Reynolds v. Sims

…precedent, the court held in Reynolds v. Sims (1964) that both houses of bicameral legislatures had to be apportioned according to population. It remanded numerous other apportionment cases to lower courts for reconsideration in light of the Baker and Reynolds decisions. As a result, virtually every state legislature was reapportioned,…

…year, the Court affirmed, in Reynolds v. Sims, that “the Equal Protection Clause requires that the seats in both houses of a bicameral state legislature must be apportioned on a population basis.”

In Reynolds v. Sims (1964), using the Supreme Court’s precedent set in Baker v. Carr (1962), Warren held that representation in state legislatures must be apportioned equally on the basis of population rather than geographical areas, remarking that “legislators represent people, not acres or trees.” In…