Baker v. Carr

Common card · No. 257647

Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186 (1962), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that redistricting qualifies as a justiciable question under the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause, thus enabling federal courts to hear Fourteenth Amendment-based redistricting cases. The court summarized its Baker holding in a later decision as follows: "the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment limits the authority of a State Legislature in designing the geographical districts from which representatives are chosen either for the State Legislature or for the Federal House of Representatives." (Gray v. Sanders, 372 U.S. 368 (1963)). The court had previously held in Gomillion v. Lightfoot that districting claims over racial discrimination could be brought under the Fifteenth Amendment. The case arose from a lawsuit against the state of Tennessee, which had not conducted redistricting since 1901. Tennessee argued that the composition of legislative districts...

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