In Dusch et al. v. Davis et al., the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on a case involving electoral districting in Virginia Beach, Virginia. The city had recently transitioned from being a rural county to an urban city and adopted a new charter which divided it into ten boroughs for election purposes, each electing one council member regardless of population size within the boroughs - this was challenged as violating the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment due to unequal representation based on population distribution (the "one person, one vote" principle). However, the court upheld Virginia Beach's system with 5-4 majority decision stating that there were rational state policy reasons behind such arrangement including maintaining historical boundaries and ensuring geographical representation across both urban and rural areas of newly formed city.

In the dissenting opinion for Dusch et al. v. Davis et al., Justice Harlan argued that the Court should not have taken up this case because it did not present a substantial federal question, and thus was outside of its jurisdiction. He believed that the Virginia Beach city council's decision to switch from a ward-based system to an at-large voting system was within their rights as local government officials and did not violate any constitutional principles or laws. Furthermore, he contended that there were no clear standards in place for determining when such changes would be unconstitutional, making it difficult for courts to make consistent rulings on these issues. Therefore, he felt it was inappropriate for the Supreme Court to intervene in what he saw as a purely local matter.