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Making the House More Representative: Hidden Costs and Unintended Consequences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Mark E. Rush*
Affiliation:
Washington and Lee University

Extract

Perhaps the most intriguing element of the current milieu of political reform is the fact that the United States Supreme Court seems to be standing in the way of many reform measures. In several recent decisions, the court has either struck down attempts to reform some element of the electoral process or upheld laws that reformers regard as problematic. For example, in response to the court's restricting the extent to which the Voting Rights Act can be used to draw majority-minority districts (Shaw v. Reno 1993; Bush v. Vera 1996; Miller v. Johnson 1995), Representative Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) has introduced the Voters' Choice Act which would permit states to elect their congressional delegations by proportional representation (PR).

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The American Political Science Association 1998

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