Does Gerrymandering Violate the Fourteenth Amendment? Insight from the Median Voter Theorem

Craig McLaren ()
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Craig McLaren: Department of Economics, University of California Riverside

No 201706, Working Papers from University of California at Riverside, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper argues that “gerrymandering†understood here to mean the intentional redrawing of legislative district boundaries to benefit a given party, robs opposition voters of implicit bargaining power.. Using the Median Voter Theorem and statistical examples, this paper argues that the presence of minority voters in a legislative district influences the majority party’s choice of candidate, whenever minority voters are present in sufficient number to pose a credible challenge. When, through gerrymandering, lawmakers insure that minority voters cannot mount such a challenge, they deny such voters equal protection under the law.

Keywords: Election; Election Law; Voter Protection; Voting; Voting Law; Gill vs. Whitford; gerrymandering; median voter theorem (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: K16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 11 Pages
Date: 2017-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-mic and nep-pol
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https://economics.ucr.edu/repec/ucr/wpaper/201706.pdf First version, 2017 (application/pdf)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucr:wpaper:201706

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