When do you know you’ve made a really stupid legal argument? When the Supreme Court unanimously rules against you, that’s when.
That’s what happened today after some conservatives in Texas insisted that only registered voters, and not the general population, should be counted in the drawing of legislative districts.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote the opinion. “History, our decisions, and settled practice in all 50 States and countless local jurisdictions point in the same direction: Total-population apportionment meets the Equal Protection demand, by rendering each representative alert to the interest and constituent-service requests of all who dwell in the representative’s district.”
The “one person, one vote” case should put an end to this notion that if you’re not eligible to vote you shouldn’t be counted in our government.
The unanimous ruling left intact Texas’ method — followed by nearly all states — of counting residents when drawing state and local voting districts.