Showing papers on "Majority opinion published in 1995"

Repeat Players in the Supreme Court: The Role of Experienced Lawyers in Litigation Success

Abstract: How important are lawyers in the decision making of the U.S. Supreme Court? Although legal expertise has long been assumed to benefit certain litigants, the frequency with which lawyers appear before the Court has not been directly measured. In this article, I argue that, quite apart from the status of different litigants, lawyers can be viewed as repeat players who affect judicial outcomes. Using data from the U.S. Supreme Court Judicial Data Base with data from the United States Reports, I propose and test a theory in which the informational needs of the Court are better met by more credible litigators. Thus, for example, a more experienced lawyer significantly raises the probability of a party's success. The findings testify to the efficacy of experienced counsel, irrespective of the parties they represent.

The supreme court and opinion change: An Experimental Study of the Court's Ability to Change Opinion

Abstract: In this study the author examines the extent to which the Supreme Court acts as an opinion leader through its ability to induce attitude change. The author employs an experimental design with liberal and conservative rulings on one economic and one civil liberties issue, comparing the influence of the Supreme Court, Congress, and a nonpartisan think tank as sources of policies. The design was chosen in an attempt to eliminate outside sources of influence and to determine better the Supreme Court's ability to cause change in opinion. The results demonstrate that under some circumstances the Court can indeed influence opinion in the direction of its rulings, especially for those who regard the Court positively.

An Empirical Test of the Rational Actor Theory of Litigation

Abstract: This article examines the decisions of litigants in criminal cases to appeal decisions from the U.S. Courts of Appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court. Using a random sample of search and seizure cases from 1962 through 1990 and a measure of the likelihood that the appeals court decision will be reversed if cert is granted, we demonstrate that litigants behave as if they rationally consider costs and benefits in their decisions to appeal. Given the extraordinary number of cases decided by lower federal courts vis-a-vis the number of cases the Supreme Court can decide, we argue that such behavior is necessary if the Supreme Court is to retain control over the federal judiciary.

The role of law or the rule of the Court of Justice? An ‘institutional’ account of judicial politics in the European Community

Abstract: This article presents a political analysis of the Court of Justice, paying particular attention to its role in the development of the Community legal system. It is predicated on the view that the Court seeks to develop and maintain certain institutional prerogatives, in this case particularly concerning the Community legal system, which has developed in some surprising directions from the framework legal system in the Treaty of Rome. However, even in this area, it is a mistake to depict the Court as wholly in control of its environment. Instead, the Court should be seen as acting in an environment made up of other institutions and interests. Borrowing from a characterization of the Commission (Cram 1993), this article depicts the Court as a ‘purposeful opportunist’.

Tracking Public Mood in the Supreme Court: Cross-Time Analyses of Criminal Procedure and Civil Rights Cases

Abstract: Representational models of judicial decision making posit that the Supreme Court is a permeable institution, subject to external pressures-namely elite and mass opinion. Court rulings, therefore, should be demonstrably congruent with the views of the majoritarian electoral/political alliance. Building upon an innovative study by Mishler and Sheehan (1993), the relationship between public and elite attitudes and Supreme Court rulings are examined in two important issue areas: criminal procedure and race- related civil rights. The results indicate that permeability of the Court varies to some degree according to issue area. While public opinion (in the pre- Reagan years) has a direct affect on Supreme Court liberalism in both issue areas, the direct impact of elite opinion is evidenced only in the area of criminal procedure, not in the area of race-related civil rights. The relation ship between public opinion and Court liberalism during the Reagan years, however, is negative as the gap between liberalism i...

Congressional Attacks on Supreme Court Rulings Involving Unconstitutional State Laws

Abstract: In recent years scholars of both the Supreme Court and the Congress have begun to devote increasing attention to congressional attempts to reverse Court decisions declaring federal statutes unconstitutional, while Court decisions involving state laws have not garnered nearly the same amount of attention. We know that the Court strikes down state laws with far greater frequency than federal laws and that many of the most contentious issues facing the Supreme Court, the Congress, and the nation have arisen at the state level. It is our purpose to develop a model of congressional decision reversal action regarding all state laws declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court from 1953 through 1990. Using both probit and regression models we find that the electoral concerns of members of Congress, the nature of the issue the Court addresses and the degree of federal govern mental impact of the Court decision are all significant predictors of both the likelihood of a response and the extent of the congressiona...

