Chapter 14 – Voting and Representation
Type: E
1. In Bush v. Gore, what justification did the majority opinion give for overruling the Florida
Supreme Court and halting the recount?
2. In Bush v. Gore, why did the dissenters argue the Supreme Court should not have heard the
case?
3. Will Bush v. Gore be used as precedent in the future? Why or why not?
4. Why are voting and representation so critical to democracy?
5. Why did the framers decided to not create a federal voter rolls? Should they have done so?
Why or why not?
6. The book says that following the Civil War, “power over voting rights began a steady shift.”
What was the shift? What are two Constitutional Amendments that symbolize this shift?
7. How did Congress rectify the potentially confusing decision in Oregon v. Mitchell?
8. How did Congress act in the 1870s to try to ensure that African Americans could vote?
9. How did the Court respond to the post civil war decisions trying to protect the right to vote?
Give an example of how it helped and hindered such laws.
10. What Jim Crow laws did the Court find unconstitutional in the 1960s and 1970s?
11. How did the Voting Rights Act determine which states would be covered by the Act?
12. What does Justice Black object to about the Voting Rights Act in his Katzenbach dissent?
13. Is Shelby County a limited decision or did it fundamentally change the voting rights act and
its coverage? Why or why not?
14. What standard would Breyer use to determine whether voter ID laws are constitutional? Is
his argument compelling? Why or why not?
15. Why did the Court strike down the provision of FECA that restricted campaign spending?
16. How did political strategists get around the regulations on campaign contributions laid out in
Buckley?
17. How was the BCRA more wide reaching than FECA?
18. What rationale did the majority use to uphold the BCRA in McConnell?
19. How did Randall and Davis change the landscape of campaign finance law after McConnell?
20. Discuss the policy implications that ensured after Citizens United? Is that what the Court
intended to happen? Justify your argument with reference to the majority and the dissent.
21. How do the majority and dissenters differ in their approach to the concept of corruption in
McCutcheon? Which argument do you find more persuasive? Why?
22. What is gerrymandering and how is it used to gain political advantage?
23. Describe how the process of apportionment works.
24. Why did it take so long for the Court to hear another apportionment case after Colegrove v.
Green?
25. After Sanders how did states have to draw congressional districts?
26. In his majority opinion in Baker v. Carr what justification did Justice Brennan give for
hearing the case despite the Court’s previous ruling in Colegrove v. Green?
27. In Reynolds v. Sims, what did the majority of the Court say about Alabama’s plan to follow
the federal model for its bicameral state legislature? What justification did the Court give for its
decision?
28. What are majority-minority districts? How did the majority of the Court rule on the
constitutionality of designing such districts in Shaw v. Reno and Miller v. Johnson?
29. Describe at least three provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that increased protection
against racial discrimination at the voting booth.
30. Why did the dissenters disagree with the majority in Miller? Is their argument better than the
majority’s? Why or why not?
31. Which of the following statements best describes Chief Justice Rehnquist’s written opinion
about the Supreme Court’s decision to hear Bush v. Gore?
32. What amendment ensures that the right to vote cannot be denied on account of a person’s
sex?
33. Which of the following statements best describes the Supreme Court’s decision in Oregon v.
Mitchell (note that the decision occurred before the 26th Amendment was passed)?
34. Which of the following statements about the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is not true?
35. In what case did the Supreme Court uphold the Voting Rights Act of 1965?
36. ______________ invalidated taxes on the privilege to vote in state and local elections?
37. What political body is in charge of apportionment (devising legislative districts)?
38. Which statement best describes the Court’s decision in its first major apportionment case,
Colegrove v. Green?
39. What was significant about the Supreme Court’s decision in Gray v. Sanders?
40. Which of the following statements is true?
41. What standard has the Supreme Court applied to legislative redistricting based on race?
42. Which of the following statements best describes the election of black representatives to the
U.S. House of Representatives in the last 20 years?
