Expressive Harms, "Bizarre Districts," and Voting Rights: Evaluating Election-District Appearances after Shaw v. Reno

Voting-rights controversies today arise from two alternative conceptions of representative government colliding like tectonic plates. On one side is the long-standing Anglo-American commitment to organizing political representation around geography. As embodied in election districts, physical territory is the basis on which we ascribe linked identities to citizens and on which we forge ties between representatives and constituents. On the other side is the increasing power of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA), 1 which organizes political representation around the concept of interest. The Act prohibits the dilution of minority voting power and thereby necessarily ascribes linked identities to citizens on the basis of group political interests. Whenever these two plates of territory and interest collide, surface disturbances in voting-rights policy erupt.