The answer is all in the numbers…As promised, we’re going to talk about Baker v. Carr and Reynolds v. Sims this week. Oh, you don’t remember that promise. Well, actually, what I said was, “The question I am being peppered with most consistently right now is ‘Why don’t we have district election of council members instead of district residency requirements and at-large election?’”
Baker v. Carr (1962) and Reynolds v. Sims (1964) are the two U.S. Supreme Court cases that defined voting districts as “not political matters.” Political issues are (supposed to be) outside the purview of the courts and the reach of the national government. Apportioning voting districts, reapportioning them and, one hopes, no longer mal-apportioning them, thanks to these cases, came under the rule abbreviated by Justice Earl Warren as “one person, one vote.” Before those decisions, some rural areas were over-represented in local and state governments, while others were very seriously under represented. The Court’s decisions made voter districting/redistricting a matter of complying with the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection guarantees.
You can look up the Supreme Court decisions for yourself, but you may remember hearing a good deal about them during the U.S. Senate confirmation hearings for Justice Samuel Alito Jr. who joined the Court in January 2006. One of the big questions for him was whether he might overturn the “one person, one vote” rulings. He supposedly promised Democrats in private meetings that he had no such intention—as if he could have done it, anyway.
So, that’s all the background you need on the legal side for a complete and correct understanding of why Maui County Council Members are elected at-large. Let me help you a little with the math.
“One person, one vote” means that each representative in any given body of a republican (representative democracy) government form must represent roughly the same number of citizens. (There’s one major exception to this rule. I’ll tell you what it is at the bottom of the column, but I can’t tell you why. Think about it for now.)
We’ll use population numbers from the 2000 U.S. Census, the most recent one. How would you go about dividing up Maui County’s population of 128,241 into districts with roughly equal numbers of citizens to be represented? Lana‘i had 3,193 people, so no district could be smaller than that. 128,241 divided by 3,193 is 40.16. That means the County Council would have to be no fewer than 40 seats if Lana‘i is to have its own representative. But, what about Hana? Hana had only 709 people, but the overall Hana district had 1,855. Would Hana people be willing to be “combined” with a neighboring district for election purposes? Unlikely! So, let’s check: 128,241 divided by 709 gives us a requirement to have 181 seats in the Council; 128,241 divided by 1,855 gives us 69 seats, and Hana families would probably be OK about being combined with Hana district households. Still, do we want a council of 40 or 69 members?
Say it with me: “No Way!” Considering how “quickly” business is handled by 9, I’m sure I am not alone in worrying about the pace of government with a huge council.
Well, maybe there could be a way, but as you can see, there is no way without combining some areas with others to create roughly equal districts. And, if the political wrangling over what areas to tie together could ever be settled, we’d also need to establish a legal mandate for periodic redistricting to keep up with shifting population changes. Still, the process begins with either accepting a huge County Council or accepting the battles that will be inevitable as we try to tell Hana it must share a councilmember with… with what other area or areas?
Are you ready for the answer to today’s political IQ question? You were thinking as you read about what government body is exempt from the “one person, one vote” rule. The Supreme Court said definitively that, “Legislators represent people, not trees or acres. Legislators are elected by voters, no farms or cities or economic interests.” Nonetheless, they accepted that one body could neither be reduced to the rule of direct, numerical representation, nor allowed to become disproportionate in terms of the representation of states. Got it now? It’s the U.S. Senate where two, always exactly two, people represent each state, regardless of the population. So, in this one case, and absolute no other, the “one person, one vote” rule gives way to equal representation of the will of each member of the federal government, meaning each state.