federal
context. Senate seats were allocated to States on an equal basis to
respect state sovereignty and increase the odds that the smaller
States would ratify the Constitution. See Wesberry , 376
U. S., at 9–13 (describing the history of the Great
Compromise). See also Reynolds , 377 U. S., at 575
(“Political subdivisions of States—counties, cities, or
whatever—never were and never have been considered as sovereign
entities. . . . The relationship of the States to
the Federal Government could hardly be less analogous.”). “The
[Electoral] College was created to permit the most knowledge-able
members of the community to choose the executive of anation whose
continental dimensions were thought to preclude an informed choice
by the citizenry at large.” Williams v. Rhodes , 393
U. S. 23 –44 (1968) (Harlan, J., concurring in result). See
also Gray , 372 U. S., at 378 (“The inclusion of the
electoral college in the Constitution, as the result of specific
historical concerns, validated the collegiate principle despite its
inherent numerical inequality.” (footnote omitted)). By contrast,
as earlier developed, the constitutional scheme for congressional
apportion-ment rests in part on the same representational concerns
that exist regarding state and local legislative districting. The
Framers’ answer to the apportionment question inthe congressional
context therefore undermines appellants’ contention that districts
must be based on voter population.

															B

															Consistent with constitutional history, this
Court’s past decisions reinforce the conclusion that States and
localities may comply with the one-person, one-vote principle by
designing districts with equal total populations. Quoting language
from those decisions that, in appellants’ view, supports the
principle of equal voting power—and emphasizing the phrase
“one-person, one-vote”—appellants contend that the Court had in
mind, and constantly meant, that States should equalize the
voter-eligible population of districts. See Reynolds , 377
U. S., at 568 (“[A]n individual’s right to vote for State
legislators is unconstitutionally impaired when its weight is in a
substantial fashion diluted when compared with votes of citizens
living on other parts of the State.”); Gray , 372 U. S.,
at 379–380 (“The concept of ‘we the people’ under the Constitution
visualizes no preferred class of voters but equality among those
who meet the basic qualifications.”). See also Hadley v. Junior College Dist. of Metropolitan Kansas City , 397
U. S. 50, 56 (1970) (“[W]hen members of an elected body are
chosen from separate districts, each district must be established
on a basis that will insure, as far as is practicable, that equal
numbers of voters can vote for proportionally equal numbers of
officials.”). Appellants, however, extract far too much from
selectively chosen language and the “one-person, one-vote”
slogan.

															For every sentence appellants quote from the
Court’s opinions, one could respond with a line casting the
one-person, one-vote guarantee in terms of equality of
representation, not voter equality. In Reynolds , for
instance, the Court described “the fundamental principle of
representative government in this country” as “one of equal
representation for equal numbers of people.” 377 U. S., at
560–561. See also Davis v. Bandemer , 478 U. S.
109, 123 (1986) (“[I]n formulating the one person, one vote
formula, the Court characterized the question posed by election
districts of disparate size as an issue of fair representation.”); Reynolds , 377 U. S., at 563 (rejecting state
districting schemes that “give the same number of representatives
to unequal numbers of constituents”). And the Court has suggested,
repeatedly, that districting based on total population serves both the State’s interest in preventing vote dilution and its interest in ensuring equality of representation. See Board of Estimate of City of New York v. Morris , 489
U. S. 688 –694 (1989) (“If districts of widely unequal
population elect an equal number of representatives, the voting
power of each citizen in the larger constituencies is debased and
the citizens in those districts have a smaller share of
representation than do those in the smaller districts.”). See also Kirkpatrick , 394 U. S., at 531 (recognizing in a
congressional-districting case that “[e]qual representation for
equal numbers of people is a principle designed to prevent
debasement of voting power and diminution of access to elected
representatives”).[ 12 ]

															Moreover, from Reynolds on, the Court has
consistently looked to total-population figures when evaluating
whether districting maps violate the Equal Protection Clause
bydeviating impermissibly from perfect population equality. See
Brief for Appellees 29–31 (collecting cases brought under the Equal
Protection Clause). See also id., at 31, n. 9
(collecting congressional-districting cases). Appellants point to
no instance in which the Court has determined the permissibility of
deviation based on eligible- or registered-voter data. It would
hardly make sense for the Court to have mandated voter equality sub silentio and then used a total-population baseline to
evaluate compliance with that rule. More likely, we think, the
Court has always assumed the permissibility of drawing districts to
equalize total population.

															“In the 1960s,” appellants counter, “the
distribution of the voting population generally did not deviate
from the distribution of total population to the degree necessary
to raise this issue.” Brief for Appellants 27. To support this
assertion, appellants cite only a District Court decision, which
found no significant deviation in the distribution of voter and
total population in “densely populated areas of New York State.” WMCA, Inc. v. Lomenzo , 238 F. Supp. 916, 925
(SDNY), aff’d, 382 U. S. 4 (1965) ( per curiam ).
Had this Court assumed such equivalence on a national scale, it
likely would have said as much.[ 13 ] Instead, in Gaffney v. Cummings , 412
U. S. 735 –747 (1973), the Court acknowledged that voters may
be distributed un-evenly within jurisdictions. “[I]f it is the
weight of a person’s vote that matters,” the Court observed, then
“total population—even if stable and accurately taken—may not
actually reflect that body of voters whose votes must be counted
and weighed for the purposes of reapportionment, because ‘census
persons’ are not voters.” Id., at 746. Nonetheless, the
Court in Gaffney recognized that the one-person, one-vote
rule is designed to facilitate “[f ]air and effective
representation,” id., at 748, and evaluated compliance with
the rule based on total population alone, id., at 750.

															C

															What constitutional history and our prior
decisions strongly suggest, settled practice confirms. Adopting
voter-eligible apportionment as constitutional command would upset
a well-functioning approach to districting that all 50 States and
countless local jurisdictions have followed for decades, even
centuries. Appellants have shown no reason for the Court to disturb
this longstanding use of total population. See Walz v. Tax Comm’n of City of New York , 397 U. S. 664, 678
(1970) (“unbroken practice” followed “openly and by affirmative
state action, not covertly or by state inaction, is not something
to be lightly cast aside”). See also Burson v. Freeman , 504 U. S. 191 –206 (1992) (plurality opinion)
(upholding a law limiting campaigning in areas around polling
places in part because all 50 States maintain such laws, so there
is a “widespread and time-tested consensus” that legislation of
this order serves important state interests). As the Framers of the
Constitution and the Fourteenth Amendment comprehended,
representatives serve all residents, not just those eligible or
registered to vote. See supra, at 8–12. Nonvoters have an
important stake in many policy debates—children, their parents,
even their grandparents, for example, have a stake in a strong
public-education system—and in receiving constituent services, such
as help navigating public-benefits bureaucracies. By ensuring that
each representative is subject to requests and suggestions from the
same number of constituents, total-population apportionment
promotes equitable and effective representation. See McCormick v. United States , 500 U. S. 257, 272
(1991) (“Serving constituents and supporting legislation that will
benefit the district and individ-uals and groups therein is the
everyday business of a legislator.”).[ 14 ]

															In sum, the rule appellants urge has no mooring
in the Equal Protection Clause. The Texas Senate map, we therefore
conclude, complies with the requirements of the one-person,
one-vote principle.[ 15 ]
Because history, precedent, and practice suffice to reveal the
infirmity of appellants’ claims, we need not and do not resolve
whether, as Texas now argues, States may draw districts to equalize
voter-eligible population rather than total population.

