Cox: Court's Ruling Applies to Counties

The one-man, one-vote principle demanded for states in the Supreme Court's reapportionment decisions can legally be applied to counties and other local districts, asserted Archibald Cox '34, Samuel Williston Professor of Law and exsolicitor General of the United States, in an informal address at Lowell House last night.

Cox, who argued the reapportionment cases before the Supreme Court, explained, "I don't see the basis for disinguishing between a state and a country."

Reapportionment Accepted

Citing the failure of Senator Dirksen's amendment to win Congressional approval this year, Cox said that the decisions have obtained wide-spread acceptance and legislative response.

"Even Dirksen accepted the thrust of the decision by arguing that one body of a state legislature be based strictly on population," he said.

Cox felt that the decision had had no simple, direct effect on the American party structure. "The impact on parties is a speculative matter and varied from case to case," he stated. The reapportionment case had originally been taken up by a Republican solicitor general, Lee Rankin, before it was presented under a Democratic administration, he reminded his audience.

Cox termed the Court's decision in Baker v. Carr, the first reapportionment case, "as explicit an inquiry into the court's functions as in any case that I've read."

Much of Cox's speech concerned personal reminiscences about the progress of the reapportionment cases between 1961 and 1963 and about the personalities involved.