To score well on your AP® U.S. Government and Politics Exam, it is important to become familiar with all of the required Supreme Court cases. In the free-response section of your AP U.S. Government Exam, you will have to answer four essay questions. The third of these questions is a SCOTUS comparison essay, in
which you will be required to compare a non-required Supreme Court case with a required Supreme Court case, so get to know each required Supreme Court case as well as possible! The required Supreme Court cases for the AP U.S. Government and Politics Exam in 2021 are: Marbury v. Madison
(1803) Baker v. Carr is one of the required Supreme Court cases for AP U.S.
Government and Politics. This case resulted in the decision that facilitated the development of the “one person, one vote” doctrine and enabled federal courts to weigh in on legislative redistricting questions. Tom Richey delves deeper into the facts of the case in this video: The Tennessee State Constitution mandated that legislative districts be redrawn every ten
years to ensure that those districts be substantially proportional according to population. In 1962, Charles Baker and other Tennessee citizens sued Joe Carr, Secretary of State for Tennessee, alleging that the state had failed to redraw its legislative districts since 1901. At issue was the fact that the population of Shelby County, in which Baker had been mayor, had drastically shifted such that the urban areas contained about 10 times as many citizens as the rural areas and that the rural
areas were therefore overrepresented in the old legislative districts. In response to the suit, the state of Tennessee argued that the issue of legislative redistricting was a “non-justiciable” political question, as the Supreme Court had ruled in Colegrove v. Green (1946). As such, the state argued, redistricting was not properly within the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. In a 6-2 opinion, the Court ruled that the Tennessee case did not contain any
pertinent political questions and that legislative redistricting was indeed an appropriate matter on which the Supreme Court could intervene. Justice William Brennan provided past examples of the Court intervening to correct errors in state administration and stated that the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection guarantee warranted judicial intervention in Tennessee. The decision in Baker v. Carr did not immediately lead to major shifts in electoral maps, but laid
an important precedent for the ability of the judiciary to weigh in on issues of legislative apportionment. Moreover, it strengthened the centrality of the principle of “one person, one vote” in the American political landscape. Colgrove v. Green (1946)— argued that the federal judiciary did not have the power to interfere with issues related to the appointment of state legislatures.
McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)
Schenck v. the United States (1919)
Brown v. Board of Education
(1954)
Engel v. Vitale (1962)
Baker v. Carr (1962)
Gideon v. Wainwright
(1963)
Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969)
New York Times Co. v. United States (1971)
Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972)
Roe v. Wade (1973)
Shaw v. Reno (1993)
United States v. Lopez
(1995)
McDonald v. Chicago (2010)
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010)FACTS OF THE CASE
THE DECISION
IMPACT
PRECEDENT
SUBSEQUENT CASES
Reynolds v. Sims (1964)— established that the legislative districts of state governments must be approximately equal in population.
Shaw v. Reno (1993)— established that redistricting based on race must be held to strict scrutiny under the Fourteenth Amendment.
KEY TERMS
Justiciable The types of matters for which it is appropriate and legal for a court to make pronouncements.
Legislative Apportionment The process by which legislative seats are distributed among the areas entitled to representation.
The best way to get better at something is by practicing.
That’s why it’s so important that you take practice tests to help you get better at the AP U.S. Government and Politics Exam. Only then can you expect to get a good score—and even improve your score.
Download your free AP U.S. Government and Politics practice test HERE.Download your printable study guide for all of the required Supreme Court cases HERE.Baker v. Carr (1962)
Case Summary
Charles Baker, a resident of an urban neighborhood in Tennessee, filed suit in federal court against Joe Carr, then Secretary of State of Tennessee. Baker sought a court injunction to postpone elections until the State had fulfilled its duty to reapportion its legislative districts, which it had not done since 1901 (over 60 years). Though the Tennessee Constitution required that reapportionment be carried out every ten years, Baker’s claim was based on the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. Baker argued that because of population changes in the state, specifically migration to cities, his vote in an urban area had much less weight than that of a voter in a rural district, thus constituting a “debasement of [his] votes.”
Ruling
After being dismissed at the district court level, the case was taken on appeal by the Supreme Court, which reversed the ruling, deemed the issue justiciable, and remanded. The Court found that plaintiffs had standing to sue, referencing Colegrove v. Green as precedent for granting “voters who allege facts showing disadvantage to themselves as individuals… standing to sue.” Reversing Colegrove, however, the Court went on to find that the courts were an appropriate source of relief for cases involving malapportionment. A major question before the Court was the issue of the political question doctrine, by which the district court and the Colegrove court had ruled issues involving reapportionment as nonjusticiable. The Supreme Court reversed, determining that because the claims were not derivative of the Guaranty Clause of Article IV, but rather the 14th Amendment, that simply the implication of political rights did not render an issue inappropriate for judicial review. While the Court created a six-part test to determine if a case presented a political question, the most important fact for redistricting purposes was the determination that the voting inequities presented satisfied these requirements, including the judgment that courts can provide “discoverable and manageable standards” for granting relief.
Impact on Redistricting
Baker v. Carr opened the door to judicial review of the redistricting process, prompted a cascade of subsequent lawsuits, and sent shockwaves through the redistricting community. Though the opinion stopped short of addressing the shape relief should take in malapportionment cases, by recognizing unequal districts as creating real and justiciable injuries, it laid the groundwork for the rapid development of the “one-person one-vote” principle. It is no coincidence that by 1964, only two years later, 26 States had reapportioned their legislative districts, three under court-drawn plans, many more under judicial pressure. By 1966 that number rose to 46 states.