															*  *  *

															For the reasons stated, the judgment of the
United States District Court for the Western District of Texas
is

															Affirmed. Notes 1 In Avery v. Midland County , 390 U. S. 474 –486 (1968), the Court
applied the one-person, one-vote rule to legislative apportionment
at the local level. 2 Maximum population
deviation is the sum of the percentage deviations from perfect
population equality of the most- and least-populated districts. See Chapman v. Meier , 420 U. S. 1, 22 (1975) . For
example, if the largest district is 4.5% overpopulated, and the
smallest district is 2.3% underpopulated, the map’s maximum
population deviation is 6.8%. 3 The Constitutions and
statutes of ten States—California, Delaware, Hawaii, Kansas, Maine,
Maryland, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, and
Washington—authorize the removal of certain groups from the
total-population apportionment base. See App. to Brief for
Appellees 1a–46a (listing relevant state constitutional and
statutory provisions). Hawaii, Kansas, and Washington exclude
certain non-permanent residents, including nonresident members of
the military. Haw. Const., Art. IV, §4; Kan. Const., Art. 10,
§1(a); Wash. Const., Art. II, §43(5). See also N. H. Const.,
pt. 2, Art. 9–a (authorizing the state legislature to make
“suitable adjustments to the general census . . . on
account of non-residents temporarily residing in this state”).
California, Delaware, Maryland, and New York exclude inmates who
were domiciled out-of-state prior to incarceration. Cal. Elec. Code
Ann. §21003(5) (2016 West Cum. Supp.); Del. Code Ann., Tit. 29,
§804A (Supp. 2014); Md. State Govt. Code Ann. §2–2A–01 (2014);
N. Y. Legis. Law Ann. §83–m(b) (2015 West Cum. Supp.). The
Constitutions of Maine and Nebraska authorize the exclusion of
noncitizen immigrants, Me. Const., Art. IV, pt. 1, §2; Neb. Const.,
Art. III, §5, but neither provision is “operational as written,”
Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 12,
n. 3. 4 Various plaintiffs had
challenged Texas’ State House, State Senate, and congressional maps
under, inter alia , §2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. They
sought and received an injunction barring Texas’ use of the new
maps until those maps received §5 preclearance. See Allen v. State Bd. of Elections , 393 U. S. 544, 561 (1969)
(“[A]n individual may bring a suit for declaratory judgment and
injunctive relief, claiming that a state requirement is covered by
§5, but has not been subjected to the required federal
scrutiny.”). 5 Apart from objecting to
the baseline, appellants do not challenge the Senate map’s 8.04%
total-population deviation. Nor do they challenge the use of a
total-population baseline in congressional
districting. 6 As the District Court
noted, the Ninth Circuit has likewise rejected appellants’ theory, i.e., that voter population must be roughly equalized. See Garza v. County of L. A. , 918 F. 2d 763,
773–776 (CA9 1990). Also declining to mandate voter-eligible
apportionment, the Fourth and Fifth Circuits have suggested that
the choice of apportionment base may present a nonjusticiable
political question. See Chen v. Houston , 206
F. 3d 502, 528 (CA5 2000) (“[T]his eminently political
question has been left to the political process.”); Daly v. Hunt , 93 F. 3d 1212, 1227 (CA4 1996) (“This is
quintessentially a decision that should be made by the state, not
the federal courts, in the inherently political and legislative
process of apportionment.”). 7 In the District Court,
appellants suggested that districting bodies could also comply with
the one-person, one-vote rule by equalizing the registered-voter
populations of districts, but appellants have not repeated that
argument before this Court. See Tr. of Oral Arg.
22–23. 8 As the United States
observes, the “choice of constitutional language reflects the
historical fact that when the Constitution was drafted and later
amended, the right to vote was not closely correlated with
citizenship.” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 18.
Restrictions on the franchise left large groups of citizens,
including women and many males who did not own land, unable to cast
ballots, yet the Framers understood that these citizens were
nonetheless entitled to representation in government. 9 Justice Alito observes
that Hamilton stated this principle while opposing allocation of an
equal number of Senate seats to each State. Post, at 7–8
(opinion concurring in judgment). That context, however, does not
diminish Hamilton’s principled argument for allocating seats to
protect the representational rights of “every individual of the
community at large.” 1 Records of the Federal Convention of 1787,
p. 473 (M. Farrand ed. 1911). Justice Alito goes on to quote James
Madison for the proposition that Hamilton was concerned, simply and
only, with “the outcome of a contest over raw political power.” Post, at 8. Notably, in the statement Justice Alito quotes,
Madison was not attributing that motive to Hamilton; instead,
according to Madison, Hamilton was attributing that motive to the
advocates of equal representation for States. Farrand, supra, at 466. One need not gainsay that Hamilton’s backdrop
was the political controversies of his day. That reality, however,
has not deterred this Court’s past reliance on his statements of
principle. See, e.g., Printz v. United States , 521
U. S. 898 –924 (1997). 10 Justice Alito adds a third, claiming
“the allocation of congres-sional representation sheds little
light” on the meaning of the one-person,one-vote rule “because that
allocation plainly violates one person, one vote.” Post, at
4. For this proposition, Justice Alito notes the constitutional
guarantee of two Senate seats and at least one House seat to each
State, regardless of its population. But these guarantees bear no
kinship to the separate question that dominated the Fourteenth
Amendment’s ratification debates: After each State has received its
guaranteed House seat, on what basis should additional seats be
allocated? 11 Justice Alito asserts that we have
taken the statements of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Framers “out of
context.” Post, at 9. See also post, at 12 (“[C]laims
about representational equality were invoked, if at all, only in
service of the real goal: preventing southern States from
acquiring too much power in the national government.”). Like
Alexander Hamilton, see supra, at 9, n. 9, the
Fourteenth Amendment’s Framers doubtless made arguments rooted in
practical political realities as well as in principle. That
politics played a part, however, does not warrant rejecting
principled argument. In any event, motivations aside, the Framers’
ultimate choice of total population rather than voter population is
surely relevant to whether, as appellants now argue, the Equal
Protection Clause mandates use of voter population rather
than total population. 12 Appellants also observe that standing
in one-person, one-vote cases has rested on plaintiffs’ status as
voters whose votes were diluted. But the Court has not considered
the standing of nonvoters to challenge a map malapportioned on a
total-population basis. This issue, moreover, is unlikely ever to
arise given the ease of finding voters willing to serve as
plaintiffs in malapportionment cases. 13 In
contrast to the insubstantial evidence marshaled by appellants, the
United States cites several studies documenting the uneven
distribution of immigrants throughout the country during the
1960’s. See Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 16. 14 Appellants point out that
constituents have no constitutional right to equal access to their
elected representatives. But a State certainly has an interest in
taking reasonable, nondiscriminatory steps to facilitate access for
all its residents. 15 Insofar as appellants suggest that
Texas could have roughly equalized both total population and
eligible-voter population, this Court has never required
jurisdictions to use multiple population baselines. In any event,
appellants have never presented a map that manages to equalize both
measures, perhaps because such a map does not exist, or because
such a map would necessarily ignore other traditional redistricting
principles, including maintaining communities of interest and
respecting municipal boundaries. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

															_________________

															No. 14–940

															_________________

															SUE EVENWEL, et al., APPELLANTS v. GREG ABBOTT, governor of texas, et al.

															on appeal from the united states district
court for the western district of texas

															[April 4, 2016]

															Justice Thomas, concurring in the
judgment.

															This case concerns whether Texas violated the
Equal Protection Clause—as interpreted by the Court’s one-person,
one-vote cases—by creating legislative districts that contain
approximately equal total population but vary widely in the number
of eligible voters in each district. I agree with the majority that
our precedents do not require a State to equalize the total number
of voters in each district. States may opt to equalize total
population. I therefore concur in the majority’s judgment that
appellants’ challenge fails.

