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Publication Date

1968

Abstract

EARLIER in the pages of this Review the judicial application of the "one-man-one-vote" standard to local government is discussed in detail.' As noted, the United States Supreme Court did not completely evolve this standard for state legislatures until June, 1964. Since that time, the state courts and the lower federal courts have been inundated with litigation raising the question of the basic applicability of the standard to local governments in this country, as well as a host of accompanying inquiries. This litigation and the courts' reactions to it were extensively traced. Also analyzed were the three instances in which the Supreme Court itself had spoken on the subject, as of the close of its 1966 term. Although the Court had been presented with the opportunity to declare the standard either applicable or not applicable to local government on each of these occasions, it had steadfastly refused to do so. Instead, in Moody v. Flowers it completely passed up the question in order to hold the litigation presented not properly before it. This, held the Court, resulted from the fact that the controversies in issue turned upon statutes of limited application, and thus had not been appropriate for consideration by a three-judge court. Accordingly, direct appeal to the Supreme Court was out of order.

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