Panel 4 Question 3 States

Federal Election Commission

(FEC), created by Congress in 1974 to administer and enforce the federal campaign finance law. It has jurisdiction over financing campaigns for the U.S. House, Senate, Presidency and Vice Presidency.

Rucho v. Common Cause (2019)

A district court struck down North Carolina's 2016 congressional district map, saying that it was the product of partisan gerrymandering. Led by Rucho, North Carolina Republicans appealed the decision to the Supreme Court. In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that partisan gerrymandering claims present a question that is out of their reach and non-justiciable. This was justified by saying there was no way for them to create standards.

Gray v. Sanders (1963)

Court held that voting by unit systems was unconstitutional because it gave disproportionate power to rural voters; violated one-person, one-vote

Nineteenth Amendment

Gave women the right to vote

Luther v. Borden (1849)

In the mid-1800s, Rhode Island was still operating based on its royal charter, which limited suffrage and had little room for amendments. Rebels held a convention to write a new constitution and elect a new government, which Luther sued, saying it was invalid. The Court ruled that the power to determine which group was the official government did not belong to federal courts. Instead, the Court should defer to Congress and the President on issues like this.

US Voter Turnout

Only 55.7% of the US voting-age population voted in 2016. Compared to 32 other OECD countries, the US ranked 26 for voter turnout

Voter efficacy

People are more likely to vote when they believe that their vote matters

Twenty-Fourth Amendment

outlawed poll taxes

Federalist 78

Alexander Hamilton says "Laws are dead letters without courts to expound and define their true meaning and operation"; laws are meaningless without the court to preserve them in practice; the court is meant to protect the people

Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections (1966)

Annie Harper, a Virginia resident, could not pay the state poll tax. She sued, saying that this was a violation of the Equal Protection clause. The Court ruled that it did violate the Equal Protection clause. Furthermore, there was no rational basis for connecting wealth and eligibility to vote. Thus, it did not meet the necessary standard to infringe on a fundamental right like this.

Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission (2015)

Arizona had amended the state constitution to give redistricting power to the new Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission (IRC) in Proposition 106. After the IRC approved new districts, the legislature sued, saying that Proposition 106 had violated the Elections Clause of the Constitution, making the new district map void. The Supreme Court ruled that it did not violate.

15th Amendment

Citizens cannot be denied the right to vote because of race, color , or precious condition of servitude

Gaffney v. Cummings (1973)

Connecticut's districts were judged by district courts as unconstitutional because their structuring created large discrepancies of population between districts. The Supreme Court ruled that minor deviations from perfect equality does not imply a violation of the Equal Protection Clause. A rough approximation of the two parties as a "political fairness principle" does not violate the Equal Protection Clause.

Colegrove v. Green (1946)

Court declined to get involved in an Illinois reapportionment case arguing that reapportionment presented a political question and that the court was not a political body (prior to Baker v. Carr)

Davis v. Bandemer (1986)

Democrats challenged the state of Indiana for partisan gerrymandering, saying it violated the Equal Protection Clause. The Supreme Court ruled that the effect wasn't "sufficiently adverse" to count as a violation.

Gomillion v. Lightfoot (1960)

Even after the Fifteenth Amendment was passed, there was still racial inequality related to suffrage. In one instance, the Alabama legislature re-drew the electoral district boundaries of Tuskegee. They changed the region from being a square shape to instead being a twenty-eight sided figure. The new district effectively excluded all black people from the district and pushed them into a district where no white people lived. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that it violated the Fifteenth Amendment to construct boundary lines to deny equal representation to African Americans.

Baker v. Carr (1962)

Gerrymandering in Tennessee, ruled that this was a political question; established that political questions occur with the following circumstances: commitment to another branch, lack of standards, unsuitable policy determination, lack of respect for other branches, political decision already made, and multiple pronouncements

Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886)

In 1880, San Francisco passed an ordinance that required landowners with wooden buildings to have a permit. The Board of Supervisors was given total discretion over who would be issued permits. Not a single Chinese owner was granted one. Through various other steps, the issue was taken to the Supreme Court where a unanimous decision was made that the biased enforcement of the ordinance violated the Equal Protection Clause. In the majority opinion, the issue of suffrage is briefly discussed. Justice Stanely Matthews wrote that suffrage is a fundamental right because it is the "preservative of all rights."

City of Phoenix v. Kolodziejski (1970)

In 1969, the city of Phoenix held an election in which they only allowed real property taxpayers to vote. Someone who did not own property challenged this restriction. The Supreme Court held that the Equal Protection clause does not permit restricting the franchise in this way. As the difference in the interests of property and nonproperty owners is not so significant that they need to be excluded, there would be no rational basis for this law.

California Democratic Party v. Jones (2000)

In California, candidates for office need to win a political party's primary in order to get on the ballot. Proposition 198 changed from an open primary, in which you can choose freely among candidates of all parties regardless of your party, to a closed primary, in which only the party members can vote on their nominee. The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that this violated the First Amendment freedom of association.

Wesberry v. Sanders (1964)

James P. Wesberry resided in a Georgia congressional district with a population 2-3 times greater than other districts. He argued that this diluted the power of his vote. The Supreme Court ruled that ruled that this violated Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution that the Representatives be chosen by the people. They justified making a ruling by saying that the debasement of the right to vote was justiciable.