A relational approach to moral decision‐making: The majority opinion in planned parenthood V. Casey

Abstract: Advocates supporting and opposing abortion rights were disappointed by the United Stales Supreme Court ruling on the Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992). The majority opinion upheld a “fundamental” right to abortion prior to fetal viability but also affirmed a State's right to regulate, abortions. Thus, in establishing a middle ground, the Court rejected simplistic approaches to moral reasoning and acknowledged the complex web of relationships involved in abortion decision‐making. This essay defines a relational approach to moral reasoning and analyzes the Casey decision as an exemplar of that approach. The case study suggests that rhetoricians should “revision” the art of persuasion and argument, in particular, to place more emphasis on relational values.

Membership Change and Voting Change: An Analysis of the Rehnquist Court's 1986-1991 Terms

Abstract: This study examines the collective voting behavior of the United States Supreme Court in civil rights and liberties decisions for the 1986-87 through the 1991-92 terms to determine if the Court has become signifi cantly more conservative and, if changes have occurred, to determine the reasons for these changes. Despite the efforts of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush to pack the Court with judicial conservatives, the Re hnquist Court during this period was more liberal in its voting behavior than the Burger Court was in its last decade. Membership change, changes in the voting behavior of continuing members of the Court, and issue change all appear to have influenced the collective voting of the Rehnquist Court, with the result that the Court has not been as conservative as liber als had feared and conservatives had anticipated.

The justices of the United States Supreme Court : their lives and major opinions

Abstract: 'The government of the United States has been emphatically termed a government of laws, and not of men'. So wrote Chief Justice John Marshall in Marbury v. Madison in 1803, the first case in which the Supreme Court ruled a law unconstitutional and asserted its right and power to interpret the U.S. Constitution. Since then, the Supreme Court has been a co-equal branch of government with Congress and the presidency.Arranged in chronological order, "Justices of the United States Supreme Court, Revised Edition" examines the biographical facts of each Supreme Court justice's life, including his or her background in the law, the paths that led each one to the illustrations; and fact boxes for each justice. This definitive biographical reference on the Supreme Court will be a welcome addition to high school, college, and library collections.Profiles include: career, cause of death, education, exact birth and death dates, exact length of service and ranking, family (spouse/children), first and last day on court, justice replaced, military service, parents,place of birth/home state, political party, religion, tally and date of Senate vote, and more.

The birth control movement before Roe v. Wade.

Abstract: Beginning in the 1970s, historians and social scientists published a great deal on the birth-control movement in the United States, a subject that had been neglected. They were seeking perspective on the issues raised by profound changes in society that rendered problematic the gender system and family values of previous generations. It is no fluke that these scholars began to write the history of the effort to promote the separation of sex from procreation during the same decade that Congress removed contraception from the practices and information prohibited by the national obscenity laws (1971), and the Supreme Court ruled that married couples had a constitutionally protected right to practice contraception (1965), that the unmarried had a similar right of “privacy” (1972), and that pregnant women had the right to induced abortions performed by physicians during the first trimester of their pregnancies (1973). The Court's affirmation of a limited right to “abortion on demand” in Roe v. Wade followed a decade of intense political struggle and judicial action at the state level, and Justice Harry A. Blackmun, who wrote the majority opinion, was self-consciously attempting to forge a consensus in areas of human behavior and public policy where conflicts were literally lethal and threatened the social order. In turn, much of the vitality of the scholarship on reproductive history that coincides with changes in the law sprang from the self-consciousness of women.