															I write separately because this Court has never
provided a sound basis for the one-person, one-vote principle. For
50 years, the Court has struggled to define what right that
principle protects. Many of our precedents suggest that it protects
the right of eligible voters to cast votes that receive equal
weight. Despite that frequent explanation, our precedents often
conclude that the Equal Protection Clause is satisfied when all
individuals within a district—voters or not—have an equal share of
representation. The majority today concedes that our cases have not
produced a clear answer on this point. See ante, at 16.

															In my view, the majority has failed to provide a
sound basis for the one-person, one-vote principle because no such
basis exists. The Constitution does not prescribe any one basis for
apportionment within States. It instead leaves States significant
leeway in apportioning their own districts to equalize total
population, to equalize eligible voters, or to promote any other
principle consistent with a republican form of government. The
majority should recognize the futility of choosing only one of
these options. The Constitution leaves the choice to the people
alone—not to this Court.

															I

															In the 1960’s, this Court decided that the
Equal Protection Clause requires States to draw legislative
districts based on a “one-person, one-vote” rule.[ 1 ]* But this Court’s decisions have never
coalesced around a single theory about what States must
equalize.

															The Equal Protection Clause prohibits a State
from “deny[ing] to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.” Amdt. 14, §1. For nearly a century after
its ratification, this Court interpreted the Clauseas having no
application to the politically charged issue of how States should
apportion their populations in political districts. See, e.g.,
Colegrove v. Green , 328 U. S. 549, 556 (1946)
(plurality opinion). Instead, the Court left the drawing of States’
political boundaries to the States, so long as a State did not
deprive people of the right to vote for reasons prohibited by the
Constitution. See id., at 552, 556; Gomillion v. Lightfoot , 364 U. S. 339 –348 (1960) (finding
justiciable a claim that a city boundary was redrawn from a square
shape to “a strangely irregular twenty-eight-sided figure” to
remove nearly all black voters from the city). This meant that a
State’s refusalto allocate voters within districts based on
population changes was a matter for States—not federal courts—to
decide. And these cases were part of a larger jurisprudence holding
that the question whether a state governmenthad a “proper”
republican form rested with Congress. Pacific States Telephone
& Telegraph Co. v. Oregon , 223 U. S. 118 –150
(1912).

															This Court changed course in Baker v. Carr , 369 U. S. 186 (1962) , by locating in the Equal
Protection Clause a right of citizens not to have a
“ ‘debasement of their votes.’ ” Id., at 194, and
n. 15, 200. Expanding on that decision, this Court later held
that “the Equal Protection Clause requires that the seats in both
houses of a bicameral state legislature must be apportioned on a
population basis.” Reynolds v. Sims , 377 U. S.
533, 568 (1964) . The Court created an analogous requirement for
congressional redistricting rooted in Article I, §2’s requirement
that “Representatives be chosen ‘by the People of the several
States.’ ” Wesberry v. Sanders , 376 U. S. 1
–9 (1964). The rules established by these cases have come to be
known as “one person, one vote.”

															Since Baker empowered the federal courts
to resolve redistricting disputes, this Court has struggled to
explain whether the one-person, one-vote principle ensures
equal-ity among eligible voters or instead protects some broader
right of every citizen to equal representation. The Court’s lack of
clarity on this point, in turn, has left unclear whether States
must equalize the number of eligible voters across districts or
only total population.

															In a number of cases, this Court has said that
States must protect the right of eligible voters to
have their votes receive equal weight. On this view, there is only
one way for States to comply with the one-person, one-vote
principle: they must draw districts that contain a substantially
equal number of eligible voters per district.

															The Court’s seminal decision in Baker exemplifies this view. Decided in 1962, Baker involved the
failure of the Tennessee Legislature to reapportion its districts
for 60 years. 369 U. S., at 191. Since Tennessee’s last
apportionment, the State’s population had grown by about 1.5
million residents, from about 2 to more than 3.5 million. And the
number of voters in each district had changed significantly over
time, producing widely varying voting populations in each district. Id. , at 192. Under these facts, the Court held that
reapportionment claims were justiciable because the plaintiffs—who
all claimed to be eligible voters—had alleged a “debasement of
their votes.” Id., at 194, and n. 15, 204 (internal
quotation marksomitted).

															The Court similarly emphasized equal treatment
of eligible voters in Gray v. Sanders , 372 U. S.
368 (1963) . That case involved a challenge to Georgia’s “county
unit” system of voting. Id., at 370. This system, used by
the State’s Democratic Party to nominate candidates in its primary,
gave each county two votes for every representative that the county
had in the lower House of its General Assembly. Voting was then
done by county, with the winner in each county taking all of that
county’s votes. The Democratic Party nominee was the candidate who
had won the most county-unit votes, not the person who had won the
most individual votes. Id., at 370–371. The effect of this
system was to give heavier weight to rural ballots than to urban
ones. The Court held that the system violated the one-person,
one-vote principle. Id., at 379–381, and n. 12. In so
holding, the Court emphasized that the right at issue belongs to
“all qualified voters” and is the right to have one’s vote “counted
once” and protected against dilution. Id., at 380.

															In applying the one-person, one-vote principle
to state legislative districts, the Court has also emphasized vote
dilution, which also supports the notion that the one-person,
one-vote principle ensures equality among eligible voters. It did
so most notably in Reynolds . In that case, Alabama had
failed to reapportion its state legislature for decades, resulting
in population-variance ratios of up to about 41 to 1 in the State
Senate and up to about 16 to 1 in the House. 377 U. S., at
545. In explaining why Alabama’s failure to reapportion violated
the Equal Protection Clause, this Court stated that “an
individual’s right to vote for state legislators is
unconstitutionally impaired when its weight is in a substantial
fashion diluted when compared with votes of citizens living in
other parts of the State.” Id. , at 568.

															This Court’s post- Reynolds decisions
likewise define the one-person, one-vote principle in terms of
eligible voters, and thus imply that States should be allocating
districts with eligible voters in mind. The Court suggested as much
in Hadley v. Junior College Dist. of Metropolitan Kansas
City , 397 U. S. 50 (1970) . That case involved Missouri’s
system permitting separate school districts to establish a joint
junior college district. Six trustees were to oversee the joint
district, and they were apportioned on the basis of the relative
numbers of school-aged children in each subsidiary district. Id., at 51. The Court held that this plan violated the Equal
Protection Clause because “the trustees of this junior college
district [must] be apportioned in a manner that does not deprive
any voter of his right to have his own vote given as much weight,
as far as is practicable, as that of any other voter in the junior
college district.” Id., at 52. In so holding, the Court
emphasized that Reynolds had “called attention to prior
cases indicating that a qualified voter has a constitutional right
to vote in elections without having his vote wrongfully denied,
debased, or diluted.” Hadley , 397 U. S., at 52; see id., at 52–53.

															In contrast to this oft-stated aspiration of
giving equal treatment to eligible voters, the Court has also
expressed a different understanding of the one-person, one-vote
principle. In several cases, the Court has suggested that
one-person, one-vote protects the interests of all individuals in a district, whether they are eligible voters or not.
In Reynolds , for example, the Court said that “the
fundamental principle of representative government in this country
is one of equal representation for equal numbers of people.” 377
U. S., at 560–561; see also ante, at 16 (collecting
cases). Under this view, States cannot comply with the Equal
Protection Clause by equalizing the number of eligible voters in
each district. They must instead equalize the total population per
district.

															In line with this view, the Court has generally
focused on total population, not the total number of voters, when
determining a State’s compliance with the one-person, one-vote
requirement. In Gaffney v. Cummings , 412 U. S.
735 –751 (1973), for example, the Court upheld state legislative
districts that had a maximum deviation of 7.83% when measured on a
total-population basis. In contrast, in Chapman v. Meier , 420 U. S. 1 –22, 26–27 (1975), the Court struck
down a court-ordered reapportionment that had a total deviation of
20.14% based on total population. This plan, in the Court’s view,
failed to “achieve the goal of population equality with little more
than de minimis variation.” Id., at 27.

