Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-5nwft Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-21T05:23:47.973Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

4 - One Person, One Vote

The Triumph of Minimal Procedural Equality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 July 2023

Jacob Eisler
Affiliation:
University of Southampton
Get access

Summary

Chapter 4 examines the most stable point in election law – one person, one vote – to show that judicial contestation over freedom has always characterized modern election law. While one person, one vote is now a settled and widely accepted principle, its reception has been far more varied. Jurists and activists have celebrated it as advancing democratic fairness and breaking the rural stranglehold over state legislatures. Yet scholars have criticized it as lacking a clear or logical foundation. This chapter challenges that orthodox critique by reconstructing the legal development and moral significance of one person, one vote. The idea that malapportionment is unconstitutional, far from being woven from whole cloth in Baker v. Carr, was fiercely debated in the first half of the 20th century. The further development of one person, one vote further examined how a requirement of equipopulous districting advances minimum standards of legitimate democratic self-rule. As a normative innovation, one person, one vote represents the culmination of a hard-fought debate, the conclusion of which established that minimal procedural egalitarianism is morally obligatory in a liberal democracy.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Law of Freedom
The Supreme Court and Democracy
, pp. 117 - 157
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • One Person, One Vote
  • Jacob Eisler, University of Southampton
  • Book: The Law of Freedom
  • Online publication: 06 July 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108304269.006
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • One Person, One Vote
  • Jacob Eisler, University of Southampton
  • Book: The Law of Freedom
  • Online publication: 06 July 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108304269.006
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • One Person, One Vote
  • Jacob Eisler, University of Southampton
  • Book: The Law of Freedom
  • Online publication: 06 July 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108304269.006
Available formats
×