The Supreme Court Cites the Supreme Court: Follow-Up Citation on the Supreme Court of Canada, 1989-1993

Abstract: Judges do not simply declare outcomes but also give reasons; in Canada, these reasons are typically organized around citations of judicial authority. Each citation acknowledges a contribution to the immediate decision; therefore, a statistical analysis of citation patterns is also a measure of judicial influence. This study considers follow-up citations of the Supreme Court of Canada over a five-year period to assess the influence of past and current members of the Court, developing appropriate discounts for the recency of the citation and for its nature and extent. The sui generis impact of the Charter suggests that these inferences cannot be generalized. This article is available in Osgoode Hall Law Journal: http://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/ohlj/vol33/iss3/2 THE SUPREME COURT CITES THE SUPREME COURT: FOLLOW-UP CITATION ON THE SUPREME COURT OF CANADA, 1989-1993©

The General Assembly's Request for an Advisory Opinion From the International Court of Justice on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons

Abstract: On 15 December 1994, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 49/75K by which it decided:to request the International Court of Justice urgently to render its advisory opinion on the following question: ‘Is the threat or use of nuclear weapons in any circumstance permitted under international law?’

Abortion: The Supreme Court Decisions

Abstract: Any books that you read, no matter how you got the sentences that have been read from the books, surely they will give you goodness. But, we will show you one of recommendation of the book that you need to read. This abortion the supreme court decisions is what we surely mean. We will show you the reasonable reasons why you need to read this book. This book is a kind of precious book written by an experienced author.

Justice blackmun and legal abortion : a besieged legacy to women's reproductive health

Abstract: Justice Harry A. Blackmuns 24-year tenure on the Supreme Court ended in 1994. Justice Blackmun probably will be best remembered for writing the majority opinion in Roe vs. Wade (HO US 113 1973). This landmark decision together with its companion decision of Doe vs. Bolton (410 US 179 1973) declared restrictive state abortion laws unconstitutional. However the same Supreme Court decisions that had permitted public health advances in the 1970s were challenged in the 1980s and then supplanted in the 1990s. The trimester-threshold model which underlay both Roe vs. Wade and Doe vs. Bolton had its foundations in medicine and not in the US Constitution. At the time few of the elated pro-choice advocates foresaw the implications of these rulings for the delivery of reproductive health care in the 1980s and 1990s. The increased availability of legal abortion in the United States in the 1970s also improved both the safety of abortion methods and the skill of physicians performing abortions. For example clinicians recognized that dilatation and evacuation could terminate pregnancies at 13 weeks gestation or later more safely than intrauterine instillation methods; thus the rigid trimester-threshold concept became irrelevant. Because Roe vs. Wade had expressly allowed regulation of the conditions under which abortion could be performed states were in effect invited to draft new rules to guide medical practice. These regulations took several forms requiring 1) parental consent or notification 2) spousal consent or notification 3) written informed consent 4) 24-hour waiting periods 5) counseling only about risks of the procedure and 6) bureaucratic clinic licensing. Today the trimester-threshold concept is clinically obsolete and has been judicially replaced by one of undue burden. Moreover anti-abortion violence today may threaten legal abortion to a greater extent than Blackmuns fear of judicial restriction. The recent murders of physicians and other abortion clinic employees represent the most severe terrorism by antiabortion extremists.

United States Supreme Court Rules on Expert Testimony

Abstract: Many medical and legal commentators have expressed concern about the validity of scientific evidence that is proffered by expert witnesses at depositions and in courts of law.1,2 The sparse research that is available on the testimony of medical expert witnesses suggests that it is frequently flawed and erroneous.3 On June 28, 1993, the United States (US) Supreme Court ruled on the proper standard for admissibility of scientific evidence in the courtroom.4 Although the ruling establishes guidelines that are binding only in federal courts, it is expected that many state courts will follow the Court9s ruling. This commentary reviews the Court9s guidelines for admissibility of expert testimony, and expresses concern about their applicability in future cases involving scientific testimony.