															This lack of clarity in our redistricting cases
has left States with little guidance about how their political
institutions must be structured. Although this Court has required
that state legislative districts “be apportioned on a population
basis,” Reynolds , supra , at 568, it has yet to tell
the States whether they are limited in choosing “the relevant
population that [they] must equally distribute.” Chen v. Houston , 532 U. S. 1046, 1047 (2001) (Thomas, J.,
dissenting from denial of certiorari) (internal quotation marks
omitted). Because the Court has not provided a firm account of what
States must do when districting, States are left to guess how much
flexibility (if any) they have to use different methods of
apportionment.

															II

															This inconsistency (if not opacity) is not
merely a consequence of the Court’s equivocal statements on one
person, one vote. The problem is more fundamental. There is simply
no way to make a principled choice between interpreting one person,
one vote as protecting eligible voters or as protecting total
inhabitants within a State. That is because, though those theories
are noble, the Constitution does not make either of them the
exclusive means of apportionment for state and local
representatives. In guaranteeing to the States a “Republican Form
of Government,” Art. IV, §4, the Constitution did not resolve
whether the ultimate basis of representation is the right of
citizens to cast an equal ballot or the right of all inhabitants to
have equal representation. The Constitution instead reserves these
matters to the people. The major-ity’s attempt today to divine a
single “ ‘theory of the Consti-tution’ ”—apportionment
based on representation, ante, at 12 (quoting Cong. Globe,
39th Cong., 1st Sess., 2766–2767 (1866))—rests on a flawed reading
of history and wrongly picks one side of a debate that the Framers
did not resolve in the Constitution.

															A

															The Constitution lacks a single, comprehensive
theory of representation. The Framers understood the tension
between majority rule and protecting fundamental rights from
majorities. This understanding led to a “mixed” constitutional
structure that did not embrace any single theory of representation
but instead struck a compromise between those who sought an
equitable system of representation and those who were concerned
that the majority would abuse plenary control over public policy.
As Madison wrote, “A dependence on the people is no doubt the
primary controul on the government; but experience has taught
mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.” The Federalist No.
51, p. 349 (J. Cooke ed. 1961). This was the theory of the
Constitution. The Framers therefore made difficult compromises on
the apportionment of federal representation, and they did not
prescribe any one theory of how States had to divide their
legislatures.

															1

															Because, in the view of the Framers, ultimate
political power derives from citizens who were “created equal,” The
Declaration of Independence ¶2, beliefs in equality of
representation—and by extension, majority rule—influenced the
constitutional structure. In the years between the Revolution and
the framing, the Framers experimented with different ways of
securing the political system against improper influence. Of all
the “electoral safeguards for the representational system,” the
most critical was “equality of representation.” G. Wood, The
Creation of the American Republic 1776–1787, p. 170 (1998)
(Wood).

															The Framers’ preference for apportionment by
representation (and majority rule) was driven partially by the
belief that all citizens were inherently equal. In a system where
citizens were equal, a legislature should have “equal
representation” so that “equal interests among the people should
have equal interests in [the assembly].” Thoughts on Government, in
4 Works of John Adams 195 (C. Adams ed. 1851). The British
Parliament fell short of this goal. In addition to having
hereditary nobility, more than half of the members of the
democratic House of Commons were elected from sparsely populated
districts—so-called “rotten boroughs.” Wood 171; Baker , 369
U. S., at 302–303 (Frankfurter, J., dissenting).

															The Framers’ preference for majority rule also
was a reaction to the shortcomings of the Articles of
Confederation. Under the Articles, each State could cast one vote
regardless of population and Congress could act only with the
assent of nine States. Articles of Confederation, Art. IX, cl. 6; id ., Art. X; id ., Art. XI. This system proved
undesirable because a few small States had the ability to paralyze
the National Legislature. See The Federalist No. 22, at 140–141
(Hamilton).

															Consequently, when the topic of dividing
representation came up at the Constitutional Convention, some
Framers advocated proportional representation throughout the
National Legislature. 1 Records of the Federal Convention of 1787,
pp. 471–473 (M. Farrand ed. 1911). Alexander Hamilton voiced
concerns about the unfairness of allowing a minority to rule over a
majority. In explaining at the Convention why he opposed giving
States an equal vote in the National Legislature, Hamilton asked
rhetorically, “If . . . three states contain a majority
of the inhabitants of America, ought they to be governed by a
minority?” Id., at 473; see also The Federalist No. 22, at
141 (Hamilton) (objecting to supermajoritarian voting requirements
because they allow an entrenched minority to “controul the opinion
of a majority respecting the best mode of conducting [the public
business]”). James Madison, too, opined that the general Government
needed a direct mandate from the people. If federal “power [were]
not immediately derived from the people, in proportion to their
numbers,” according to Madison, the Federal Government would be as
weak as Congress under the Articles of Confederation. 1 Records of
the Federal Convention of 1787, at 472.

															In many ways, the Constitution reflects this
preference for majority rule. To pass Congress, ordinary
legislation requires a simple majority of present members to vote
in favor. And some features of the apportionment for the House of
Representatives reflected the idea that States should wield
political power in approximate proportion to their number of
inhabitants. Ante , at 8–12. Thus, “equal representation for
equal numbers of people,” ante , at 12 (internal quotation
marks and emphasis omitted), features prominently in how
representatives are apportioned among the States. These features of
the Constitution reflect the preference of some members of the
found-ing generation for equality of representation. But, as
explained below, this is not the single “theory of
theConstitution.”

															2

															The Framers also understood that unchecked
majorities could lead to tyranny of the majority. As a result, many
viewed antidemocratic checks as indispensable to republican
government. And included among the antidemocratic checks were
legislatures that deviated from perfect equality of
representation.

															The Framers believed that a proper government
promoted the common good. They conceived this good as objective and
not inherently coextensive with majoritarian preferences. S ee, e.g., The Federalist No. 1, at 4 (Hamilton)
(defining the common good or “public good” as the “true interests”
of the community); id ., No. 10, at 57 (Madison) (“the
permanent and aggregate interests of the community”). For
government to promote the common good, it had to do more than
simply obey the will of the majority. See, e.g. , ibid. (discussing majoritarian factions). Government must
also protect fundamental rights. See The Declaration of
Independence ¶2; 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *124 (“[T]he
principal aim of society is to protect individuals in the enjoyment
of those absolute rights, which are vested in them by the immutable
laws ofnature”).

															Of particular concern for the Framers was the
majority of people violating the property rights of the minority.
Madison observed that “the most common and durable source of
factions, has been the various and unequal distribution of
property.” The Federalist No. 10, at 59. A poignant example
occurred in Massachusetts. In what became known as Shays’
Rebellion, armed debtors attempted to block legal actions by
creditors to recover debts. Although that rebellion was ultimately
put down, debtors sought relief from state legislatures “under the
auspices of Constitutional forms.” Letter from James Madison to
Thomas Jefferson (Apr. 23, 1787), in 11 The Papers of Thomas
Jefferson 307 (J. Boyd ed. 1955); see Wood 412–413. With no
structural political checks on democratic lawmaking, creditors
found their rights jeopardized by state laws relieving debtors of
their obligation to pay and authorizing forms of payment that
devalued the contracts. McConnell, Contract Rights and Property
Rights: A Case Study in the Relationship Between Individual
Liberties and Constitutional Structures, 76 Cal. L. Rev. 267,
280–281 (1988); see also Fletcher v. Peck , 6 Cranch
87, 137–138 (1810) (Marshall, C. J.) (explaining that the
Contract Clause came from the Framers’ desire to “shield themselves
and their property from the effectsof those sudden and strong
passions to which men are exposed”).

