Cite as: 517 U. S. 952 (1996)
Souter, J., dissenting
I
As its text indicates and our cases have necessarily and repeatedly recognized,1 Article I of the Constitution places responsibility for drawing voting districts on the States in the first instance. See Art. I, § 2, cl. 1 ("The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature"); Art. I, § 4, cl. 1 ("The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations"). The Court has nonetheless recognized limits on state districting autonomy when it could discern a strong constitutional justification and a reasonably definite standard for doing so, as, for example, in announcing the numerical requirement of one person, one vote, see Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U. S. 533 (1964).2 But the Court has never ignored the
1 See, e. g., Growe v. Emison, 507 U. S. 25, 34 (1993) ("[T]he Constitution leaves with the States primary responsibility for apportionment of their federal congressional and state legislative districts") (citing U. S. Const., Art. I, § 2); Voinovich v. Quilter, 507 U. S. 146, 156 (1993); Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U. S. 533, 586 (1964).
2 Even in the no longer controversial instance of the one-person, one-vote rule, the adequacy of justification and standard was subject to sharp dispute, and some of the Court's best minds expressed principled hesitation to go even this far into what has been called the political thicket, see id., at 615 (Harlan, J., dissenting) ("The Court's elaboration of its new 'constitutional' doctrine indicates how far—and how unwisely—it has strayed from the appropriate bounds of its authority. The consequence of today's decision is that in all but the handful of States which may already satisfy the new requirements the local District Court or, it may be, the state courts, are given blanket authority and the constitutional duty to supervise apportionment of the State Legislatures. It is difficult to imagine a more intolerable and inappropriate interference by the judiciary with the independent legislatures of the States"); Baker v. Carr, 369
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