Judicial Self-Interest: Federal Judges and Court Administration

Abstract: Preface Federal Judges and Court Administration Judicial Lobbying and Court Reform Judicial Salaries Human Consequences: Habeas Corpus Reform Systemic Developments: Judicial Bureaucracy Conclusion Bibliography Index

Liberalism, public opinion, and their critics

Abstract: ion-a postmodern version of Quetelet’s average man-that is politically and ideologically efficacious, more so than the underlying individual opinions themselves (which have ceased to exist in any meaningful way). Public opinion-the public’s own opinions, tallied, aggregated, and sanitized-are reflected back to the public via the media; we are no longer able to ascribe causal primacy to either opinion or its representation in surveys. Put differently, there i s no longer any “specificity” to public opinion. Under these conditions the study of mass politics amounts to nothing but an empty statistical sorting of mush from slush, an attempt to pass back through a “black hole” to somehow undo the implosion of public opinion and its representation. As Baudrillard puts it, “. , . it is now impossible to isolate the process of the real, or to prove the real.’’62 As with most nostalgic utterances, Baudrillard’s depends on a fantastic recreation of the past. We need not accept Baudrillard’s implication that “the real” is a prerequisite for science, or, indeed, that it ever existed. Liberal science for the most part does not turn on a notion of “reality.” Liberals like Mill and important precursors like Hobbes described themselves as defining the conditions for an orderly and political progressive interpretation of social conditions, rather than unmasking prior truths. To be sure, though some modern students of politics may have lost sight of this fact, liberals find contingency at the root of scientific method. In this way, Quetelet’s convenient abstraction-the average man-was no less an abstraction for being convenient. Liberal thinkers and citizens could applaud, utilize, and even fight over this abstraction without ever insisting that the average man was real. The real issue concerned what would be attributed to this admitted abstraction. Similarly, contemporary political discussions of public opinion that unabashedly traffic in abstractions are n o less scientific for it. To further my case that liberalism, science, and relativism are consistent with one another, I turn to an example from contemporary public opinion. A POLITICAL ECONOMY O F POLITICAL INFORMATION At the same time as postmodernism was gaining momentum (largely outside of the social sciences), students of public opinion were engaged in a thorough reevaluation of the bleak reports of 1950s and 1960s survey research (surveyed above in the section, THE INCOHERENCE OF AMERICAN PUBLIC OPINION). The idea that “political information” is costly slowly made its way into political science from economics, with a key bridging work in Downs’s An Economic Theory of Democracy. Many students of public opinion now acknowledge that under certain conditions, political ignorance is rationaL65 358 A N N A L S New York Academy of Sciences The argument here is very simple: “information” about political issues, candidates’ positions, and even seemingly elementary facts about American political institutions is relatively costly to acquire for most Americans, relative to the benefits that information will bring.64 It may surprise some members of a so-called knowledge elite to learn that most citizens are not avid consumers of political information. For most people, politics and political knowledge is not highly sought after in its own right, but is more likely a by-product of their other activities. Notable exceptions aside, decisions made in Washington seldom impinge on their lives so directly, frequently, or with consequences so dire as to make investment in detailed political information worthwhile. “Rational ignorance” comes as less of a shock once a mildly sophisticated view of public opinion and information acquisition is adopted. In this view, parti~anship,~5 political ideology, and even emotional or affective responses to political symbols (including candidates) are understood as “heuristics,” or economizing devices that provide “information shortcuts” for citizens evaluating sometimes complicated issues.& In short, a detailed, well-organized, ideologically coherent “map” of the parties’ platforms is not necessary in order to make sense of American politics. Voters do not carry such maps around in their heads, nor, by any reasonable understanding of where their interests might lie, should they. If anything, we should ask why it is that citizens know as much as they do about politics. The implication of this line of research is easily summarized. Contemporary research shows that citizens can reason about politics even when they are presumed to know very little. The successful conduct of liberal politics does not depend on the successful apprehension of “reality.” Economics and Elections Information about economic conditions is a special case of “political information.” Unlike political information per se, information about one’s own economic