A Strong Start

To listen to Everett Dirksen, 1984 is just around the corner. "If the effects of this decision are not remedied," declaimed the Senate minority leader last week, the result may be "a centralized, all-powerful, leviathan Federal Government, clothed with power to convert citizens into subjects, and gradually shear away the freedoms they once knew."

From the doomsday tone of Dirksen's Senate speech, it was not easy to deduce that he was talking about reapportionment. For the fact is that since 1962, when the Supreme Court issued the first of a series of "one-man, one-vote" rulings designed to redraw state legislatures and congressional districts, the effects have been surprisingly salutary.

Of the 99 legislative branches in the 50 states (Nebraska has the only unicameral legislature), 93 have been reapportioned since 1962,* some of them a number of times. Far from shearing away any freedoms, the redistribution of legislative seats seems instead to have resulted in more equitable representation and enlightened legislation.

Different Tack. Nonetheless, Dirksen is determined to enact a constitutional amendment that would overrule at least part of the one-man, one-vote doctrine by permitting the states to select one house of their legislatures on a basis other than population. Twice, his efforts to push such amendments through the Senate were defeated by seven votes. Now the Illinois Senator is off on a different tack.

A total of 32 state legislatures have approved petitions urging Congress to call the first state-summoned constitutional convention in U.S. history to modify the reapportionment rulings. Only two more endorsements are needed to raise the total to two-thirds of the states, and Dirksen claims: "We've got six states, possibly seven, where the opportunity is good." Ohio is one of them; Iowa, whose lower house has already approved the petition, is another.

Even should Dirksen line up the required 34 states, however, there is no certainty that a convention would ever meet. Some critics note that the petitions are invalid because they are not identical. Others point out that some of the legislatures that approved them have since been reapportioned, and that the petitions may thus be worthless.

More Help than Hurt. Politically, Dirksen's distaste for the reapportionment ruling is puzzling, since it has helped Republicans more than it has hurt them. Initially, political scientists thought that the state legislatures would see a swift, drastic transfer of power from rural areas to the predominantly Democratic inner cities. Power has in deed flowed away from rural representatives--but to suburbia, where political loyalties are still in flux and Republicans are more often elected than Democrats.

"The suburbs and, in the long run, only the suburbs, will gain in the upheaval resulting from reapportionment," said William J. D. Boyd of the National Municipal League two years ago, and he has been proved right. In state elections last year, Republicans gained 45 new seats in reapportioned legislatures v. 25 for the Democrats. In Pennsylvania, ultraconservative upstate Republicans were replaced--but by other Republicans, from the suburbs of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. In Illinois,

Chicago and several downstate counties lost six seats apiece in the legislature, while Chicago's suburbs and exurbs picked up all twelve and filled them largely with Republicans. Throughout the South, the G.O.P. has gained strength in state legislatures. Tennessee now has 41 Republican legislators--the most in this century; in North Carolina, their number has grown from 15 to 33; in Kentucky, from 22 to 36.

On the national level, G.O.P. candidates won only 40% of the seats in the House of Representatives during the 1962 mid-term election, even though they collected 48% of the votes. Last year, after nearly two-thirds of the states had redrawn their congressional districts to make them more nearly equal in population, Republicans increased their share of House seats to 43% while increasing their share of the vote only to 48.3%. Roughly a dozen states are still at work reapportioning their congressional districts; only last week, a federal court threw out a 1966 redistricting plan adopted by New York and ordered the state to draw up a new one by 1968.

Them v.. Us. In the state legislatures, most rural representatives feared that reapportionment would mean an influx of city slickers who would, as one Illinois Representative put it, "run roughshod over downstate wishes." What has saved downstate Illinois--and upstate New York, and eastern Washington, and western Tennessee, as well--from the city boys has been the suburban influence.

As one expert on reapportionment points out, "the suburbanite fled the city and now resents being called upon to solve its problems. For the most part, he adopts a 'them' v. 'us' attitude." Despite this detachment, reapportioned legislatures have shown a greater awareness of urban problems than any of their predecessors. Says Herbert Wiltsee, director of the Southern Office of the Council of State Governments: "The 1967 legislative sessions have been giving almost unprecedented consideration to such matters as air and water pollution and consumer protection--subjects of special concern to city dwellers and suburbanites."

Prevailing Pattern. In Vermont, where the town of Stratton (pop. 24) once had equal representation with Burlington (pop. 35,531), a reapportioned legislature has abolished the poll tax, approved a capital-gains tax and passed the first deficit budget in the state's history. In Maryland, where suburban representatives have replaced many small-county lawmakers, a graduated income tax, a fair-housing law and the state's first billion-dollar budget have been adopted (TIME, April 7).

The South has scored some of the most remarkable gains. Georgia's legislators have increased state aid to cities and appropriated funds for a rapid-transit program, and the house has asserted its independence by choosing a speaker without consulting the Governor. As one state representative notes, "six of the ten people who brought it off were 'reapportionment legislators.'" Last week the Tennessee legislature passed the state's first civil rights bill since Reconstruction--a low-pressure measure setting up a commission to promote racial harmony--and opened the way for such dry cities as Nashville and Memphis to vote on the sale of liquor by the drink. This week it is expected to repeal the old "monkey law" that prohibits the teaching of evolution. Alabama has redistributed gas-tax funds and other revenues, increasing the slice for urban Jefferson County (Birmingham) from $1,700,000 this year to an estimated $6,400,000 next year.

The pattern prevails throughout the nation. Minnesota's legislature approved a 10% to 15% increase in educational funds for the Twin Cities, which previously had been outvoted by rural interests. Wisconsin's dairy-directed legislature, long a staunch defender of the more expensive spread, finally made the sale of oleomargarine legal. Colorado passed the nation's most advanced abortion bill, and North Carolina last week enacted a measure that is similar to Colorado's in most respects. Also last week, Oklahoma became the first state to legalize artificial insemination by a donor other than the woman's husband and to guarantee legitimacy to the resultant offspring. In Hawaii, where Oahu once had only two-fifths of the state's senators, though it had four-fifths of the population, a reapportioned senate (giving Oahu 19 of 25 seats) helped enact 20 consumer-protection bills and a traffic-safety measure. Throughout the Deep South, Daylight Saving Time is no longer rejected in favor of "God's time." Even in Tennessee, where it used to be a misdemeanor punishable by a $500 fine and ten days in jail to display a clock with Daylight Time, clocks have been set ahead an hour.

Political Greenhorns. Reapportionment, clearly, is not going to prove a quick and easy solution to the myriad ills currently plaguing the American states. For one thing, rural representatives still control most committee chairmanships by virtue of seniority. For another, many of the reapportionment legislators--though generally better educated than the men they replaced--are political greenhorns. No less than 40% of Arkansas' state representatives are first-termers; in Utah, 56 of the 97 house and senate members are freshmen; 25 of Nevada's 60 lawmakers are sitting in the legislature for the first time. "It may be two or three legislatures from now before the new crop of lawmakers gain the experience necessary to make the system work," says a political veteran in Tennessee.

Even when the lawmakers do acquire the necessary savvy, reapportionment alone cannot be expected to solve the problems of the nation's cities and states. Any marked improvement in the quality of government can only reflect the quality of the men and women who are sent to the state capitals from the newly created legislative districts. In that sense, reapportionment is not so much an end as a beginning--and, thus far, a good one.

*Oregon voluntarily reapportioned both houses--but in 1961. Alaska, Hawaii and South Carolina have not reapportioned their lower houses, nor Massachusetts its senate. In all the others, the lines have been redrawn.

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