43. The Court upheld the voter identification law in Crawford.
44._____Buckley v. Valeo set the GENERAL standard that:
45. The Enforcement Act of 1871:
46. Describe how the Court’s jurisprudence in voting rights cases has changed over time. Rather
than simply provide a chronological explanation of these cases, make sure to provide an analysis
of the key cases in this area, and how they fit with one another (was a past case overruled or
upheld for instance and why). Then, explain the Court’s current stance in this area of the law,
including an analysis of how Bush v. Gore fits with existing voting rights precedents. Finally,
based on the makeup of the Court today, where do you see this area moving towards, and why?
47. In the past decade, many states, including Iowa and Nebraska, have restored voting rights to
people with criminal convictions. However, many states have not done so, including Florida. In a
2012 lawsuit, McAdams v. Bush, plaintiffs sought to overturn a section of Florida’s voting law.
The section in question, passed 142 years ago, bans voting by people with felony convictions.
Under this law, more than 600,000 people are barred from voting and one in 10 African-
Americans is barred from voting. McAdams argues that the law violates the Voting Rights Act
and the Constitution. After winning his case at trial, but losing in the state Supreme Court,
McAdams has asked the Supreme Court to decide the case, and to ultimately rule that the law
does violate the 1965 law as well as the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment. If you
were a justice on the Court how would you decide this case? Be sure to make clear references to
existing precedent to justify your decision.
Bush v. Gore (2000)
Relevant Case Facts: This dispute grew out of the 2000 presidential election between George
Bush and Al Gore. Bush’s narrow margin of victory after the first vote count in Florida triggered
an automatic recount in that state on November 10. This recount dropped Bush’s lead in Florida
to just 250 votes. However, there were a large number of votes in traditionally Democratic
counties that were not counted because of apparent machine error – so called “undervotes.” A
manual recount of those votes was ordered. But it was not completed by the time Florida’s
Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, certified Bush the winner on November 26. On December 8,
in response to an appeal by Gore, the Florida Supreme Court ordered a new recount of all
undervotes statewide. Bush appealed this decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, which heard
arguments on December 9.
Legal Questions: Did the Florida Supreme Court violate the Equal Protection Clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment by ordering a statewide manual recount of undervotes without imposing
uniform standards across the state?
Reasoning:
Concurrence (Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas):
Dissent (Stevens, Ginsburg, and Breyer):
Dissent (Souter, Breyer, Stevens, and Ginsburg):
Dissent (Ginsburg, Stevens, Souter, and Breyer):
Dissent (Breyer, Stevens, Ginsburg, and Souter):
South Carolina v. Katzenbach (1966)
Relevant Case Facts: Concerned about persistently low registration rates among black voters in
southern states, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Act targeted certain areas
of the country for federal supervision of local elections. Specifically, any state or county that still
had (a) a test or device for filtering registrants as of 1964 and (b) a registration rate of under 40
percent was to be federally monitored. Under these guidelines, all or part of 11 states, including
South Carolina, were singled out for supervision. These targeted areas now had their voter
qualification standards subject to federal review and approval by the attorney general. South
Carolina and five other southern states sued Attorney General Katzenbach, seeking an injunction
against the enforcement of the Voting Rights Act.
Legal Question: Is the Voting Rights Act of 1965 a constitutional exercise of Congress’s
authority under Section 2 of the Fifteenth Amendment?
Reasoning:
Concurrence/Dissent (Black):
Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder (2013)
Relevant Case Facts:
Shelby County, a jurisdiction in Alabama covered by the Voting Rights Act, sued the U.S.
attorney general, asking the district court to strike down Sections 4 and 5 of the Act as
unconstitutional because the coverage formula was based on a 1965 race relations environment
that no longer existed in 2006 when Congress enacted the most recent extension.
Legal Question: Does the Voting Rights Act’s extraordinary measures, including its disparate
treatment of States, continue to satisfy constitutional requirements?
Reasoning: