Millenium Approaches: The Future of the Voting Rights Act after Shaw, De Grandy, and Holder

Authors

Andrea Bierstein

Abstract

Race-based districting may be necessary to eradicate racist manipulation of voting, and yet poses difficult problems of racial separatism. Professor Bierstein analyzes the Supreme Court's voting rights jurisprudence over the past twenty-five years to show that the Court has used both race-based and race-neutral districting, and neither has proved to be wholly satisfactory. She brings the analysis forward in the Court's recent decisions, Shaw v. Reno, decided in 1993, and Holder v. Hall and Johnson v. De Grandy, both decided in June 1994. Through her contextual critique of these three decisions, Professor Bierstein proposes a different framework for thinking about voting rights and racial gerrymandering than that used by the courts to date. She concludes that because neither race-based nor race-neutral districting can provide adequate representation for minority group members, a new approach- perhaps some form of proportional representation is required.

Recommended Citation

Andrea Bierstein, Millenium Approaches: The Future of the Voting Rights Act after Shaw, De Grandy, and Holder, 46 Hastings L.J. 1457 (1995).
Available at: https://repository.uclawsf.edu/hastings_law_journal/vol46/iss5/3