Law Commons^™

Difficulties In Achieving Coherent State And Local Fiscal Policy At The Intersection Of Direct Democracy And Republicanism: The Property Tax As A Case In Point, Mildred Wigfall Robinson

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Professor Robinson explores the uneasiness present when acts of "direct democracy" through means of voter referenda and ballot initiatives conflict with the ideals of representative government, using fiscal matters, such as the property tax, as an example.

Part I explores the changes that have taken place in the last two decades in voter strategy and in patterns of judicial interpretation, briefly reviewing the history of the property tax focusing on taxpayer reaction to long overdue attempts at administrative reform, and showing how that effort indirectly contributed to the "taxpayer revolt. "It further examines how and why broad-scale attempts to utilize …

A Vote Cast; A Vote Counted: Quantifying Voting Rights Through Proportional Representation In Congressional Elections, Michael Mccann

Law Faculty Scholarship

The current winner-take-all or first-past-the-post system of voting promotes an inefficient market where votes are often wasted. In this system, representatives are selected from a single district in which the candidate with the plurality of votes gains victory. Candidates who appear non-generic can rarely, if ever, expect to receive the most votes in this system. This phenomenon is especially apparent when African-Americans and other minority groups seek elected office. In part because white voters constitute at least a plurality of voters in every state except Hawaii, minorities in the forty-nine other states have had historically little success in gaining election …