Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 4 of 4
Full-Text Articles in Law
Deregulated Redistricting, Travis Crum
Deregulated Redistricting, Travis Crum
Scholarship@WashULaw
From the civil rights movement through the Obama administration, each successive redistricting cycle involved ever-greater regulation of the mapmaking process. But in the past decade, the Supreme Court has re-written the ground rules for redistricting. For the first time in fifty years, Southern States will redistrict free of the preclearance process that long protected minorities from having their political power diminished. Political parties can now openly engage in egregious partisan gerrymandering.
The Court has withdrawn from the political thicket on every front except race. In so doing, the Court has engaged in decision-making that is both activist and restrained, but …
Reconstructing Racially Polarized Voting, Travis Crum
Reconstructing Racially Polarized Voting, Travis Crum
Scholarship@WashULaw
Racially polarized voting makes minorities more vulnerable to discriminatory changes in election laws and therefore implicates nearly every voting rights doctrine. In Thornburg v. Gingles, the Supreme Court held that racially polarized voting is a necessary—but not a sufficient—condition for a vote dilution claim under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The Court, however, has recently questioned the propriety of recognizing the existence of racially polarized voting. This colorblind approach threatens not only the Gingles factors but also Section 2’s constitutionality.
The Court treats racially polarized voting as a modern phenomenon. But the relevant starting point is the 1860s, …
Federally Funded Slaving, Rafael I. Pardo
Federally Funded Slaving, Rafael I. Pardo
Scholarship@WashULaw
This Article presents a new frame of reference for thinking about the federal government’s complicity in supporting the domestic slave trade in the antebellum United States. While scholars have accounted for several methods of such support, they have failed to consider how federal bankruptcy legislation during the 1840s functionally created a system of direct financial grants to slave traders in the form of debt discharges. Relying on a variety of primary sources, including manuscript court records that have not been systematically analyzed by any published scholarship, this Article shows how the Bankruptcy Act of 1841 enabled severely indebted slave traders …
Bankrupted Slaves, Rafael I. Pardo
Bankrupted Slaves, Rafael I. Pardo
Scholarship@WashULaw
Responsible societies reckon with the pernicious and ugly chapters in their histories. Wherever we look, there exist ever-present reminders of how we failed as a society in permitting the enslavement of millions of black men, women, and children during the first century of this nation’s history. No corner of society remains unstained. As such, it is incumbent on institutions to confront their involvement in this horrific past to fully comprehend the kaleidoscopic nature of institutional complicity in legitimating and entrenching slavery. Only by doing so can we properly continue the march of progress, finding ways to improve society, not letting …