<x-charset UTF-8>  All of the congressional one-person, one-vote cases that i've read have been limited to state delegations to Congress.  Would there be any merit to an argument that the at-large Utah district would violate one-person, one vote relative to other state delegations because each Utah voter would have two people in the House directly representing them while the rest of the country only has one person in the House?
  I suppose that this is a novel question but Utah voters would quite literally cast two votes for candidates running for the House while the rest of the country would be casting a single vote.  However, the principle of absolute population equality expressed in Karcher and required in the lower court decisions in Vieth has to be impossible insofar as different state delegations are concerned.

Thanks,

Mike

-----Original Message-----
From: David Moon <dmoon@fairvote.org>
To: djohnson@NDCresearch.com
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 13:00:05 -0500
Subject: Re: Utah congressional legislation

That's what my argument would be too, and I think this is confirmed by a 
CRS memo done on the proposal to give DC a voting rep. by giving Utah a 
temporary additional at-large rep. The later problem would obviously be 
a potential VRA problem and dilution of minority voting strength with 
regard to ability to elect the at-large seat, but since Utah is not 
diverse, not a likely problem there.

Also, the 1967 congressional statute mandating single-member districts 
exists, and I'm not sure how that would be interpreted in light of a 
SINGLE, single-member, at-large district.....

-- 
David Moon
Program Director

F a i r V o t e
The Center for Voting and Democracy
6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 610
Takoma Park, MD 20912
Phone: (301) 270-4616
Fax: (301) 270-4133
Email: dmoon@fairvote.org
Website: www.fairvote.org



Douglas Johnson wrote:

I haven't looked at it in detail, but at a glance here's the reasoning
(playing devil's advocate, as I don't have a position for or against
this idea):

The 'one person, one vote' rule of Baker v Carr and its successors aims
to ensure that each person has equal power to influence the selection of
his/her representative in Congress.

Under this Utah scenario each Utah person has equal representation 'by
district,' and equal influence/representation with the 'at large'
representative. It doesn't matter (by this theory) that the 'by
district' Members and the 'at large' Member have different sized
districts, because every person has an equal influence with one 'by
district' Member and equal influence with the 'at large' Member.

Where this would run into trouble (under this theory) is if some people
were only represented by the 'at large' Member, but that's not the case.

- Doug

Douglas Johnson
Fellow
Rose Institute of State and Local Government
doug@talksoftly.com
310-200-2058



-----Original Message-----
From: owner-election-law_gl@majordomo.lls.edu
[mailto:owner-election-law_gl@majordomo.lls.edu] On Behalf Of J.M. Wice
Sent: Monday, November 21, 2005 8:53 AM
To: Rick Hasen; owner-election-law_gl@majordomo.lls.edu; election-law
Subject: Utah congressional legislation


Has anybody analyzed or written anything on the proposal to create an
at-large congressional district for Utah. I've been asked by several
Utah officials how this wouldn't violate population deviation standards.

Jeff Wice
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile.
 

*******************************************
Emory University School of Law '07
Vassar College '04
Just Democracy, National Steering Committee, Chair
Student Bar Association, 2L Representative
mfabius@law.emory.edu
(610) 405-3902

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