In the 1967 case of Avery v. Midland County, Texas residents challenged their county's apportionment scheme for electing commissioners, arguing it violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment due to population disparities among districts. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Avery and his fellow plaintiffs, holding that states must adhere to a "one person, one vote" principle when drawing electoral districts for local governments as well as state legislatures - not just federal ones. This meant that each district had to be roughly equal in population so every individual's vote would carry approximately the same weight regardless of where they lived within a given jurisdiction.

In the dissenting opinion for Avery v. Midland County, Justice John Marshall Harlan II argued that the Court had overstepped its bounds by applying a strict "one person, one vote" standard to local governments. He contended that there was no constitutional requirement for equal representation in local or state governments as there is for federal elections under Article I of the Constitution. Furthermore, he believed it was inappropriate and unwise for courts to interfere with matters of local government structure and organization which should be left up to states' discretion. In his view, this decision represented an unwarranted expansion of judicial power into areas traditionally reserved for state control.