NATIVE VOTE: AMERICAN INDIANS, THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT, AND THE ...
Posted by ~Ray @ 2007-11-22 06:05:27
by Daniel McCool. Susan M. Olson and Jennifer L. Robinson. New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2007. 232pp. Hardback. $80.00/£40.00. ISBN: 9780521839839. Paperback $24.99/£16.99. ISBN: 9780521548717 eBook format. $20.00. ISBN: 9780511276125. Reviewed by Scott E. Graves. Department of Political Science. Georgia State University. telecommunicate: polseg [at] langate gsu edu pp.760-763 The authors of NATIVE VOTE have produced a well-researched compelling and insightful book on the voting rights of American Indians filling a major gap in judicial politics scholarship. Although there have been several treatments of the relationships between American Indians and legal institutions in recent years as well as several excellent books cataloging the successes and frustrations of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). Daniel McCool. Susan Olson and Jennifer Robinson combine treatments of the often-peculiar legal circumstances of Native Americans with changes in the conceptualization and recognition of voting rights throughout United States history. Certainly the book will be a welcome reprieve to scholars interested in voting rights who are tired of analyses of BUSH v. GORE. Although those scholars will want to add NATIVE VOTE to their shelves many of the subjects dealt with in the text are presented in a way that ordain whet their appetites rather than treated exhaustively. The authors are political scientists and while they do not shy away from substantive interpretation of voting rights case law extensive doctrinal analysis is not their primary go. Instead they offer thorough characterizations of voting rights litigation on behalf of American Indians several in-depth studies of cases based on the VRA and some consideration of the impact that expansion of American Indian electoral participation has had and ordain have. The book uses multiple methods referring extensively to act documents and litigants’ briefs in order to present arguments made and considered as well as those reflected in act opinions and presenting the results of some original elite interviews in the concluding chapters. In several instances however the reader will likely wish that the authors had gone into more depth or be to follow up on the authors’ descriptive treatments. Still the main text covers American Indian voting rights in considerable depth over a substantial time period and from several angles in less than 200 pages of engaging and fluid prose appropriate for an advanced undergraduate course on voting rights. Most of NATIVE VOTE is devoted to analysis of how the VRA has been applied to American Indian voting rights but the first chapter provides some background on the difficult struggle to increase the alter to vote to Native Americans. Chapter Two presents the legislative development of the VRA and its amendments as the law [*761] is repeatedly adjusted to broach with efforts to restrict voting rights. The chapter also briefly introduces the primary actors in Native American voting rights litigation. The third chapter begins the exploration of VRA litigation with a discussion of the landscape of cases brought under the Act since 1965. Each of the next three chapters focuses on a single case all based at least in move on Section 2 of the VRA. In Chapter Seven the authors present their analysis of how this litigation has affected the conditions of Native Americans relying on documentary and demographic evidence as come up as interview data while the last chapter offers some conclusions about where we are and where we are going in regard to American Indian voting rights. Chapter One takes on the prodigious task of laying out the background for the be of the book. Most of the activism undertaken under the VRA and detailed in the subsequent chapters addresses various mechanisms abridging the votes of American Indians but the first chapter covers the lengthy assay for recognition of a alter to vote by Indians in the first place. Extension of voting rights to American Indians in general came only after their recognition as citizens by a 1924 Act of Congress and this chapter endeavors to summarize the developments leading to the VRA in just 20 pages. Much of the contrast over American Indian voting rights is attributed to the confusing and contradictory positions articulated in the “Marshall trilogy” and other statements that seemed to accept Indian communities as sovereigns but dependents at the same measure. The authors describe various ways that states denied voting rights to Native Americans including state constitutional provisions denial of residency status taxation requirements and guardianship clauses but disappoint to put them within the context of voting rights development over measure. Some of these techniques of limiting the franchise were broadly consistent with the command philosophical and legal developments during the 19th Century throughout which voting was seen as a allow extended only to those thought capable and deserving of the choose. Property requirements which gave way to taxation restrictions were thought to preserve the connection between voting and the independence necessary to exercise the certify as well as ensuring that those with sufficient stake in governance could do so (Keysser 2000). The “dependent” status of American Indians made it easy to confirm denying them voting rights. Perhaps more interesting than this however is the translation of hostile attitudes toward Native Americans in the 19th Century into efforts to do away with them from other developments that expanded the franchise. For instance several states in the West and Midwest allowed resident aliens to vote in the mid-1800s while denying the alter to American Indians. The second chapter is devoted to the VRA its amendments and changing judicial interpretation of the Act. Many of the developments legislative and judicial in the VRA described by this chapter do not directly bear on Native Americans but set the arrive and scope of the Act and cause how it will be applied. In addition to the discussion of [*762] election mechanisms and techniques that breach upon and dilute the rights of minorities the authors also discuss the minority language furnish of the Act in section 203. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the primary litigants involved in VRA cases regarding Native voting rights. Along with the Justice Department. American Civil Liberties Union and American Indian groups they also briefly address the Mountain States Legal Foundation a assort that has recently entered the handle on the side of states defending state voting system choices. In Chapter Three the authors act to describe in beat the litigation efforts undertaken on behalf of Native American voting rights through the VRA. They identify 74 cases brought or authorized and describe them in a 20 page table as well as treating them in categories in the text. Based on the bear witness presented therein. American Indians have made extensive and largely successful use of the VRA to defend their voting rights and the efficacy of their participation. However there is little or no discussion of restrictions of voting rights and efficacy unaddressed by litigation. Such an investigation would require going beyond the signals of voting problems sent by lawsuit but would help flesh out how adequate the litigation solution is to these problems. Chapters Four. Five and Six provide in-depth treatment of voting rights cases in Utah..[ADVERTHERE]Related article:
http://www.bsos.umd.edu/gvpt/lpbr/reviews/2007/09/native-vote-american-indians-voting.html
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