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Congress has the power to mandate the voting method for senate and house seats, including the power to ban single-district winner-take-all elections, under Article I, Section 4, which is a power that has been nearly forgotten but is extremely powerful and gives a basis for a lot of these proposals. Congress has the power, for example, to ban gerrymandering by states but has not done so for decades.
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Oct 9, 2017 20:54
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nessin posted:That's a very broad interpretation of the what constitutes power to regulate elections vice interfering with time, place, and manner. I think if you were to go to a court, especially the current Supreme Court, you'd find a drastically different interpretation would hold. I agree on the gerrymandering but as to a voting method or direct interference with the process? I doubt that would hold up even in a polar opposite court to what we've got. There are existing laws on the books to ban multi-member districts which were permitted before that law and nobody has ever raised a peep about them, plus past laws have banned gerrymandering but those expired and were not renewed. Plus, the reference to banning altering the "place of choosing senators" makes it clear that's a very broad power, one that without that restriction would allow Congress to mandate Senate direct elections instead of legislatures selecting Senators (until the 17th amendment was passed requiring direct election). Sure, a lawless court could ignore two centuries of precedent but they can do that no matter what hook you use.
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Oct 10, 2017 14:21
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Kobayashi posted:Can you say more about the expired gerrymandering laws? It's mentioned in the last Supreme Court decision on partisan gerrymandering (which goes so far as to say that Congress has the power to write its own drat districts, apparently). quote:The power bestowed on Congress to regulate elections, and in particular to restrain the practice of political gerrymandering, has not lain dormant. In the Apportionment Act of 1842, 5 Stat. 491, Congress provided that Representatives must be elected from single-member districts “composed of contiguous territory.” See Griffith 12 (noting that the law was “an attempt to forbid the practice of the gerrymander”). Congress again imposed these requirements in the Apportionment Act of 1862, 12 Stat. 572, and in 1872 further required that districts “contai[n] as nearly as practicable an equal number of inhabitants,” 17 Stat. 28, §2. In the Apportionment Act of 1901, Congress imposed a compactness requirement. 31 Stat. 733. The requirements of contiguity, compactness, and equality of population were repeated in the 1911 apportionment legislation, 37 Stat. 13, but were not thereafter continued. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/03pdf/02-1580.pdf
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Dec 29, 2017 22:29
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