Law Commons^™

Shelby, Race, And Disability Rights, Ravi Malhotra

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Preferential Judicial Activism, Sudha Setty

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

The Foundational Importance Of Voting: A Response To Professor Flanders, Joshua A. Douglas

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Voting is the foundational concept for our entire democratic structure. We think of voting as a fundamental-the most fundamental-right in our democracy. When a group of citizens collectively elects its representatives, it affirms the notion that we govern ourselves by free choice. An individual's right to vote ties that person to our social order, even if that person chooses not to exercise that right. Voting represents the beginning; everything else in our democracy follows the right to vote. Participation is more than just a value. It is a foundational virtue of our democracy.

Professor Chad Flanders, in a thought-provoking contribution …

The Structural Constitutional Principle Of Republican Legitimacy, Mark D. Rosen

Mark D. Rosen

Democracy does not spontaneously occur by citizens gathering to choose laws. Instead, representative democracy takes place within an extensive legal framework that determines such matters as who gets to vote, how campaigns are conducted, and what conditions must be met for representatives to make valid law. Many of the “rules of the road” that operationalize republicanism have been subject to constitutional challenges in recent decades. For example, lawsuits have been brought against partisan gerrymandering—which is partly responsible for the fact that most congressional districts are no longer party competitive, but instead are either safely Republican or safely Democratic—and against onerous …