Supreme Court: Rejects Challenge to "One Person, One Vote"

[TheCat]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/05/us/politics/supreme-court-one-person-one-vote.html

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Monday that states may count all residents, whether or not they are eligible to vote, in drawing election districts. The decision was a major statement on the meaning of a fundamental principle of the American political system, that of "one person one vote."

"We hold, based on constitutional history, this court's decisions and longstanding practice, that a state may draw its legislative districts based on total population," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the court.

As a practical matter, the ruling mostly helped Democrats and upheld the status quo.

But until this decision, the court had never resolved whether voting districts should contain roughly the same number of people or the same number of eligible voters. Counting all people amplifies the voting power of places that have large numbers of residents who cannot vote legally — including immigrants who are here legally but are not citizens, illegal immigrants and children. Those places tend to be urban and to vote Democratic.

Had the justices required that only eligible voters be counted, the ruling would have shifted political power from cities to rural areas, a move that would have benefited Republicans.

The case concerned a clash between two theories of representative democracy. One seeks to ensure "representational equality," with elected officials tending to the interests of the same number of people, whether they are voters or not. The other tries to ensure that only those who have political power in the form of a vote control the government.

Justice Ginsburg sided with the first theory. "Nonvoters have an important stake in many policy debates — children, their parents, even their grandparents, for example, have a stake in a strong public-education system — and in receiving constituent services, such as help navigating public-benefits bureaucracies," she wrote in her majority opinion. "By ensuring that each representative is subject to requests and suggestions from the same number of constituents, total population apportionment promotes equitable and effective representation."

The decision was more notable for what it did not do than for what it did. As Justice Ginsburg noted, "all states use total population numbers from the census when designing congressional and state-legislative districts."

The case came from Texas, which counts everybody, but officials there had asked the court to give state lawmakers the option of using different criteria.

[spuwho]

Right decision.

I think this establishes counts in the prisons as well (For Corinne fans) in one's district.

Non-voting residents are essentially supported by proxy by those who can vote.

Limiting the districts to only those registered turns the US into a Starship Troopers style regimented system.

https://www.youtube.com/v/XvAsR4O4W0w

[Adam White]

It's right in one way, but ultimately the people who have no vote have no representation.

For example, the US colonists revolted because they felt they were being taxed without being represented. This was not true - the colonies were represented in Westminster as much - or as little - as most of the rest of England.

So basically, there were elected people who were making decisions on behalf of the colonies, despite the fact that the colonists didn't have the option of voting for them.

If we accept that there was, in fact, 'taxation without representation' then we must accept the notion that people who are unable to vote cannot reasonably be considered to be represented by the people elected by others.

The only workable - and reasonable - solution to this issue is to extend the franchise to all.

[Tacachale]

^The colonies were "represented" by the central government's standards, not standards they'd chosen for themselves. At any rate the franchise today is much wider than it was in the 1770s - and in the 1770s it was already wider than anywhere else in the world.

It also depends on what you mean by "all". Permanent disenfranchisement based on felony conviction is un-American, but otherwise I expect most would feel that the decision on when and how to restore voting rights to felons is better left to states.

Other than that, some states do periodically talk about lowering the voting age to 16, but I doubt there'd be any support to lowering it more than that. I also doubt there'd be any support for extending the franchise to non-citizens, or at least not all non-citizens. Puerto Ricans will be able to vote if they elect to become a state, and of course can also vote if they move to one of the states or DC. I'm not sure there are any sizable parts of the population left.

[Adam White]

^The colonies were "represented" by the central government's standards, not standards they'd chosen for themselves. At any rate the franchise today is much wider than it was in the 1770s - and in the 1770s it was already wider than anywhere else in the world.

It also depends on what you mean by "all". Permanent disenfranchisement based on felony conviction is un-American, but otherwise I expect most would feel that the decision on when and how to restore voting rights to felons is better left to states.

Other than that, some states do periodically talk about lowering the voting age to 16, but I doubt there'd be any support to lowering it more than that. I also doubt there'd be any support for extending the franchise to non-citizens, or at least not all non-citizens. Puerto Ricans will be able to vote if they elect to become a state, and of course can also vote if they move to one of the states or DC. I'm not sure there are any sizable parts of the population left.

The bottom line is that elected people were representing the colonies. If you don't get a vote, it's questionable how much you can really claim to be represented.

I think felons should have the right to vote and I support lowering the age to 16. But whatever.