The reason the court ruled that state senate districts had to be drawn equally, was because the rural counties were getting a highly disproportionate amount of representation. In California, Los Angeles County had only one state Senator, while several rural counties were distributed into several low population districts.
Can anyone imagine Cook county or Los Angeles county having the same number of state senators as some county with a population of less than 1,000? Well that's the U.S. Senate.
I love the American Democracy™ that ensures "states rights" to disenfranchise the population. Truly a great, sacred compromise.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reynolds_v._Sims#Background
