Essay On Redistriction

The United States and Canada take radically different approaches to the issue of redistricting. In the United States, the process of redistricting is left to the relevant state legislatures (except in a few states, where committees of varying partisanship handle redistricting). In contrast, Canada has allow nonpartisan electoral commissions to design ridings ever since 1964. Equally as stark, are the differences in how each countries’ judiciary approaches the issue of redistricting. Analysing the body of case law (specifically the cases of Reference re Provincial Electoral Boundaries for Canada and Reynolds v. Sims for the United States) in each country shows that the judiciary in the United States is far more involved in the issue of redistricting and that the two judiciaries have different interpretations of how districts must be structured in order to effectively represent voters; the reasons for these differences are due to the fact that the two countries use different redistricting systems
This changed with the case of Baker v. Carr, where the court ruled that issues surrounding redistricting were justiciable. More important however, was the case of Reynolds v. Sims. In this case the Supreme Court reaffirmed the “one man, one vote” doctrine, and ruled that the Equal Protection Clause required districts (in both the Senate and the House of Representatives) be drawn on the basis of population. These cases marked the beginning of the “reapportionment revolution,” a period that saw the judiciary becoming increasingly involved in redistricting. For example, following the 1990 census, the judiciary heard redistricting cases from forty-one states. In comparison, the Canadian judiciary has had relatively little involvement in the issue of redistricting, with the only Supreme Court decision on the matter being Reference Re. Provincial Electoral