The court decided that this was a nonjusticiable question: "The remedy for unfairness in districting is to secure State legislatures that will apportion properly, or to invoke the ample powers of Congress.

This second case arrived as appeal to the Supreme Court in Colegrove v. Barrett, 330 U.S. 804 (1947) for which Frankfurter was with the majority again issuing Per Curiam dismissal for want of a substantial federal question.

Critics of Colegrove complained that it deprived state citizens of federal remedies, and that the outdated apportionments – dating to 1901, 45 years prior[2] – were the vehicle by which rural, conservative interests were allowed to keep a disproportionate influence over the country's politics.

[6] An exception to the reach of Colegrove was allowed in a 1960 case called Gomillion v. Lightfoot, in which the appellants showed that the boundary lines of a district in Alabama had deliberately been drawn to minimize the voting rights of black residents.

[8] One week after the Gomillion ruling was handed down, Justice Black persuaded his colleagues to hear arguments in Baker v. Carr, the case which would ultimately overrule Colegrove.