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This chapter explores one important controversy bedeviling nonproportional, territorial-districting systems such as those that exist in the United States: the problem of racial minority vote dilution. Vote dilution is indeed a serious political injustice, and consideration conception demonstrates why. In some circumstances, districting schemes diluting minority votes reflect and promote broader deliberative neglect of certain minority groups-that is, they reflect and promote failures of consideration. Recognizing these injustices does not commit one to supporting the proportional representation of groups in the legislature. The discussions of proportional representation and vote dilution together reveal that the fair representation of groups requires a variety of forms of consideration, and that there are few institutional means that will universally guarantee those forms of consideration in all political societies. These analyses also explain what is objectionable about partisan gerrymandering—that is, efforts to draw districts to favor a particular political party. Such efforts deny various forms of consideration to supporters of other parties.

This chapter discusses explicit proportionality principles in the Supreme Court's constitutional jurisprudence and also reviews the internal inconsistencies in the Court's analysis. The first section focuses on proportionality and punitive damages, beginning with a discussion of punitive damages prior to BMW and ending with three guideposts of proportionality from BMW and State Farm: (1) reprehensibility of defendant's conduct, (2) proportionality to actual or potential harm, and (3) necessity to achieve adequate deterrence. The next section discusses the rough proportionality used to evaluate land-use permit conditions. The subsequent two sections review attorney's fees awards in civil rights cases and the use of proportionality in assessing the validity of congressional abrogation of state sovereignty under the Fourteenth Amendment. The final section discusses the role of proportionality to detect violations of voting rights and equal protection, specifically in relation to public school desegregation, proportional representation among voting districts, and vote dilution.

By 1965, the VRA not only revolutionized electoral politics in the United States but also immediately gave rise to white resistance. This chapter describes the freedom struggle’s progression from protest to politics and how African Americans took their place in American city halls. By 1966, Richmond had elected three African Americans to the city council, including Henry Marsh III. As black Americans began to elect more than a handful of representatives and to contest the legacy of segregationist policies (e.g., slum clearance, expressway construction, police brutality), whites embarked on a Machiavellian campaign of vote dilution. In Richmond, they first tried to dilute blacks votes by staggering elections. The urban unrest of the late 1960s and the rise of Black Power heightened white anxiety about a black revolution. By 1968, the Crusade embraced not only the politics of black empowerment but also Martin Luther King Jr.’s Poor People’s Campaign. Richmond’s white officials met these challenges by annexing portions of a predominantly white suburb, Chesterfield County.

This chapter examines the Bush administration's election-related legal detours, with partticular emphasis on its attempts to pressure prosecutors such as David Iglesias, United States Attorney for New Mexico, to ignore long-standing rules and traditions insulating federal prosecutors from politics. It also considers the administration's disregard for the value of prosecutorial discretion and discusses the Supreme Court ruling in Bush v. Gore, which addressed vote dilution and vote suppression concerns. Finally, it analyzes the Bush administration's bias in the prosecution of public officials and how the Department of Justice carried out political prosecutions within a short period of time prior to elections.

This chapter examines the Bush administration's election-related legal detours, with partticular emphasis on its attempts to pressure prosecutors such as David Iglesias, United States Attorney for New Mexico, to ignore long-standing rules and traditions insulating federal prosecutors from politics. It also considers the administration's disregard for the value of prosecutorial discretion and discusses the Supreme Court ruling in Bush v. Gore, which addressed vote dilution and vote suppression concerns. Finally, it analyzes the Bush administration's bias in the prosecution of public officials and how the Department of Justice carried out political prosecutions within a short period of time prior to elections.