Opinion

Gray v. Sanders

  • 372 U.S. 368
  • 83 S. Ct. 801
  • 9 L. Ed. 2d 821
  • 1963 U.S. LEXIS 1944
Court
Supreme Court of the United States
Filed
Mar 18, 1963
Status
Published
Author
Stewart
On the bench
Stewart, Harlan, Douglas
Cited by
630 cases
Authority
More cited than 24.0%

holding that “appellee, like any person whose right to vote is impaired, has standing to sue” (citations omitted)

How later courts described this case

  • holding that “appellee, like any person whose right to vote is impaired, has standing to sue” (citations omitted)
  • holding that “[t]he concept of ‘we the people’ under the Constitution visualizes no preferred class of voters but equality among those who meet the basic qualifications,” and “[t]he idea that every voter is equal to every other voter in his State, when he casts his ballot in favor of one of several competing candidates, underlies many of our decisions,” and ultimately concluding that “[t]he conception of political equality from the Declaration of Independence, to Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, to the Fifteenth, Seventeenth, and Nineteenth Amendments can mean only one thing — one person, one vote”
  • explaining constitutional USCA11 Case: 22-14031 Document: 54-1 Date Filed: 03/11/2025 Page: 37 of 112 22-14031 Opinion of the Court 37 guarantees extend to “any preliminary election that in fact deter- mines the true weight a vote will have”
  • stating that "any person whose right to vote is impaired has standing to sue" (citation omitted)

Written by the judges who cited it.

The opinion

Mr. Justice Stewart,

whom Mr. Justice Clark joins, concurring.

In joining the opinion and judgment of the Court, I emphasize what — but for my Brother Harlan’s dissent— I should have thought would be apparent to all who read the Court’s opinion. This case does not involve the *382 validity of a State’s apportionment of geographic constituencies from which representatives to the State’s legislative assembly are chosen, nor any of the problems under the Equal Protection Clause which such litigation would present. We do not deal here with “the basic ground rules implementing Baker v. Carr.” This case, on the contrary, involves statewide elections of a United States Senator and of state executive and judicial officers responsible to a statewide constituency. Within a given constituency, there can be room for but a single constitutional rule — one voter, one vote. United States v. Classic, 313 U. S. 299 .

This is a copy of a public record, reproduced as it was published. It is not legal advice, and it may not be the version a court would rely on. Check the official source before you cite it.

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