In Ignore the Man Behind the Memo, the New York Times editorial page writes: “[Judge Alito] noted his ‘disagreement with Warren Court decisions’ in many important areas, including reapportionment. The reapportionment cases established the one-person-one-vote doctrine, which requires that Congressional and legislative districts include roughly equal numbers of people. They played a key role in making American democracy truly representative, and are almost uniformly respected by lawyers and scholars.”
I think this is somewhat of an overstatement. While I believe there is near consensus that Baker v. Carr was correctly decided, there has been a great deal of criticism of the one person, one vote rule in recent years from both the left and right. I have already written about Judge McConnell’s criticisms. But there have also been thoughtul pieces by Sandy Levinson, Grant Hayden, Richard Briffault, myself and others who can’t be characterized as conservatives, questioning at least in part the implementation of the Supreme Court’s one person, one vote rule.