The Debate between Montana and the Federal Government
It’s important to note a few things about Supreme Court cases before proceeding to discuss the argument presented in the case. During oral arguments, the Judges are allowed to bring up pointed questions that functionally are arguments. Consequently, some of the arguments will be attributed to one of the justices instead of the Solicitor General of the United States Federal Government, General Kenneth Starr, or the Attorney General for the state of Montana, General Marc Racicot. [Oye18b]
Arguments for Dean’s Method
The only argument for Dean’s method was given by General Racicot. He argued that Dean’s method made district equality. District equality is the idea that the size of House districts should deviate as little as possible from the “ideal district size” (i.e. the population of the United States divided by the number of congressional seats). The legal justification for a constitutional mandate of “district equality” comes from the 1983 ruling, Karcher v. Daggett. The case included a determination by the court that for intrastate districting (i.e. drawing the actual house district within a state), deviating more than one percent from the ideal intrastate district size (i.e. the number of people in the state divided by the number of representatives) was unconstitutional under Article I Section 2. (For further reading on Karcher v. Daggett please refer to [Oye18a]). General Racicot argued that this interpretation of Article I Section 2 of the constitution should also apply to interstate apportionment of representatives. General Racicot’s argument concluded that since Dean’s method produced better district equality than the Huntington-Hill method and Karcher v. Daggett provided constitutional justification for valuing district equality, that the court should rule that Huntington-Hill method was unconstitutional because it failed to value district equality. [Oye18b]
Arguments for the Huntington-Hill Method
The first argument for the Huntington-Hill method is brought up by General Starr. He maintains that the power to determine the method of apportionment is given to Congress by the constitution through the necessary and proper clause. This “elastic clause” has been used by Congress to justify extending their powers beyond those enumerated in Article I Section 8. The claim that the Federal government should hold the power of apportionment could be interpreted as a “necessary” component of running the government and country, which would make it an implied power that comes from this clause. Since Congress has the power to determine the method of apportionment, the only issue that needs to be considered is not whether this method is fair but whether it meets the constitutional criterion. The only constitutional criterion that is somewhat subjective, Starr argues, is whether there’s a reasonable relationship to population. Starr affirms that Huntington-Hill is reasonable related to the population of a state. There are some interesting hypothetical voting methods brought up by Justice Scalia in oral arguments that are fun to consider, and Justice Scalia seems sceptical about their constitutionality. (For further reading please refer to [Oy18b]).
The second argument is also brought up by General Starr. He points out that the mathematical community, namely the National Academy of Sciences, recommended this method. (For further reading on the National Academy of Science report refer to [BBE29]). The third argument is brought up by Justice Scalia. He remarks that the constitution allows for a blatant violation of the metric for equality provided by General Racicot. If the Congress were to set the number of members of the House to the number of states, i.e. make there be fifty members, then the method of apportionment would be fully specified in the constitution. Because, constitutionally, each state must have one representative, the only constitutional apportionment method would be to give each state one representative. Note that Congress would constitutionally be allowed to set the size of the house to this number. However, with states having their present disparate population distributions, this would very clearly violate the principle of district equality, because there would be incredibly small districts, like Montana, and incredibly large district, like California. Justice Scalia heavily implies in his line of questioning that the fact that the constitution allows such an arrangement suggests that district equality isn’t constitutionally mandated. [Oye18b]
