[EL] Counting Everyone for ‘One Person, One Vote'

Wed Jun 10 00:20:03 PDT 2015

Without wading in too deep here, might be nice to put some items in order:

1. The Texas case is about apportionment of bodies among districts in state legislative seats. Article I does not apply.
2. The apportionment clause based on persons applies to allocating US House seats among states. It does have two caveats, the first being Article I exclusions, the second being Amendment XIV, section 2.
3. House districts are only a statutory requirement.
4. There is precedent for a state to be able to allocate seats based on a population count other than persons, namely registered voters. However, it is not required that they engage in such equalization -- at least not yet.
5. The Garza case articulates in lucid fashion the two potential models of representation and also the limits and benefits of each.

________________________________
Ronald Keith Gaddie, Ph.D.
President's Associates Presidential Professor & Chair
Department of Political Science<http://psc.ou.edu>
Associate Director, Center for Intelligence & National Security<http://cins.ouhsc.edu>
The University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73019
Phone: 405.325.2061
Email: rkgaddie at ou.edu<mailto:rkgaddie at ou.edu>
On twitter: @GaddieWindage<https://twitter.com/gaddiewindage>
________________________________
From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] on behalf of David A. Holtzman [David at HoltzmanLaw.com]
Sent: Tuesday, June 09, 2015 8:27 PM
To: David Ely; '[EL]'
Subject: Re: [EL] Counting Everyone for ‘One Person, One Vote'

“If the constitution is to be read to require any specific rule of apportionment to districting...” is a pretty big “if”.

And apportionment of representation (voting power) in the lower house of Congress to states by number of residents is not strictly according to “a democratic theory” if some of the residents aren’t allowed to vote for Representatives.  Think of when women could not vote.  Actually, since the Fourteenth Amendment says “Indians not taxed” are excluded, it’s a “taxocratic” theory, or pay-to-play.

I would love to see the S.Ct. require states to allow all their residents to vote because states get representation apportioned by resident count.

I don’t think the Constitution requires districting at all, except for the judicial districts (for criminal trial juries) mentioned in the Sixth Amendment.  (Anybody here know the criteria for drawing those, off the top of your head?)  Without districting, a state could elect its House delegation by Single Transferable Vote, and thereby achieve excellent proportional representation.

(The other mentions of “district” in the Constitution are for the “seat of Government” “District” we know as the District of Columbia.)

  - dah

On 6/9/2015 6:48 AM, David Ely wrote:
No but apportionment is an aspect of redistricting, the part that determines the size of the districts. []

What you mean to say is that redistricting is not the apportionment of representatives to the states. The point of this discussion is that the constitution and the writings of the authors articulate a democratic theory underlying the apportionment of representation to the states. If the constitution is to be read to require any specific rule of apportionment to districting, it should be a rule consistent with the democratic theory embodied in the constitution.

From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu<mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu> [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of David A. Holtzman
Sent: Monday, June 08, 2015 2:53 PM
To: [EL]
Subject: Re: [EL] Counting Everyone for ‘One Person, One Vote'

Please, everyone, redistricting is not apportionment!  - dah

“Counting Everyone for ‘One Person, One Vote'”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73269>
Posted on June 8, 2015 7:15 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73269> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Jost on Justice.<http://jostonjustice.blogspot.com/2015/06/counting-everyone-for-one-person-one.html>

--
David A. Holtzman, M.P.H., J.D.
david at holtzmanlaw.com<mailto:david at holtzmanlaw.com>

Notice: This email (including any files transmitted with it) may be confidential, for use only by intended recipients.  If you are not an intended recipient or a person responsible for delivering this email to an intended recipient, be advised that you have received this email in error and that any use, dissemination, forwarding, printing or copying of this email is strictly prohibited.  If you have received this email in error, please immediately notify the sender and discard all copies.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20150610/5cd9d0bd/attachment.html>