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Articles 1 - 16 of 16
Full-Text Articles in Election Law
Crystalizing Community: “Communities Of Interest” And The 2020 Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission, Edward Webre Plaut, Elizabeth Powers
Crystalizing Community: “Communities Of Interest” And The 2020 Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission, Edward Webre Plaut, Elizabeth Powers
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
The Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission (MICRC) met for the first time in 2020 after it was created via ballot initiative in 2018. The MICRC included thirteen Michiganders tasked with drawing state house, senate, and congressional districts. The newly amended Michigan Constitution charged the MICRC with incorporating a new criterion previously unknown to Michigan redistricting: communities of interest. Communities of interest (COIs) have played a role in redistricting law across several states, gaining prominence after the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Shaw v. Reno as an ostensibly race-neutral “traditional districting principle.” However, the concept is difficult to define. This Note …
Race And Representation Revisited: The New Racial Gerrymandering Cases And Section 2 Of The Vra, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer, Guy-Uriel E. Charles
Race And Representation Revisited: The New Racial Gerrymandering Cases And Section 2 Of The Vra, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer, Guy-Uriel E. Charles
Articles by Maurer Faculty
This article explores the Supreme Court's new racial gerrymandering cases and argue that those cases are on a collision course with Section 2 of the VRA. We revisit the Shaw line of cases and explain that the Shaw cases were more sympathetic to the representational rights of voters of color than are the new racial gerrymandering cases. This is primarily because the Shaw cases made room within the doctrine for the state to pursue descriptive representation for voters of color. We argue that new racial gerrymandering cases are inimical to descriptive representation. To the extent that voting rights scholars and …
A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing: Gaffney And The Improper Role Of Politics In The Districting Process, Robert A. Koch
A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing: Gaffney And The Improper Role Of Politics In The Districting Process, Robert A. Koch
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
The Supreme Court unanimously agrees that excessive partisan gerrymandering is unconstitutional. A plurality of the Court, however, would hold partisan gerrymandering claims to be nonjusticiable due to the lack of a judicially manageable standard. This Note synthesizes the opinions of a majority of the Court in Vieth v. Jubelirer on the precise harms of partisan gerrymandering and argues that excessive partisan gerrymandering unconstitutionally burdens the representational rights of individual voters. This Note proposes a judicially manageable standard to address that representational harm based on the Court's standard in Shaw v. Reno.
Reinforcing Representation: Congressional Power To Enforce The Fourteenth And Fifteenth Amendments In The Rehnquist And Waite Courts, Ellen D. Katz
Reinforcing Representation: Congressional Power To Enforce The Fourteenth And Fifteenth Amendments In The Rehnquist And Waite Courts, Ellen D. Katz
Michigan Law Review
A large body of academic scholarship accuses the Rehnquist Court of "undoing the Second Reconstruction," just as the Waite Court has long been blamed for facilitating the end of the First. This critique captures much of what is meant by those generally charging the Rehnquist Court with "conservative judicial activism." It posits that the present Court wants to dismantle decades' worth of federal antidiscrimination measures that are aimed at the "reconstruction" of public and private relationships at the local level. It sees the Waite Court as having similarly nullified the civil-rights initiatives enacted by Congress following the Civil War to …
Redefining American Democracy: Do Alternative Voting Systems Capture The True Meaning Of "Representation"?, James Thomas Tucker
Redefining American Democracy: Do Alternative Voting Systems Capture The True Meaning Of "Representation"?, James Thomas Tucker
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
This Article explores whether alternative voting systems are compatible with the meaning of representation in the United States. Part II begins by examining the role of geographical representation and the effect it has on the ability of individuals and groups of voters to give or withhold their consent. Part III follows this inquiry by assessing the relationship between representatives and constituents under majoritarian and proportional systems to determine the consequences of moving away from geographical representation towards models designed to enhance opportunities for all voters to choose winning candidates. A description of what a "majority" is and when and how …
Redistricting In A Post-Shaw Era: A Small Treatise Accompanied By Districting Guidelines For Legislators, Litigants, And Courts, Katharine Inglis Butler
Redistricting In A Post-Shaw Era: A Small Treatise Accompanied By Districting Guidelines For Legislators, Litigants, And Courts, Katharine Inglis Butler
University of Richmond Law Review
Legislators in jurisdictions with even modest minority populations will find adopting a challenge-resistant redistricting plan to be more difficult than ever before. The problem is how much consideration to give to race. Too little consideration may produce a plan subject to challenge under the Voting Rights Act (the "Act"). Too much consideration may produce a plan subject to challenge on constitutional grounds.
