Baker v. Carr was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States concerning apportionment (distribution of seats) in state legislatures. In the 1962 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that federal courts have authority to decide lawsuits challenging the fairness of state apportionment. This decision helped shift the political power from rural to urban areas.
The case began in 1959 when Charles Baker and several other residents of Tennessee urban areas sued Tennessee Secretary of State Joseph Carr. The state’s legislature had not been reapportioned since 1901 in spite of a major population shift from rural to urban areas. Baker and others argued that the state discriminated against urban residents by failing to provide equal representation in the legislature. A United States district court refused to hear the case. However, the Supreme Court ordered it to do so in its 1962 decision.
