The number of Senators shall be apportioned by the General Assembly among the several counties or districts substantially according to population, and shall not exceed one-third the number of Representatives. Counties having two or more Senators shall be divided into separate districts. In a district composed of two or more counties, each county shall adjoin at least one other county of such district; and no county shall be divided in forming such a district.
... Counties are divided and thus their citizens are denied their constitutional right to be represented in the State Senate as a political group by senators subject to election by all voters within that political group. These plaintiffs aver that the legal and political framework of Tennessee allows and requires that the legislature enact legislation having only a local application. Thus the legislature has the ability through local legislation to directly affect citizens merely because those citizens reside in a particular county. Therefore, the legislature has the right to govern citizens in one county differently from citizens in another county.
(Defendants) offered no evidence to establish that the wholesale cutting of county lines ... was either required or *710 justified to comply with the one-man, one-vote decisions. The burden is on one attacking an act to establish its invalidity. (Citations omitted.) (Plaintiffs) proved conclusively that the statute fails to do what is required by the constitution in those respects discussed ... above. No presumption of validity remains in the face of that showing. If these districting requirements were excused by the requirements of equal representation, the (defendants) had the burden of presenting that evidence. They presented none.
House | Senate | |
---|---|---|
1796 | not less than 22 | not less than 1/3 |
not more than 26 | not less than 1/2 | |
(11 counties) | ||
1835 | not greater than 75 until | |
population reaches 1.5 | not greater than 1/3 | |
million, thereafter no | ||
greater than 99 | ||
1870 | same as in 1835 | same as in 1835 |
1966 | 99 members | same as in 1835 |
Code of 1858, Art. IV. 91 | House | Senate |
(Acts of 1851 52, Ch. 197. § 41 | 75 | 25 |
Code of 1884, Art. III, 114 | 99 | 33 |
Code of 1896, Art. III, 123 | 99 | 33 |
Acts of 1901, Ch. 122. § 2 | 99 | 33 |
Acts of 1965 (E.S.), Ch. 3. § 2 | 99 | 33 |
(TCA § 3 1 101) |
the record does not show that these reapportionment measures have significantly reduced the division of magisterial districts in the affected counties. Nor does the record show an attempt by the State to effect a statewide policy of “putting the counties back together.” On this record, the court does not find any relationship *713 between county unification and the reapportionment legislation before the court.
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