The case concerns the constitutionality of the 1901 Apportionment Act in Tennessee, which has not been reapportioned since then. The plaintiffs argue that the Act violates their Fourteenth Amendment rights to equal protection of the laws due to the legislature's failure to reapportion itself and the Act's lack of a logical or reasonable formula for apportionment. The Supreme Court found that the case was wrongly dismissed and remanded it to the District Court for trial and further proceedings. The District Court has jurisdiction over the case as the complaint raises a federal constitutional issue related to redistricting. The appellants have standing to pursue their lawsuit, as they have a direct and adequate interest in maintaining the effectiveness of their votes. The Court finds that this apportionment case is justiciable and not a non-justiciable "political question." The appropriate remedy was not considered, and the District Court would be able to fashion relief if violations of constitutional rights were found.

The passage covers the interaction between state agencies and federal courts regarding voting rights. The states have the authority to define voter qualifications; however, there are restrictions on what they can demand, as the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause limits a state's power and forbids discrimination. The federal courts have the jurisdiction to handle disputes related to voting rights, and the Congress safeguards the right to have one's vote counted. Discrimination based on race has been punished or nullified by the courts, but no definitive results have been given.

The concurring opinion criticizes the majority's decision for not granting relief despite clear facts and lack of guidance to the District Court. The Tennessee apportionment plan violates both the state constitution and the federal rights of the plaintiffs. The allocation of legislative seats to counties or districts does not follow the policy of the Constitution and is a crazy quilt without rational basis. The present apportionment plan is still irrational despite the use of an adjusted "total representation" formula. The District Court found that the disparities in the present districting are not justifiable, and the apportionment policy of the Constitution is of no relevance in this case. The use of floterial districts is not based on a rational theory. Judicial intervention should not be used to force legislative action, but if judicial competence is present, effective relief can be fashioned.

Justice Stewart, concurring with the Court's opinion, clarifies that the decision is limited to the court's jurisdiction, the existence of a justiciable cause of action, and the appellants' standing to challenge the Tennessee apportionment statutes. The Court did not address the merits of the claim that Tennessee's apportionment system is arbitrary and lacks rational justification, nor did it suggest that state legislatures must ensure equal representation for every voter. The Court also did not decide whether a state can give more weight to the vote of one county or district over another. The burden of proving the unconstitutionality of a statute lies with the party challenging it, as established in previous cases under the Equal Protection Clause.

This case involves a challenge to Tennessee's state code for allocating state representative and senatorial seats among counties. The Supreme Court held that federal courts must defer to state courts in determining the legality of a state government. The Court emphasized that it was not the role of a court to determine the qualification of voters in a state unless there was a previous law of the state to guide it. The lower court erred in not recognizing the appellants' dissatisfaction with the current basis of representation and their argument for proportionate representation. The guarantee of equal protection cannot be used to enforce a political conception of representative government, and the determination of whether treatment is equal requires an inquiry into the theoretical basis of representation in a republican state. Therefore, a court cannot determine the equal protection issue without first determining the Republican Form issue.

The dissenting opinion argues that federal courts should not interfere in a state's right to determine its own legislative representation. The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment does not require exact equality in state legislatures, only that there is no invidious discrimination lacking a rational relationship to any legitimate state policy. A state can choose any electoral legislative structure it deems appropriate, as long as it is not irrational. The federal judiciary cannot judge the wisdom of a state's apportionment of political representatives to its central government.

The constitutionality of Tennessee's apportionment is based on whether it can be justified by rationality and will only be invalidated if the discrimination does not fit any pattern. The formula used to calculate the total representation of a county is flawed because it fails to consider the relative voting power of counties that are combined in a single election district. The proposed formula needs to be adjusted to reflect the actual political situation. However, no mathematical formula can be a proper measure of the rationality of the present or proposed apportionment plan. A court can only hold a state electoral apportionment invalid under the Equal Protection Clause if none of the permissible policies or formulas on which it might have been based could rationally justify particular inequalities, in accordance with established constitutional doctrine.