situation is relatively costless; we cannot help but learn something about economic circumstances in the course of everyday living. Information about the macroeconomy is relatively plentiful, too; a casual glance at a headline or the television news will often be enough to gain a quick impression of the health of the national economy, beyond what one learns from one’s social network (family, co-workers, friends, neighbors, etc.). For instance, while in 1985 only 4% of Americans could name the Japanese prime minister, and less than one-third knew what form of government Japan has, 87% knew that the United States runs a trade deficit with Japan, and only 6% thought the United States ran a surplus with Japan6’ Likewise, guesses about important economic indicators are generally not too far out, though political ignorance remains high: about fifty percent of the population guessed the unemployment rate within a percentage point or two in 1980; but in 1985, after George Schultz had served four years as secretary of state, only 25% of the population could recall his name; and in 1987, after seven years of public debate about Contra aid, only about one-third of the American public knew that Nicaragua is in Central America.68 Accordingly, there are good reasons to believe that economic information Liberalism, Public Opinion, and Their Critics J A C K M A N 3 5 9 is of immense political consequence; and, at least since Marx, social scientists have believed that politics is about conflict over material conditions. Indeed, the relationship between economic growth and electoral outcomes is a pillar of social science; incumbents are generally well rewarded for good economic performance (and the promise of more), while they are fairly harshly punished for economic downturns.@ My own research7O shows that the aggregate American public-itself an abstraction-is a reasonable forecaster of economic conditions. I find a small systematic bias towards optimism in the aggregate public’s economic forecasting over a variety of economic indicators. But in genera1 it appears that the “real” and the “perceived” economies do not stray far from one another. While there is clearly some “social construction of [macro-] economic reality” taking place, it seems to be a fairly benign construction. I trace out the political implications of the “equilibrium relationship” between the real and perceived economies by examining the consequences of each for presidential approval. Out-of-equilibrium economic forecasts typically result in oversanguine evaluations of the president, but these dissipate relatively quickly over time as new economic information becomes available. I consider several plausible sources of out-of-equilibrium economic beliefs, including so-called rally-round-the-flag events (when presidents’ approval typically soars in response to a foreign policy triumph or disaster, the most notable recent example being the Gulf War) and media reports of the economy. In general, I am impressed by the over-time robustness of the relationships between “political” variables like presidential approval, the perceived economy, and objective economic indicators. In summary, there is some coherence to the American political economy, and some justification for studying it. First, a politically naive and disinterested public is not inconsistent with a reasoning, liberal polity, and indeed may even be demanded by a postulate of rationality. But because economic information is relatively cheap to acquire, the normative consequences of a rationally ignorant public are not as dire as one might first presume. To the extent that economic information is used by voters and is reasonably uncontaminated by the buzz and clutter of the media (or at least, not contaminated for long), there appears to be a firm link between objective reality and political outcomes. Contrary to postmodern ruminations on the fluidity of political interests and identities, many Americans’ political concerns are not easily manufactured by an all-powerful knowledge elite. There are measurable, objective realities confronted by Americans every day that continue to powerfully shape political life. And these are worthy of our continued attention. I N DEFENSE OF LIBERALISM A N D SCIENCE The history of the study of public opinion I have sketched here reveals two recommendations that I see may be generalized beyond the context of the social sciences. First, for the most part, critics of science have not been epistemologically motivated, and so a mutually acceptable response to left-leaning critics of positivist social science has been to do “better” social science. Self360 A N N A L S New York Academy of Sciences consciousness, introspection, and methodological improvements-all good scientific practices-have helped bring the tools of positivist social science to bear on a wider array of research agendas than first thought possible, and have helped overcome the ideological qualms of positivism’s critics. The lesson here is that science’s best response to its critics may well be to do “better” science, be it generalizing

Consequential Damages in the International Sale of Goods: Analysis of Two Decisions