															Because of the Framers’ concerns about placing
unchecked power in political majorities, the Constitution’s
majoritarian provisions were only part of a complex republican
structure. The Framers also placed several anti-democratic
provisions in the Constitution. The original Constitution permitted
only the direct election ofrepresentatives. Art. I, §2, cl. 1.
Senators and the President were selected indirectly. See Art. I,
§3, cl. 1; Art. II, §1, cls. 2–3. And the “Great Compromise”
guaranteed large and small States voting equality in the Senate. By
malapportioning the Senate, the Framers prevented large States from
outvoting small States to adopt policies that would advance the
large States’ interests at the expenseof the small States. See The
Federalist No. 62, at 417 (Madison).

															These countermajoritarian measures reflect the
Framers’ aspirations of promoting competing goals. Rejecting a
hereditary class system, they thought political power resided with
the people. At the same time, they sought to check majority rule to
promote the common good and mitigate threats to fundamental
rights.

															B

															As the Framers understood, designing a
government to fulfill the conflicting tasks of respecting the
fundamental equality of persons while promoting the common good
requires making incommensurable tradeoffs. For this reason, they
did not attempt to restrict the States to one form of
government.

															Instead, the Constitution broadly required that
the States maintain a “Republican Form of Government.” Art. IV, §4.
But the Framers otherwise left it to States to make tradeoffs and
reconcile the competing goals.

															Republican governments promote the common good
by placing power in the hands of the people, while curtailing the
majority’s ability to invade the minority’s fundamental rights. The
Framers recognized that there is no universal formula for
accomplishing these goals. At the framing, many state legislatures
were bicameral, often reflecting multiple theories of
representation. Only “[s]ix of the original thirteen states based
representation in bothhouses of their state legislatures on
population.” Hayden, The False Promise of One Person, One Vote, 102
Mich. L. Rev. 213, 218 (2003). In most States, it was common to
base representation, at least in part, on the State’s political
subdivisions, even if those subdivisions varied heavily in their
populations. Wood 171; Baker , 369 U. S., at 307–308
(Frankfurter, J., dissenting).

															Reflecting this history, the Constitution
continued to afford States significant leeway in structuring their
“Republican” governments. At the framing, “republican” referred to
“[p]lacing the government in the people,” and a “republick” was a
“state in which the power is lodged in more than one.” S. Johnson,
A Dictionary of the English Language (7th ed. 1785); see also The
Federalist No. 39, at 251 (Madison) (“[W]e may define a republic to
be, or at least may bestow that name on, a government which derives
all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the
people; and is administered by persons holding their offices during
pleasure, for a limited period, or during good behaviour”). By
requiring the States to have republican governments, the
Constitution prohibited them from having monarchies and
aristocracies. See id. , No. 43, at 291. Some would argue
that the Constitution also prohibited States from adopting direct
democracies. Compare Wood 222–226 (“For most constitution-makers in
1776, republicanism was not equated with democracy”) with A. Amar,
America’s Constitution: A Biography 276–281 (2005) (arguing that
the provision prohibited monarchies and aristocracies but not
direct democracy); see also The Federalist No. 10, at 62 (Madison)
(distinguishing a “democracy” and a “republic”); id. , No.
14, at 83–84 (same).

															Beyond that, however, the Constitution left
matters open for the people of the States to decide. The
Constitution says nothing about what type of republican government
the States must follow. When the Framers wanted to deny powers to
state governments, they did so explicitly. See, e.g. , Art.
I, §10, cl. 1 (“No State shall . . . pass anyBill of
Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of
Contracts”).

															None of the Reconstruction Amendments changed
the original understanding of republican government. Those
Amendments brought blacks within the existing American political
community. The Fourteenth Amendment pressured States to adopt
universal male suffrage by reducing a noncomplying State’s
representation in Congress. Amdt. 14, §2. And the Fifteenth
Amendment prohibited restricting the right of suffrage based on
race. Amdt. 15, §1. That is as far as those Amendments went. As
Justice Harlan explained in Reynolds , neither Amendment
provides a theory of how much “weight” a vote must receive, nor do
they require a State to apportion both Houses of their legislature
solely on a population basis. See 377 U. S., at 595–608
(dissenting opinion). And Justice Alito quite convincingly
demonstrates why the majority errs by reading a theory of equal
representation into the apportionment provision in §2 of the
Fourteenth Amendment. See post , at 8–13 (opinion concurring
in judgment).

															C

															The Court’s attempt to impose its political
theory upon the States has produced a morass of problems. These
problems are antithetical to the values that the Framers embraced
in the Constitution. These problems confirm that the Court has been
wrong to entangle itself with the political process. First , in embracing one person, one vote,
the Court has arrogated to the Judiciary important value judgments
that the Constitution reserves to the people. In Reynolds ,
for example, the Court proclaimed that “[l]egislators represent
people, not trees or acres”; that “[l]egislators are elected by
voters, not farms or cities or economic interests”; and that,
accordingly, electoral districts must have roughly equal
population. 377 U. S., at 562–563. As I have explained, the
Constitution permits, but does not impose, this view. Beyond that, Reynolds ’ assertions are driven by the belief that there is
a single, correct answer to the question of how much voting
strength an individual citizen should have. These assertions
overlook that, to control factions that would legislate against the
common good, individual voting strength must sometimes yield to
countermajoritarian checks. And this principle has no less force
within States than it has for the federal system. See The
Federalist No. 10, at 63–65 (Madison) (recognizing that smaller
republics, such as the individual States, are more prone to capture
by special interests). Instead of large States versus small States,
those interests may pit urban areas versus rural, manufacturing
versus agriculture, or those with property versus those without.
Cf. Reynolds , supra , at 622–623 (Harlan, J.,
dissenting). There is no single method of reconciling these
competing interests. And it is not the role of this Court to
calibrate democracy in the vain search for an optimum solution.

															The Government argues that apportioning
legislators by any metric other than total population “risks
rendering residents of this country who are ineligible, unwilling,
or unable to vote as invisible or irrelevant to our system of
representative democracy.” Brief for United States as Amicus
Curiae 27. But that argument rests on the faulty premise that
“our system of representative democracy” requires specific groups
to have representation in a specific manner. As I have explained,
the Constitution does not impose that requirement. See Parts II–A,
II–B, supra . And as the Court recently reminded us, States
are free to serve as “ ‘laboratories’ ” of democracy. Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent
Redistricting Comm’n , 576 U. S. ____, ____ (2015) (slip
op., at 28). That “laboratory” extends to experimenting about the
nature of democracy itself. Second , the Court’s efforts to monitor
the political process have failed to provide any consistent
guidance for the States. Even if it were justifiable for this Court
to enforce some principle of majority rule, it has been unable to
do so in a principled manner. Our precedents do not address the
myriad other ways that minorities (or fleeting majorities) entrench
themselves in the political system. States can place policy choices
in their constitutions or have supermajoritarian voting rules in a
legislative assembly. See, e.g., N. Y. Const.,
Art. V, §7 (constitutionalizing public employee pensions);
Ill. Const., Art. VII, §6(g) (requiring a three-fifths vote of the
General Assembly to pre-empt certain local ordinances). In theory,
of course, it does not seem to make a difference if a state
legislature is unresponsive to the majority of residents because
the state assembly requires a 60% vote to pass a bill or because
40% of the population elects 51% of the representatives.

															So far as the Constitution is concerned, there
is no single “correct” way to design a republican government. Any
republic will have to reconcile giving power to the people with
diminishing the influence of special interests. The wisdom of the
Framers was that they recognized this dilemma and left it to the
people to resolve. In trying to impose its own theory of democracy,
the Court is hope-lessly adrift amid political theory and
interest-group politics with no guiding legal principles.