Twenty-Sixth Amendment

Lowers the voting age to 18

Federalist 51

Madison writes that that separation of powers within the national government is the best way to prevent the concentration of power in the hands of one person or a single group.

Shaw v. Reno (1993)

NO racial gerrymandering; race cannot be the sole or predominant factor in redrawing legislative boundaries; majority-minority districts. (even if it is to protect for past injustice)

Cooper v. Harris (2017)

North Carolina had claimed that they redrew districts based on a requirement established in Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which established that when constructing the districts, they had to have a "Black Voting Age Population" of 50% plus one, which created two new districts that were majority black. White voters in these districts sued, saying they had used this requirement as a pretext to minimize black voters' influence in other districts. The district court ruled that this was racial gerrymandering and violated the Equal Protection Clause. The Supreme Court upheld this ruling, saying that this section of the Voting Rights Act doesn't apply to redistricting, therefore it could not be used to justify racial gerrymandering.

Voting Rights Act of 1965

Passed to address the shortcomings of the existing federal anti-discrimination laws, which were not sufficient to address resistance to enforcement of the 15th Amendment. Under Section Four and Five of the Act, areas of the country where Congress believed the potential for discrimination to be the greatest could not implement any changes affecting voting until the Attorney General or the United States District Court for the District of Columbia determined that the change did not have a discriminatory prupose and would not have a discriminatory effect. This section was only meant to last five years but was extended in 1970 and in 1975

Shelby County v. Holder (2013)

Shelby County, Alabama, sued, seeking a judgement that Section Four and Five were unconstitutional. In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that these sections were unconstitutional because those states were no longer relevant and now violate the power to regulate elections that is supposed to be left to the states. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote a dissent and argued that the power to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment encompassed legislative action like this. In it she wrote, "Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet". The decision ended the preclearance that the Voting Rights Act has created in 1965. In Alabama as well as many other affect states, changes began to occur immediately. Prior to this decision, turnout in Alabama fell by nearly 20%.

Standards that could have been used

State standards, "de minimus category" (districts shouldn't deviate by more than 10% from the beliefs of the state unless legitimate considerations justify otherwise), lopsided averages test (standard deviations), efficiency gap (how many votes are being comparatively wasted by each party), partisan bias (determines how far the districts are off from how many states each party would win if the vote was 50-50)

Coleman v. Miller (1939)

The Child Labor Amendment was rejected in both houses of the legislature in Kansas in 1925. In 1937, the Kansas house passed a resolution of ratification. Since the senate was equally divided over it, the Lieutenant Governor broke the tie in favor of ratification. Legislators challenged this and it eventually reached the Supreme Court, who declined to rule, saying that this was a political question. They justified this, saying the case was determining what the authority of Congress was, and thus was a political question.

League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry (2006)

The Supreme Court revisited the legality of Tom DeLay's plan for redistricting in Texas. Although the court remained unconvinced that there was enough of a standard for judging partisan gerrymandering, they did find that the Texas redistricting plan violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act because it diluted the strength of racial minority votes. The court ordered that the lines be redrawn.

Federalist 10

The tension between factions would prevent one from ever becoming dominant over the others

Bush v. Gore (2000)

Vice President Al Gore had contested Florida's presidential election results. The Florida Supreme Court ordered that the Circuit Court tabulate 9,000 contested ballots and that all Florida counties begin recounting. In a 7-2 decision, the Supreme Court held that by effectively making election law, the actions by the Florida Supreme Court were unconstitutional. Additionally, they ruled that no constitutional recount could occur in the time remaining. This decision effectively determined the results of the election.

Voting Protections by the Legislative Branch

Voting Rights Act of 1965, Voter Accessibility for the Elderly and Handicapped Act of 1984 (required an accessibly polling place for the elderly and handicapped), National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (made registering to vote easier), etc.

Vieth v. Jubelirer (2004)

When the Republican-controlled legislature redistricted in a way that clearly benefited Republican candidates in Pennsylvania, several members of the Democratic party sued, claiming that this violated the one-person, one-vote principle, the Equal Protection Clause, the Privileges and Immunities Clause, and the freedom of association. The court decided not to intervene as it was nonjusticiable. Writing the majority opinion, Justice Scalia wrote that political gerrymandering was nonjusticiable.

Reynolds v. Sims (1964)

established one person, one vote; Voters from Jefferson County, Alabama had challenged the apportionment of the state legislature due to massive population discrepancies between districts. Their district contained 41 times as many voters as those in another district. They argued that this prevented them from effectively participating in government. In an 8-1 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that districts should be comprised of roughly equal populations. In the majority opinion, Justice Earl Warren further addresses voting as a fundamental right. He wrote that, as voting is such a fundamental right, "any alleged infringement of the right of citizens to vote must be carefully and meticulously scrutinized."

Rucho dissent statistics

in North Carolina in 2016, Republicans won 10 of 13 congressional seats with only 53% of the vote. In 2018, they won 9 of 12 seats with only 50% of the vote. In Maryland, in all of the elections between 2012 and 2018, Democrats received no more than 65% of the vote yet won 7 of 8 House seats