Winner of the Henry Adams Prize from the Society for History in the Federal Government A Washington Post Notable Work of Nonfiction A Slate Best Book of 2014 The inside story of the Supreme Court decisions that brought true democracy to the United States As chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Earl Warren is most often remembered for landmark rulings in favor of desegregation and the rights of the accused. But Warren himself identified a lesser known group of cases—Baker v. Carr, Reynolds v. Sims, and their companions—as his most important work. J. Douglas Smith's On Democracy's Doorstep masterfully recounts the tumultuous and often overlooked events that established the principle of "one person, one vote" in the United States. Before the Warren Court acted, American democracy was in poor order. As citizens migrated to urban areas, legislative boundaries remained the same, giving rural lawmakers from sparsely populated districts disproportionate political power—a power they often used on behalf of influential business interests. Smith shows how activists ranging from city boosters in Tennessee to the League of Women Voters worked to end malapportionment, incurring the wrath of chambers of commerce and southern segregationists as they did so. Despite a conspiracy of legislative inaction and a 1946 Supreme Court decision that instructed the judiciary not to enter the "political thicket," advocates did not lose hope. As Smith shows, they skillfully used the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause to argue for radical judicial intervention. Smith vividly depicts the unfolding drama as Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy pressed for change, Solicitor General Archibald Cox cautiously held back, young clerks pushed the justices toward ever-bolder reform, and the powerful Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen obsessively sought to reverse the judicial revolution that had upended state governments from California to Virginia. Today, following the Court's recent controversial decisions on voting rights and campaign finance, the battles described in On Democracy's Doorstep have increasing relevance. With erudition and verve, Smith illuminates this neglected episode of American political history and confronts its profound consequences.
... On Democracy's Doorstep: The Inside Story of How the Supreme Court Brought “One Person One Vote” to the United States (New York: Hill and Wang, 2014). 6. Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections, 383 U.S. 663 (1966). 7. Kramer v.
Robert C. Turner, “The Contemporary Presidency: Do Nebraska and Maine Have the Right Idea? The Political and Partisan Implications of the District System,” Presidential Studies Quarterly, Vol. 35, No. 1 (February 8, 2005), p.
The president of a nonpartisan law and policy institute at NYU describes the fight for the right to vote and the historical, and ongoing efforts by some lawmakers to make voting difficult for the elderly, the poor, and the young.
If you’ve been watching the news and worrying that our democracy no longer works, this book, “a cri de coeur from one of our wisest Americans” (Michael Beschloss, Presidential Historian), will help you understand why you’re right.
“His analysis strikes at the heart of self-government,” said Warren J. Samuels. He granted that Buchanan was an original thinker and that the book contained some dazzling points. But in its overall case, The Limits of Liberty ...
The Almanac of American Politics 2012. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011. . The Almanac of American Politics 2014. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013. Barone, Michael, and Grant Ujifusa. The Almanac of American Politics ...
Altman, Micah, Karin Mac Donald, and Michael McDonald. 2005. “From Crayons to Computers: The Evolution of Computer Use in Redistricting.” Social Science Computer Review 23: 335. 43. Ibid., 336. 44. Ibid., 337. 45. Ibid., 342. 46.
Examining racial segregation from 1920s to the 1970s this book explores the grassroots workers who maintained the system of racial segregation.
Offering the first in-depth historical study of gerrymanders in Virginia, Tarter exposes practices going back to nineteenth century and colonial times and explains how they protected land owners’ and slave owners’ interests.
The Republican William McKinley's elections in 1896 and 1900, for instance, were infamously lubricated by donations raised by the political organizer Mark Hanna from big corporations like Rockefeller's Standard Oil.