															III

															This case illustrates the confusion that our
cases have wrought. The parties and the Government offer three
positions on what this Court’s one-person, one-vote cases require
States to equalize. Under appellants’ view, the Fourteenth
Amendment protects the right to an equal vote. Brief for Appellants
26. Appellees, in contrast, argue that the Fourteenth Amendment
protects against invidious discrimination; in their view, no such
discrimination occurs when States have a rational basis for the
population base that they select, even if that base leaves eligible
voters malapportioned. Brief for Appellees 16–17. And, the
Solicitor General suggests that reapportionment by total population
is the only permissible standard because Reynolds recognized
a right of “equal representation for equal numbers of people.”
Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 17.

															Although the majority does not choose among
these theories, it necessarily denies that the Equal Protection
Clause protects the right to cast an equally weighted ballot. To
prevail, appellants do not have to deny the importance of equal
representation. Because States can equalize both total population
and total voting power within the districts, they have to show only
that the right to cast an equally weighted vote is part of the
one-person, one-vote right that we have recognized. But the
majority declines to find such a right in the Equal Protection
Clause. Ante, at 18–19. Rather, the majority acknowl-edges
that “[f]or every sentence appellants quote from the Court’s
opinions [establishing a right to an equal vote], one could respond
with a line casting the one-person, one-vote guarantee in terms of
equality of representation, not voter equality.” Ante , at
16. Because our precedents are not consistent with appellants’
position—that the only constitutionally available choice for States
is to allocate districts to equalize eligible voters—the majority
concludes that appellants’ challenge fails. Ante , at
15–19.

															I agree with the majority’s ultimate disposition
of this case. As far as the original understanding of the
Constitution is concerned, a State has wide latitude in selecting
its population base for apportionment. See Part II–B, supra .
It can use total population, eligible voters, or any other
nondiscriminatory voter base. Ibid. And States with a
bicameral legislature can have some mixture of these theories, such
as one population base for its lower house and another for its
upper chamber. Ibid .

															Our precedents do not compel a contrary
conclusion. Appellants are correct that this Court’s precedents
have primarily based its one-person, one-vote jurisprudence on the
theory that eligible voters have a right against vote dilution. E.g. , Hadley , 397 U. S., at 52–53; Reynolds , 377 U. S., at 568. But this Court’s
jurisprudence has vacillated too much for me to conclude that the
Court’s precedents preclude States from allocating districts based
on total population instead. See Burns , 384 U. S., at
92 (recognizing that States may choose other nondiscriminatory
population bases). Under these circumstances, the choice is best
left for the people of the States to decide for themselves how they
should apportion their legislature.

															*  *  *

															There is no single “correct” method of
apportioning state legislatures. And the Constitution did not make
this Court “a centralized politburo appointed for life to dictate
to the provinces the ‘correct’ theories of democratic
representation, [or] the ‘best’ electoral systems for securing
truly ‘representative’ government.” Holder v. Hall ,
512 U. S. 874, 913 (1994) (Thomas, J., concurring in
judgment). Because the majority continues that misguided search, I
concur only in the judgment. Notes 1 * The Court’s opinions
have used “one person, one vote” and “one man, one vote”
interchangeably. Compare, e.g., Gray v. Sanders , 372
U. S. 368, 381 (1963) (“one person, one vote”), with Hadley v. Junior College Dist. of Metropolitan Kansas
City , 397 U. S. 50, 51 (1970) (“one man, one vote”
(internal quotation marks omitted)). Gray used “one person,
one vote” after noting the expansion of political equality over our
history—including adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment, which
guaranteed women the right to vote. 372 U. S., at
381. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

															_________________

															No. 14–940

															_________________

															SUE EVENWEL, et al., APPELLANTS v. GREG ABBOTT, governor of texas, et al.

															on appeal from the united states district
court for the western district of texas

															[April 4, 2016]

															Justice Alito, with whom Justice Thomas joins
except as to Part III–B, concurring in the judgment.

															The question that the Court must decide in this
case is whether Texas violated the “one-person, one-vote” principle
established in Reynolds v. Sims , 377 U. S. 533
(1964) , by adopting a legislative redistricting plan that provides
for districts that are roughly equal in total population.
Appellants contend that Texas was required to create districts that
are equal in the number of eligible voters, but I agree with the
Court that Texas’ use of total population did not violate the
one-person, one-vote rule.

															I

															Both practical considerations and precedent
support the conclusion that the use of total population is
consistent with the one-person, one-vote rule. The decennial census
required by the Constitution tallies total population. Art. I,
§2, cl. 3; Amdt. 14, §2. These statistics are more reliable
and less subject to manipulation and dispute than statistics
concerning eligible voters. Since Reynolds , States have
almost uniformly used total population in attempting to create
legislative districts that are equal in size. And with one notable
exception, Burns v. Richardson , 384 U. S. 73
(1966) , this Court’s post- Reynolds cases have likewise
looked to total population. Moreover, much of the time, creating
districts that are equal in total population also results in the
creation of districts that are at least roughly equal in eligible
voters. I therefore agree that States are permitted to use total
population in redistricting plans.

															II

															Although this conclusion is sufficient to
decide the case before us, Texas asks us to go further and to hold
that States, while generally free to use total population
statistics, are not barred from using eligible voter statistics.
Texas points to Burns , in which this Court held that Hawaii
did not violate the one-person, one-vote principle by adopting a
plan that sought to equalize the number of registered voters in
each district.

															Disagreeing with Texas, the Solicitor General
dismisses Burns as an anomaly and argues that the use of
total population is constitutionally required. The Solicitor
General contends that the one-person, one-vote rule means that all
persons, whether or not they are eligible to vote, are entitled to
equal representation in the legislature. Accordingly, he argues,
legislative districts must be equal in total population even if
that results in districts that are grossly unequal in the number of
eligible voters, a situation that is most likely to arise where
aliens are disproportionately concentrated in some parts of a
State.

															This argument, like that advanced by appellants,
implicates very difficult theoretical and empirical questions about
the nature of representation. For centuries, political theorists
have debated the proper role of representatives,[ 1 ] and political scientists have studied the
conduct of legislators and the interests that they actually
advance.[ 2 ] We have no need to
wade into these waters in this case, and I would not do so. Whether
a State is permitted to use some measure other than total
population is an important and sensitive question that we can
consider if and when we have before us a state districting plan
that, unlike the current Texas plan, uses something other than
total population as the basis for equalizing the size of
districts.

															III

															A

															The Court does not purport to decide whether a
State may base a districting plan on something other than total
population, but the Court, picking up a key component of the
Solicitor General’s argument, suggests that the use of total
population is supported by the Constitution’s formula for
allocating seats in the House of Representatives among the States.
Because House seats are allocated based on total population, the
Solicitor General argues, the one-person, one-vote principle
requires districts that are equal in total population. I write
separately primarily because I cannot endorse this meretricious
argument.

