The Supreme Court and Election Law : : Judging Equality from Baker v. Carr to Bush v. Gore / / Richard Hasen.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter New York University Press Backlist eBook-Package 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Hasen, Richard,
• Place / Publishing House: New York, NY : : New York University Press, , [2006]; ©2006
• Year of Publication: 2006
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource

In the first comprehensive study of election law since the Supreme Court decided Bush v. Gore, Richard L. Hasen rethinks the Court’s role in regulating elections. Drawing on the case files of the Warren, Burger, and Rehnquist courts, Hasen roots the Court’s intervention in political process cases to the landmark 1962 case, Baker v. Carr. The case opened the courts to a variety of election law disputes, to the point that the courts now control and direct major aspects of the American electoral process.The Supreme Court does have a crucial role to play in protecting a socially constructed “core” of political equality principles, contends Hasen, but it should leave contested questions of political equality to the political process itself. Under this standard, many of the Court’s most important election law cases from Baker to Bush have been wrongly decided.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Mighty Platonic Guardians -- 1. The Supreme Court of Political Equality -- 2. Judicial Unmanageability and Political Equality -- 3. Protecting the Core of Political Equality -- 4. Deferring to Political Branches on Contested Equality Claims -- 5. Equality, Not Structure -- Conclusion: Political Equality and a Minimalist Court -- Appendix 1: Twentieth-Century Election Law Cases Decided by the Supreme Court in a Written Opinion -- Appendix 2: Justice Goldberg’s Proposed Dissent to a Per Curiam Summary Affirmance in Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections -- Notes -- Index -- About the Author