[EL] The Supreme Court's Decision to Decide Whether It's One Person, One Vote or One Voter, One Vote

Tue May 26 14:56:43 PDT 2015

Is the citation to the article supposed to lead to the article or just a
description of the article? I get only the latter.

Edward Still
Edward Still Law Firm LLC
429 Green Springs Hwy, STE 161-304
Birmingham AL 35209
205-320-2882
still at votelaw.com
www.votelaw.com/blog
www.edwardstill.com
www.linkedin.com/in/edwardstill <http://www.linkedin.com/edwardstill>

On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 1:19 PM, Gaddie, Ronald K. <rkgaddie at ou.edu> wrote:

>  Chuck Bullock, ustin Wert & I engaged this topis a bit in a piece
> presented at Stanford Law about four years ago:
>
>
> https://journals.law.stanford.edu/stanford-law-policy-review/print/volume-23/issue-2-redistricting-2010s/seats-votes-citizens-and-one-person-one-vote-problem
>
> Ronald Keith Gaddie, Justin J. Wert, *& *Charles S. Bullock, III, 2012.  Seats,
> Votes, Citizens, and the One-Person, One-Vote Problem. * Stanford Law &
> Policy Review* 23: 431-454.
>
>            ------------------------------
> 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
> 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 Samuel
> Bagenstos [sbagen at gmail.com]
> *Sent:* Tuesday, May 26, 2015 12:34 PM
> *To:* Pildes, Rick
> *Cc:* <law-election at department-lists.uci.edu> (
> law-election at department-lists.uci.edu)
> *Subject:* Re: [EL] The Supreme Court's Decision to Decide Whether It's
> One Person, One Vote or One Voter, One Vote
>
>   Rick,
>
>  Could you say more about the basis for the prediction in your last
> sentence?
>
>  Best,
>
>  Sam
>
> On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 1:30 PM, Pildes, Rick <
> pildesr at exchange.law.nyu.edu> wrote:
>
>>  The Supreme Court’s decision today to decide what “one person, one
>> vote” actually means is not all that surprising, at least to many of us.
>> In all the years since the Court recognized that election districts must
>> have equal populations, the Court never squarely resolved what the baseline
>> ought to be for determining “equality” — must districts have equal numbers
>> of residents or equal numbers of eligible voters (which would exclude the
>> young, non-citizens, felons unable to vote)?  In 1966, in the earliest days
>> of the reapportionment revolution, the Court did hold that states could
>> choose between equalizing population or eligible voters (*Burns v.
>> Richardson, *384 U.S. 73 (1966)).  But a lot has happened in the
>> maturation of the law in the ensuing 50 years; in general, the Court has
>> placed greater emphasis on the use of more concrete, precise standards.
>>
>> Moreover, there is something odd about such a basic constitutional
>> standard under the Equal Protection Clause as the principle of political
>> equality that’s reflected in the “one person, one vote” standard being so
>> ill-defined that states are free to choose whether it’s persons or voters
>> that matter for purposes of equality.  Few constitutional standards work
>> that way.  In practice, most states have used residents, not voters, for
>> the baseline, but the doctrine leaves open the possibility that states
>> could use other baselines.  And as long as the baseline remains
>> constitutionally undefined, states can manipulate the districting system by
>> choosing one baseline over another in order to achieve various partisan or
>> political ends.  The difference can be significant, especially in areas of
>> the country — such as Texas, where this case comes from — with large
>> numbers of non-citizen residents.
>>
>> In addition, since *Burns*, we have had the emergence of the Voting
>> Rights Act requirements concerning how districts must be designed to avoid
>> diluting the vote of particular minority groups.  To ensure political
>> equality in this arena, the baseline for drawing districts has been voters
>> — not residents.  Thus, to decide whether a district provides an “equality
>> opportunity to elect” for minority voters, the courts do not look at the
>> total number of minority residents — they look to the total number of
>> voting-age eligible residents.  So there is at least some superficial
>> tension between the VRA, where voters are the baseline, and the Equal
>> Protection standard, where most states use population as the baseline.
>> That provides another reason the Court might want to clarify what the right
>> baseline is under the Equal Protection Clause.
>>
>> Now that the issue is squarely before the Court, my view is that the
>> Court ought to adopt a clear, uniform standard to end uncertainty and
>> potential manipulation regarding what counts as the baseline for the
>> requirement of equality between election districts.  Once the Court
>> confronts the arguments on that question, I tend to think the Court will
>> conclude that the best answer is one person, one vote — that it is the
>> requirement of equal numbers of residents (not voters) per district that is
>> critical for constitutional purposes.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Rick
>>
>>
>>
>> Richard H. Pildes
>>
>> Sudler Family Professor of Constitutional Law
>>
>> NYU School of Law
>>
>> 40 Washington Square South, NY, NY 10012
>>
>> 212 998-6377
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
>
>  --
>  Samuel Bagenstos
> sbagen at gmail.com
> Twitter: @sbagen
> My University of Michigan homepage:
> http://www.law.umich.edu/FacultyBio/Pages/FacultyBio.aspx?FacID=sambagen
>
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