															First, the allocation of congressional
representation sheds little light on the question presented by the
Solicitor General’s argument because that allocation plainly
violates one person, one vote.[ 3 ] This is obviously true with respect to the Senate:
Although all States have equal representation in the Senate, the
most populous State (California) has 66 times as many people as the
least populous (Wyoming). See United States Census 2010, Resident
Population Data,
http://www.census.gov/2010census/data/apportionment-pop-text.php.
And even the allocation of House seats does not comport with one
person, one vote. Every State is entitled to at least one seat in
the House, even if the State’s population is lower than the average
population of House districts nationwide. U. S. Const.,
Art. I, §2, cl. 3. Today, North Dakota, Vermont, and
Wyoming all fall into that category. See United States Census 2010,
Apportionment Data,
http://www.census.gov/2010census/data/apportionment-data-text.php.
If one person, one vote applied to allocation of House seats among
States, I very much doubt the Court would uphold a plan where one
Representative represents fewer than 570,000 people in Wyoming but
nearly a million people next door in Montana.[ 4 ]

															Second, Reynolds v. Sims squarely
rejected the argument that the Constitution’s allocation of
congressional representation establishes the test for the
constitution-ality of a state legislative districting plan. Under
one Ala-bama districting plan before the Court in that case, seats
in the State Senate were allocated by county, much as seats in the
United States Senate are allocated by State. (At that time, the
upper houses in most state legislatures were similar in this
respect.) The Reynolds Court noted that “[t]he system of
representation in the two Houses of the Federal Congress” was
“conceived out of compromise and concession indispensable to the
establishment of our federal republic.” 377 U. S., at 574.
Rejecting Alabama’s argument that this system supported the
constitutionality of the State’s apportionment of senate seats, the
Court concluded that “the Founding Fathers clearly had no intention
of establishing a pattern or model for the apportionment of seats
in state legislatures when the system of representation in the
Federal Congress was adopted.” Id. , at 573; see also Gray v. Sanders , 372 U. S. 368, 378 (1963) .

															Third, as the Reynolds Court recognized,
reliance on the Constitution’s allocation of congressional
representation is profoundly ahistorical. When the formula for
allocating House seats was first devised in 1787 and reconsidered
at the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868,
the overwhelming concern was far removed from any abstract theory
about the nature of representation. Instead, the dominant
consideration was the distribution of political power among the
States.

															The original Constitution’s allocation of House
seats involved what the Reynolds Court rather delicately
termed “compromise and concession.” 377 U. S., at 574. Seats
were apportioned among the States “according to their respective
Numbers,” and these “Numbers” were “determined by adding to the
whole Number of free Persons . . . three fifths of all other
Persons.” Art. I, §2, cl. 3. The phrase “all other Persons” was a
euphemism for slaves. Delegates to the Constitutional Convention
from the slave States insisted on this infamous clause as a
condition of their support for the Constitution, and the clause
gave the slave States more power in the House and in the electoral
college than they would have enjoyed if only free persons had been
counted.[ 5 ] These slave-state
delegates did not demand slave representation based on some
philosophical notion that “representatives serve all residents, not
just those eligible or registered to vote.” Ante, at
18.[ 6 ]

															B

															The Court’s account of the original
Constitution’s allocation also plucks out of context Alexander
Hamilton’s statement on apportionment. The Court characterizes
Hamilton’s words (more precisely, Robert Yates’s summary of his
fellow New Yorker’s words) as endorsing apportionment by total population, and positions those words as if Hamilton
were talking about apportionment in the House. Ante, at 9.
Neither is entirely accurate. The “quote” comes from the
controversy over Senate apportionment, where the debate turned on
whether to apportion by population at all . See generally 1
Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, pp. 470–474 (M. Farrand
ed. 1911). Hamilton argued in favor of allocating Senate seats by
population:

															“The question, after all is, is it our
interest in modifying this general government to sacrifice
individual rights to the preservation of the rights of an artificial being, called states? There can be no truer
principle than this—that every individual of the community at large
has an equal right to the protection of government. If therefore
three states contain a majority of the inhabitants of America,
ought they to be governed by a minority? Would the inhabitants of
the great states ever submit to this? If the smaller states
maintain this principle, through a love of power, will not the
larger, from the same motives, be equally tenacious to preserve
their power?” Id., at 473.

															As is clear from the passage just quoted,
Hamilton (according to Yates) thought the fight over apportionment
was about naked power , not some lofty ideal about the nature
of representation. That interpretation is confirmed by James
Madison’s summary of the same statement by Hamilton: “The truth is
it [meaning the debate over apportionment] is a contest for power,
not for liberty. . . . The State of Delaware having
40,000 souls will lose power , if she has 1/10 only of the
votes allowed to Pa. having 400,000.” Id., at 466. Far from
“[e]ndorsing apportionment based on total population,” ante, at 9, Hamilton was merely acknowledging the obvious: that
apportionment in the new National Government would be the outcome
of a contest over raw political power, not abstract political
theory.

															C

															After the Civil War, when the Fourteenth
Amendment was being drafted, the question of the apportionment
formula arose again. Thaddeus Stevens, a leader of the so-called
radical Republicans, unsuccessfully proposed that apportionment be
based on eligible voters, rather than total population. The opinion
of the Court suggests that the rejection of Stevens’ proposal
signified the adoption of the theory that representatives are
properly understood to represent all of the residents of their
districts, whether or not they are eligible to vote. Ante ,
at 10–12. As was the case in 1787, however, it was power politics,
not democratic theory, that carried the day.

															In making his proposal, Stevens candidly
explained that the proposal’s primary aim was to perpetuate the
dominance of the Republican Party and the Northern States. Cong.
Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., 74 (1865); Van Alstyne, The
Fourteenth Amendment, The “Right” to Vote, and the Understanding of
the Thirty-Ninth Congress, 1965 S. Ct. Rev. 33, 45–47 (Van
Alstyne). As Stevens spelled out, if House seats were based on
total population, the power of the former slave States would be
magnified. Prior to the Civil War, a slave had counted for only
three-fifths of a person for purposes of the apportionment of House
seats. As a result of the Emancipation Proclamation and the
Thirteenth Amendment, the former slaves would now be fully counted
even if they were not permitted to vote. By Stevens’ calculation,
this would give the South 13 additional votes in both the House and
the electoral college. Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., 74
(1865); VanAlstyne 46.

															Stevens’ proposal met with opposition in the
Joint Committee on Reconstruction, including from, as the majority
notes, James Blaine. Ante, at 11. Yet, as it does with
Hamilton’s, the majority plucks Blaine’s words out of context:

															“[W]e have had several propositions to amend
the Federal Constitution with respect to the basis of
representation in Congress. These propositions . . . give
to the States in future a representation proportioned to their
voters instead of their inhabitants.

															“The effect contemplated and intended by this
change is perfectly well understood, and on all hands frankly
avowed. It is to deprive the lately rebellious States of the unfair
advantage of a large representation in this House, based on their
colored population, so long as that population shall be denied
political rights by the legislation of those States.
. . .

															“The direct object thus aimed at, as it
respects the rebellious States, has been so generally approved that
little thought seems to have been given to the incidental evils
which the proposed constitutional amendment would inflict on a
large portion of theloyal States—evils, in my judgment, so serious
and alarming as to lead me to oppose the amendment in any form in
which it has yet been presented. As an abstract proposition no one
will deny that population is the true basis of representation; for
women, children, and other non-voting classes may have as vital an
interest in the legislation of the country as those who actually
deposit the ballot. . . .

															“If voters instead of population shall be made
the basis of representation certain results will follow, not fully
appreciated perhaps by some who are now urgent for the change.”
Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., 141 (1865).

															The “not fully appreciated” and “incidental
evi[l]” was, in Blaine’s view, the disruption to loyal States’ representation in Congress. Blaine described how the
varying suffrage requirements in loyal States could lead to, for
instance, California’s being entitled to eight seats in the House
and Vermont’s being entitled only to three, despite their having
similar populations. Ibid. ; see also 2 B. Ackerman, We the
People: Transformations 164, 455, n. 5 (1998); Van Alstyne 47,
70. This mattered to Blaine because both States were loyal and so neither deserved to suffer a loss of relative political
power. Blaine therefore proposed to apportion representatives by
the “whole number of persons except those to whom civil or
political rights or privileges are denied or abridged by the
constitution or laws of any State on account of race or color.”
Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., 142.

