The U.S. Supreme Court and the Electoral Process: Second EditionDavid K. Ryden The U.S. Supreme Court—at least until Bush v. Gore—had seemed to float along in an apolitical haze in the mind of the electorate. It was the executive branch and the legislative branch that mucked about in politics getting dirty, the judicial branch kept its robes—and nose—clean. The U.S. Supreme Court and the Electoral Process makes it abundantly clear however that before, during, and after the judicial decision that made George W. Bush the President of the United States, everything was, is, and will likely be, politics-including the decisions handed down by the highest court in the land. This revised and updated edition takes into account not only the recent famous (or infamous, depending on the reader's point of view) judicial decision on the Presidency, but a myriad of others as well in which the U.S. Supreme Court has considered the constitutionality of a wide range of issues involving voting and elections, representation, and political participation. Practitioners and academics in both law and political science examine a number of court actions that directly affect how we choose those who govern us, and how those decisions have affected our electoral politics, constitutional doctrine, and the fundamental concepts of democracy, including: racial redistricting, term limits, political patronage, campaign finance regulations, third-party ballot access, and state ballot initiatives limiting civil liberties. Of the first edition, CHOICE said, The U.S. Supreme Court and the Electoral Process "plumbs the Supreme Court's constitutive apolitical role as 'primary shaper of the electoral system' and reveals the pervasive involvement of the Court in the political process." |
Contents
| 1 | |
| 15 | |
| 19 | |
Vote Dilution Party Dilution and the Voting Rights Act The Search for Fair and Effective Representation | 42 |
Districting and the Meanings of Pluralism The Courts Futile Search for Standards in Kiryas Joel | 60 |
Political Parties The Key to or the Scourge of Representation? | 91 |
Back to the Future The Enduring Dilemmas Revealed in the Supreme Courts Treatment of Political Parties | 97 |
Partisan Autonomy or State Regulatory Authority? The Court as Mediator | 112 |
Out of the Shadows Bush v Gore the Court and the Selection of a President | 221 |
Bush v Gore Typifies the Rehnquist Courts Hostility to Voters | 226 |
An Agnostic Assessment of the 2000 Presidential Election | 237 |
What Bush v Gore Does and Does Not Tell Us about the Supreme Court and Electoral Politics | 248 |
The Imperiousness of Bush v Gore | 263 |
The Court the Constitution and Election Law Merging Practice and Theory | 281 |
The Supreme Court Has No Theory of Politicsand Be Thankful for Small Favors | 283 |
The Supreme Court as Architect of Election Law Summing Up Looking Ahead | 304 |
The Supreme Courts Patronage Decisions and the Theory and Practice of Politics | 126 |
The Court and Political Reform Friend or Foe? | 145 |
Entrenching the TwoParty System The Supreme Courts Fusion Decision | 149 |
To Curb Parties or to Court Them? Seeking a Constitutional Framework for Campaign Finance Reform | 171 |
Plebiscites and Minority Rights A Contrarian View | 194 |