“Of People, Trees, Acres, Dollars, and Voters”

Joey Fishkin:

And so the question before the Court now is this: does a poor, urban, Latino kid, not yet 18, deserve to be able to say “this representative represents me.  Not acres, trees, dollars, active voters, and so on, but me—I am their constituent.”  Or to put it differently: the question is whether the cities should enjoy the same per capita representation as their suburban and rural, whiter, older counterparts.  And what an odd coincidence: that was actually the original question in Reynolds v. Sims itself.  But like so much in contemporary constitutional litigation in the era of John Roberts and Ed Blum, the Evenwel case comes at the law in a kind of funhouse-mirror reverse, aiming to destroy in Equal Protection’s name a substantial chunk of what that clause has built.

 

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