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102 Mich. L. Rev. 213 (2003-2004)
The False Promise of One Person, One Vote

handle is hein.journals/mlr102 and id is 231 raw text is: THE FALSE PROMISE OF ONE PERSON, ONE VOTE Grant M. Hayden* TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................ 213 I. QUANTITATIVE VOTE DILUTION AND ONE PERSON, ONE VOTE .............................................................................................. 217 A. The Legal Status of Population and Voting........................ 217 B. The Popular Appeal of One Person, One Vote.............. 222 C. Justifications for the One Person, One Vote Standard ...... 225 1. Some Traditional Justifications for the Standard ......... 225 2. Limitations and Criticisms of the Standard .................. 230 II. INTERPERSONAL UTILITY COMPARISONS ................................ 236 A. The Problem of Interpersonal Utility Comparisons........... 236 B. Value Judgments in Interpersonal Comparisons................ 244 III. IMPLICATIONS FOR VOTING RIGHTS ......................................... 247 A. Why There Is Nothing Objective About One Person, One Vote ................................................................................ 248 B. Toward a Unified Theory of Voting Rights ........................ 251 1. Why We Use the One Person, One Vote Standard....... 251 2. Quantitative Vote Dilution and Access ......................... 255 3. Quantitative and Qualitative Vote Dilution .................. 259 4. Some Implications for Voting Rights Law.................... 261 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................ 266 INTRODUCTION It has now been four decades since the Supreme Court stepped into the political thicket with its groundbreaking series of reappor- tionment cases.! Those cases rather quickly brought about radical changes in the structure of our national, state, and local governments * Associate Professor, Hofstra University School of Law. B.A. 1989, M.A. 1991, Univer- sity of Kansas; J.D. 1995, Stanford. - Ed. I am most grateful to Stephen Ellis for our many conversations on the subject of interpersonal utility comparisons, and to Heather Gerken, Joanna Grossman, Eric Freedman, Rick Hasen, Sam Issacharoff, Eric Lane, William Rose, and Peter Spiro for their helpful suggestions. Thanks as well to Katherine Gavett, Kristy DeAngelo, and Sarika Kapoor for their valuable research assistance. 1. See Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186 (1962); Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S. 1 (1964); Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533 (1964). 213

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