MacDougall v. Green’s Empirical Analysis
335 U.S. 281 · 1948
Citation profile
63 federal appellate · 21 district · 29 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 247 later decisions (33 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2013 · most notably Baker v. Carr (1962), Reynolds v. Sims (1964)
63 federal appellate · 21 district · 29 state decisions — followed in 12 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 1253 · 28 U.S.C. § 2281
Relies on Skinner v. State of Oklahoma Williamson · United States v. Classic · Smith v. Allwright · Colegrove v. Green · Nixon v. Herndon
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 247 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"* * * To assume that political power is a function exclusively of numbers is to disregard the practicalities of government. Thus, the Constitution protects the interests of the smaller against the greater by giving in the Senate entirely unequal representation to populations. It would be strange indeed, and doctrinaire, for this Court, applying such broad constitutional concepts as due process and equal protection of the laws, to deny a State the power to assure a proper diffusion of political initiative as between its thinly populated counties and those having concentrated masses, in view of the fact that the latter have practical opportunities for exerting their political weight at the polls not available to the former. The Constitution a practical instrument of government makes no such demands on the States. Colegrove v. Green, 328 U.S. 549 , 66 S.Ct. 1198 , 90 L.Ed. 1432 , and Colegrove v. Barrett, 330 U.S. 804 , 67 S.Ct. 973 , 91 L.Ed. 1262 ." 335 U.S. at 283-284 , 69 S.Ct. at 3 (Emphasis added) (Nominating procedures.)”
11 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Free and honest elections are the very foundation of our republican form of government,”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“The equity court ... must always be alert in the exercise of its discretion to make sure that its decree will not be a futile and ineffective thing.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.