Morgan Kousser's Noble Dream, Heather K. Gerken
Morgan Kousser's Noble Dream, Heather K. Gerken
Michigan Law Review
J. Morgan Kousser, professor of history and social science at the California Institute of Technology, is an unusual academic. He enjoys the respect of two quite different groups - historians and civil rights litigators. As a historian, Kousser has written a number of important works on the American South in the tradition of his mentor, C. Vann Woodward, including a foundational book on southern political history, The Shaping of Southern Politics: Suffrage Restriction and the Establishment of the One-Party South, 1880-1910. Many of his writings have become seminal texts among election law scholars. Kousser has also used his historical skills …
Sense And Nonsense: Standing In The Racial Districting Cases As A Window On The Supreme Court's View Of The Right To Vote, Judith Reed
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
Congressional redistricting draws the lines within which battles for political power will be fought. It is no surprise, therefore, that the redistricting process has long been the subject of social debate and legal dispute. The Supreme Court has not been able to resolve this dispute, in part, because the Justices have conflicting interpretations of the right to vote. While some Justices view voting as an individual right, others maintain that voting is correctly perceived as group right. This lack of consensus regarding the definition of the right to vote has led to a confusing articulation of the harm implicated by …
The Unwelcome Judicial Obligation To Respect Politics In Racial Gerrymandering Remedies, Jeffrey L. Fisher
The Unwelcome Judicial Obligation To Respect Politics In Racial Gerrymandering Remedies, Jeffrey L. Fisher
Michigan Law Review
Like it or not, the attack on "bizarrely" shaped majority-minority electoral districts is now firmly underway. Nearly four years have passed since the Supreme Court first announced in Shaw v. Reno that a state's redistricting plan that is "so extremely irregular on its face that it rationally can be viewed only as an effort to segregate the races for purposes of voting" may violate the Equal Protection Clause. Such a district, the Court held, reinforces racial stereotypes, carries us further from the goal of a political system in which race no longer matters, and "threatens to undermine our system of …
Race, Redistricting And A Republican Poll Tax: The Supreme Court's Voting Rights Decisions Of The 1995-96 Term, Frank Parker
Race, Redistricting And A Republican Poll Tax: The Supreme Court's Voting Rights Decisions Of The 1995-96 Term, Frank Parker
Touro Law Review
No abstract provided.
Identifying The Harm In Racial Gerrymandering Claims, Samuel Issacharoff, Thomas C. Goldstein
Identifying The Harm In Racial Gerrymandering Claims, Samuel Issacharoff, Thomas C. Goldstein
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
This Article proceeds along two lines. First, it reviews the theories of harm set forth in the Justices' various opinions, i.e., the articulated risks to individual rights that may or may not be presented by racial gerrymandering. What is learned from this survey is that Shaw and its progeny serve different purposes for different members of the Court. Four members of the Shaw, Miller v. Johnson, and United States v. Hays majorities-Chief Justice Rehnquist, along with Justices Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas- are far more concerned with "race" than "gerrymandering." In particular, they consider all race-based government classifications to be inherently …
The Constitutionality Of Racial Redistricting: A Critique Of Shaw V. Reno, Frank R, Parker
The Constitutionality Of Racial Redistricting: A Critique Of Shaw V. Reno, Frank R, Parker
University of the District of Columbia Law Review
No abstract provided.
Race And Redistricting: Drawing Constitutional Lines After Shaw V. Reno, T. Alexander Aleinikoff, Samuel Isaacharoff
Race And Redistricting: Drawing Constitutional Lines After Shaw V. Reno, T. Alexander Aleinikoff, Samuel Isaacharoff
Michigan Law Review
Shaw is no doubt a major opinion that attempts to define limits on the use of racial or ethnic classifications in electoral redistricting. The main thrust of this article is to assess the critical question of whether Shaw renders unconstitutional the type of race-conscious realignment of electoral configurations that have given meaning to the voting rights reforms of the past two decades. In making this assessment, we try to ascertain exactly how the Court has limited the use of race-conscious districting, and we try to determine whether there is any jurisprudential coherence to the Court's latest confrontation with the law …
Expressive Harms, "Bizarre Districts," And Voting Rights: Evaluating Election-District Appearances After Shaw V. Reno, Richard H. Pildes, Richard G. Niemi
Expressive Harms, "Bizarre Districts," And Voting Rights: Evaluating Election-District Appearances After Shaw V. Reno, Richard H. Pildes, Richard G. Niemi
Michigan Law Review
This article attempts to define the constitutional principles that characterize Shaw and to suggest how those principles might be applied in a consistent, meaningful way. Part I, in which we argue that Shaw must be understood to rest on a distinctive conception of the kinds of harms against which the Constitution protects, is the theoretical heart of the article. We call these expressive harms, as opposed to more familiar, material harms. In Part II, we briefly survey the history of previous, largely unsuccessful, efforts in other legal contexts to give principled content to these kinds of harms in redistricting. …
Ugly: An Inquiry Into The Problem Of Racial Gerrymandering Under The Voting Rights Act, Daniel D. Polsby, Robert D. Popper
Ugly: An Inquiry Into The Problem Of Racial Gerrymandering Under The Voting Rights Act, Daniel D. Polsby, Robert D. Popper
Michigan Law Review
In the discussion that follows, we focus on the case of congressional districting rather than on districting in general. Although we proceed in this manner for the sake of clarity, it is also true that no single, all-purpose normative theory of electoral mechanics will cover every case of democratic representation, from county commissions to mosquito control districts to sovereign legislatures. We do not claim that one can generalize our argument to every sort of election to which the VRA might apply. Yet we think our argument does approximate a theory of general application.
Shaw V. Reno: On The Borderline, Emily Calhoun