My ability to add comments has already paid off. In response to my earlier post, “Are We All Chuck Schumer now?”, a reader used the comments feature to comment on something very interesting in Ms. Mier’s questionnaire to the judiciary committee. Here is the comment and my response:

Comments: Are we all Chuck Schumer Now?
I am not sure whether you have read the Harriet Miers questionairre, but she cites a “proportional representation requirement of the Equal Protection Clause”. I am wondering whether or not I am missing something or some case law that establishes this proportional representation requirement and whether her belief in such a proportional representation requirement in the Equal Protection Clause may have an effect on her voting rights jurisprudence, assuming she is confirmed
RH replies: I had not seen that. Very interesting. You can find the quote on page 49 of the questionnaire posted here. Ms. Miers writes: “While I was an at-large member of the Dallas City Council, I dealt with issues that involved constitutional questions. For instance, when addressing a lawsuit under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the council had to be sure to comply with the proportional representation requirement of the Equal Protection Clause.” I take this as just a slip of the pen, or a confusion of the statutory standards under section 2 with the constitutional standards for vote dilution.
Posted by Bertrall Ross at October 18, 2005 08:54 AM

Be sure to check out the comments section of the blog for other interesting tidbits like this one.