															“This is a very simple and very direct
way, it seems to me, of reaching the result aimed at without
embarrassment to any other question or interest. It leaves
population as heretofore the basis of representation, does not
disturb in any manner the harmonious relations of the loyal States,
and it conclusively deprives the southern States of all
representation in Congress on account of the colored population so
long as those States may choose to abridge or deny to that
population the political rights and privileges accorded to others.” Ibid. As should be obvious from these lengthy
passages, Blaine recognized that the “generally approved” “result
aimed at” was to deprive southern States of political power; far
from quibbling with that aim, he sought to achieve it while
limiting the collateral damage to the loyal northern States. See
Van Alstyne 47.

															Roscoe Conkling, whom the majority also quotes, ante, at 11, seemed to be as concerned with voter-based
apportionment’s “narrow[ing] the basis of taxation, and in some
States seriously,” as he was with abstract notions of
representational equality. Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., 358; id., at 359 (“representation should go with taxation”); ibid. (apportionment by citizenship “would narrow the basis
of taxation and cause considerable inequalities in this respect,
because the number of aliens in some States is very large, and
growing larger now, when emigrants reach our shores at the rate of
more than a State a year”). And Hamilton Ward, also quoted by the
majority, ante, at 11, was primarily disturbed by “[t]he
fact that one South Carolinian, whose hands are red with the blood
of fallen patriots, and whose skirts are reeking with the odors of
Columbia and Andersonville, will have a voice as potential in these
Halls as two and a half Vermont soldiers who have come back from
the grandest battle-fields in history maimed and scarred in the
contest with South Carolina traitors in their efforts to destroy
this Government”—and only secondarily worried about the prospect of
“taxation without representation.” Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st
Sess., 434.

															Even Jacob Howard, he of the “theory of the
Constitution” language, ante, at 12, bemoaned the fact that
basing representation on total population would allow southern
States “to obtain an advantage which they did not possess before
the rebellion and emancipation.” Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st
Sess., 2766. “I object to this. I think they cannot very
consistently call upon us to grant them an additional number of
Representatives simply because in consequence of their own
misconduct they have lost the property [meaning slaves, whom
slaveholders considered to be property] which they once possessed,
and which served as a basis in great part of their representation.” Ibid. The list could go on. The bottom line is that in the
leadup to the Fourteenth Amendment, claims about representational
equality were invoked, if at all, only in service of the real goal: preventing southern States from acquiring too
much power in the National Government.

															After much debate, Congress eventually settled
on the compromise that now appears in §2 of the Fourteenth
Amendment. Under that provision, House seats are apportioned based
on total population, but if a State wrongfully denies the right to
vote to a certain percentage of its population, its representation
is supposed to be reduced proportionally.[ 7 ] Enforcement of this remedy, however, is dependent on
action by Congress, and—regrettably—the remedy was never used
during the long period when voting rights were widely abridged.
Amar 399.

															In light of the history of Article I, §2, of the
original Constitution and §2 of the Fourteenth Amendment, it is
clear that the apportionment of seats in the House of
Representatives was based in substantial part on the distribution
of political power among the States and not merely on some theory
regarding the proper nature of representation. It is impossible to
draw any clear constitutional command from this complex
history.

															*  *  *

															For these reasons, I would hold only that
Texas permissibly used total population in drawing the challenged
legislative districts. I therefore concur in the judgment of the
Court. Notes 1 See, e.g. , H.
Pitkin, The Concept of Representation 4 (1967) (“[D]iscussions of
representation are marked by long-standing, persistent
controversies which seem to defy solution”); ibid. (“Another
vexing and seemingly endless controversy concerns the proper
relation between representative and constituents”); Political
Representation i (I. Shapiro, S. Stokes, E. Wood, & A. Kirshner
eds. 2009) (“[R]elations between the democratic ideal and the
everyday practice of political representation have never been well
defined and remain the subject of vigorous debate among historians,
political theorists, lawyers, and citizens”); id., at 12
(“[W]e need a better understanding of these complex relations in
their multifarious parts before aspiring to develop any general
theory of representation”); S. Dovi, Political Representation, The
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (E. Zalta ed. Spring 2014)
(“[O]ur common understanding of political representation is one
that contains different, and conflicting, conceptions of how
political representatives should represent and so holds
representatives to standards that are mutually incompatible”),
online at
http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/political-representation
(all Internet materials as last visited Mar. 31, 2016); ibid. (“[W]hat exactly representatives do has been a
hotly contested issue”). 2 See, e.g. ,
Andeweg, Roles in Legislatures, in The Oxford Handbook of
Legislative Studies 268 (S. Martin, T. Saalfeld, & K. Strøm
eds. 2014) (explaining that the social sciences have not “succeeded
in distilling [an] unambiguous concept[ion]” of the “role” of a
legislator); Introduction, id., at 11 (“Like political
science in general, scholars of legislatures approach the topic
from different and, at least partially, competing theoretical
perspectives”); Diermeier, Formal Models of Legislatures, id., at 50 (“While the formal study of legislative politics
has come a long way, much remains to be done”); Best & Vogel,
The Sociology of Legislators and Legislatures, id., at 75–76
(“Stable representative democracies are . . . institutional
frameworks and informal arrangements which achieve an equilibrium
between the competing demands [of constituents and political
opponents]. How this situation affects the daily interactions of
legislators is largely unknown”). 3 As Justice Thomas notes, ante, at 8–10 (opinion concurring in judgment), the plan for
the House of Representatives was based in large part on the view
that there should be “equality of representation,” but that does
not answer the question whether it is eligible voters (as
appellants urge), all citizens, or all residents who should be
equally represented. The Constitution allocates House seats based
on total inhabitants, but as I explain, the dominant, if not
exclusive, reason for that choice was the allocation of political
power among the States. 4 The Court brushes off the
original Constitution’s allocation of congressional representation
by narrowing in on the Fourteenth Amendment’s ratification debates. Ante , at 13, n. 10. But those debates were held in the
shadow of that original allocation. And what Congress decided to do
after those debates was to retain the original apportionment
formula—minus the infamous three-fifths clause—and attach a penalty
to the disenfranchisement of eligible voters. In short, the
Fourteenth Amendment made no structural changes to apportionment
that bear on the one-person, one-vote rule. 5 See A. Amar, America’s
Constitution: A Biography 87–98 (2005) (Amar); id., at 94
(“The best justification for the three-fifths clause sounded in
neither republican principle nor Revolutionary ideology, but raw
politics”); see also id. , at 88–89 (explaining that the
“protective coloring” camouflaging the slave States’ power grab
“would have been wasted had the Constitution pegged apportionment
to the number of voters, with a glaringly inconsistent add-on for
nonvoting slaves”); cf. G. Van Cleve, A Slaveholders’ Union 126
(2010) (“[T]he slave states saw slave representation as a direct
political protection for wealth consisting of slave property
against possible Northern attacks on slavery, and told the
Convention unequivocally that they needed such protection in order
to obtain ratification of the Constitution”); id., at
133–134 (“The compromise on representation awarded disproportionate
shares of representative influence to certain vested
political-economy interests, one of which was the slave labor
economies”). 6 See Amar 92 (“But masters
did not as a rule claim to virtually represent the best interests
of their slaves. Masters, after all, claimed the right to maim and
sell slaves at will, and to doom their yet unborn posterity to
perpetual bondage. If this could count as virtual representation,
anything could”). 7 Section 2
provides:

Summary: The Supreme Court ruled that Texas can continue to use total population counts when drawing legislative districts, rejecting a challenge from voters who argued that using voter-eligible population would better ensure equal representation. The Court's decision was based on constitutional history, past rulings, and longstanding practices. This case addressed concerns about malapportionment and unequal representation, with rural districts being underpopulated compared to urban ones. The Court's decision upholds the longstanding practice of using total population as the basis for legislative districting.