I am finding this discussion very helpful. I like Graeme's analogy of the
problem to competing for parental attention in families of different sizes.
To make this concrete, I live in Erie County, NY, with a population of
nearly a million. The county to our immediate east, Wyoming County, has a
population of just over 40,000. Yet both counties have one county
executive, one sheriff, etc. This seems to make my ability to influence the
identity of elected officials, and the consequent substance of governmental
policy within the county, much less than the ability wielded by my neighbors
to the east.
Graeme thinks this conclusion makes sense only on a service view of
representation, but doesn't it also apply to other models as well? If
representation is about influence on policy, I am disadvantaged. If
representation is about Millian opportunities for self-development as a
citizen through meaningful participation, I am disadvantaged. If
representation is about Habermasian opportunities for open, public
deliberation, I am disadvantaged.
Graeme and Tom respond that the marginal utility of any enhanced influence
on elected officials isn't sufficient to guide any realistic decisions about
political behavior. This may well be true, but if so, it seems to cut
against the one-person, one-vote doctrine itself, even in its core
application to malapportioned congressional districts. Why should I care if
I share my congressional rep with 300,000 others or 600,000 others? My
influence on policy is zilch either way. That's why I tend to see the 1p1v
cases as responding more to the symbolism of having some kind of
second-class citizenship (you're worth only a fraction of what others are
worth) than to realistic concerns of political power.
And maybe there's your explanation: there is no symbolic diminishment in
being a resident of a populous county rather than a small one. Indeed,
maybe for the reasons Tom and Graeme mention, the symbolism runs the other
way: large, populous counties are rich and powerful, whereas small, sparsely
populated counties are poor and weak, and waste money with their ersatz
trappings of government. Thus, in exchange for my diluted intracounty
political influence, I enjoy the benefits of living in a jurisdiction that
has disproportionate political might due to its wealth and population.
Jim
____________________________
James A. Gardner
State University of New York
University at Buffalo School of Law
Room 514, O'Brian Hall
Buffalo, NY 14260-1100
voice: 716-645-3607
fax: 716-645-2064
e-mail: jgard@buffalo.edu
www.law.buffalo.edu
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom Round" <T.Round@mailbox.gu.edu.au>
To: "Jim Gardner" <jgard@buffalo.edu>
Cc: "election law list" <election-law_gl@majordomo.lls.edu>
Sent: Thursday, October 24, 2002 6:58 PM
Subject: Re: County officials and one-person, one-vote
any changes in county lines must be approved by popular vote
This hints at the reason for the distinction. Electoral districts for the
same assembly elect representatives who sit as one body and may vote
"against" one another. If I live in a district of 60,000 population that
elects one representative, while the three neighbouring districts each
have
20,000 population and also each elect one representative, I'd have every
incentive to vote yes on a referendum proposition to split my district
into
three smaller districts, each also now electing one representative. If it
passes, I've increased my political clout threefold. (Assuming that we
can't split out district more than three ways as that would then make our
new districts smaller than the smallest existing district.)
And it would be completely irrational for the voters of the three smaller
districts to vote to become one single big district (if the rule is one
seat per district). No reasonable voter would want that (at least not if
their goal was maximising their own political power -- they would support
it, though, if they valued equal voting power as a matter of principle,
but
then they'd want that principle applied uniformly to all districts, not
limited to their own).
By contrast, it is quite rational, and not unknown, that voters in three
20,000-population counties might vote to merge into a single
60,000-population "super-county". There would be definite benefits,
especially economies of scale. In fact if economy was your primary
motivation, it may well make sense to replace three five-member county
boards with a single seven- or nine-member board for the whole
super-county. By contrast, if three 20,000-resident districts each
currently elect five representatives to the state assembly, their voters
would be acting against any possible interpretation of their own
self-interest if they voted to merge into one 60,000-resident district
with
anything less than fifteen representatives in the assembly.
At 11:48 24-10-2002 -0400, you wrote:
Dear Friends:
Having just completed a close reading of all 50 state constitutions
(don't
try this at home), I was struck by the following question.
Virtually every state constitution establishes counties as basic units of
local government, and also requires that counties elect certain
officials,
including a county legislature as well as many executive officials such
as
sheriffs, DAs, various clerks, registrars, etc. Although much attention
is paid in state constitutions to apportionment of state legislative
districts, including their relationship to county lines, there is never
any requirement that counties themselves be of substantially equal
population. This means that it often takes many fewer votes to elect a
county commissioner, sheriff or DA in some counties than in
others. Moreover, most state constitutions entrench these disparities by
providing that any changes in county lines must be approved by popular
vote, and of course people in less populous counties can't have any great
incentive to dilute their own votes by agreeing to take more people into
the county.
In light of Reynolds, this seems like it ought to raise one-person,
one-vote concerns, yet the practice seems never to have been thought to
raise such a problem. Yet why should the 14th amendment pierce the
county
system for purposes of equalizing the number of constituents for state
senators, but not for county executives or county legislators?
This is not a completely arbitrary distinction, of course; one can always
say that 1p1v applies only to the equalization of political influence
within an authorized jurisdiction rather than across jurisdictions. But
that's an unsatisfying, tautological answer. And it's not as though
there's no state-level involvement here. By establishing and entrenching
county lines, and then mandating that certain officials be elected
within
the jurisdictions so created, according to rules established at the state
level, hasn't the state created inequality of political influence just as
much as in the pre-Reynolds assembling of state senates on a
county-by-county basis? Or does acceptance of this practice merely show
just how anomalous Reynolds was?
If anyone has any thoughts, or can direct me to any cases or articles
dealing with this question, I would be grateful. Gerry Neuman's
otherwise
fine piece about territorial discrimination doesn't get into this
particular issue.
Best regards,
Jim
____________________________
James A. Gardner
State University of New York
University at Buffalo School of Law
Room 514, O'Brian Hall
Buffalo, NY 14260-1100
voice: 716-645-3607
fax: 716-645-2064
e-mail: jgard@buffalo.edu
www.law.buffalo.edu
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr Tom Round
BA (Hons), LLB (UQ), PhD (GU)
Research Fellow, Key Centre for Ethics,
Law, Justice and Governance (KCELJAG)
Room 1.10, Macrossan Building, Nathan Campus
Griffith University, Queensland [Australia] 4111
Ph: (061 or 07) 3875 3817
Mobile: 0438 167 304
Fax: (061 or 07) 3875 6634
E-mail: T.Round@mailbox.gu.edu.au
Web: http://www.gu.edu.au/centre/kceljag/
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