Abstract: Two courts have applied consequential damage provisions found in international conventions. A court in the United States recently applied provisions of the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods ("CISG" or "Convention"). In 1980, the German Supreme Court applied a substantively similar consequential damage provision of the earlier Hague Convention on the International Sale of Goods ("TLIS")' in a decision that has predictive value for future applications of the CISG.This Article will analyze whether these two courts approached consequential damages in a manner that is more consistent with prior national law than with the development of a unified international approach to international sales disputes.Section 2 of this Article explores a U.S. district court's approach to damages under the CISG in the case of Delchi Carrier, SpA v. Rotorex Corp. After analyzing the rationale behind the damage award in Delchi, Section 3 discusses a German Supreme Court decision applying a provision analogous to the CISG. Finally, Section 4 concludes that the U.S. court applied the international CISG provisions in a manner consistent with its national law, while the German Court elevated international principles over national law. Because of the U.S. court's inability to set aside its own national thinking, this case represents an unfortunate first decision on the subject of consequential damages under the CISG.

Public opinion and political outspokenness in pre‐1997 Hong Kong: Two tests of the spiral of silence theory

Abstract: This study analyses the impact of perceptions of the opinions of others on political outspokenness in Hong Kong. Based on the results of two representative telephone surveys conducted in Hong Kong in 1993 and 1995, the spiral of silence theory is tested in the context of public opinion regarding the Sino‐British dispute over Hong Kong's political future and the 1995 Legislative Council election. As hypothesized, respondents in both surveys were more willing to voice their political opinions publicly when they perceived the majority opinion to be on their side, or when they perceived a trend in support of their own political viewpoint. However, this effect was observed only for respondents who were not much concerned about either issue. People's political outspokenness was primarily boosted by higher issue salience, more exposure and attention to television news and news magazines, and higher political interest and efficacy.

Tax Law: Equality Rights - Thibaudeau V. Canada

Abstract: The Supreme Court of Canada's decision in this case was impatiently awaited by many after Suzanne Thibaudeau's widely publicized success in the Federal Court of Appeal. In May 1994, that Court ruled that the taxation of child support payments received by Ms. Thibaudeau from her former husband violated her equality rights under section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It was discriminatory, the Federal Court said, to require Thibaudeau to include child maintenance in her income while her former husband received a deduction. One year later a majority of the Supreme Court has reversed that finding, rejecting Thibaudeau's claim and upholding the provisions of the Income Tax Act- 2

The Decline and Fall of the Supreme Court: Living Out the Nightmares of the Federalists

Abstract: Acknowledgments Introduction: The Triumph of Realism What the Founders Wanted What the New Deal Required The Making and the Meaning of the Warren Court Warren Court, Final Years The Making of the Burger Court The Unraveling of an Administration The Meaning of the Burger Court The Making of the Rehnquist Court The Robert Bork Revue Staring into the Abyss... ...and Stepping Over the Edge The Meaning of the Rehnquist Court Epilogue: The Clinton Presidency and the Electoral Arithmetic Select Bibliography Index

A Year in the Life of the Supreme Court

Abstract: Despite its importance to the life of the nation and all its citizens, the Supreme Court remains a mystery to most Americans, its workings widely felt but rarely seen firsthand. In this book, journalists who cover the Court—acting as the eyes and ears of not just the American people, but the Constitution itself—give us a rare close look into its proceedings, the people behind them, and the complex, often fascinating ways in which justice is ultimately served. Their narratives form an intimate account of a year in the life of the Supreme Court. The cases heard by the Surpreme Court are, first and foremost, disputes involving real people with actual stories. The accidents and twists of circumstance that have brought these people to the last resort of litigation can make for compelling drama. The contributors to this volume bring these dramatic stories to life, using them as a backdrop for the larger issues of law and social policy that constitute the Court’s business: abortion, separation of church and state, freedom of speech, the right of privacy, crime, violence, discrimination, and the death penalty. In the course of these narratives, the authors describe the personalities and jurisprudential leanings of the various Justices, explaining how the interplay of these characters and theories about the Constitution interact to influence the Court’s decisions. Highly readable and richly informative, this book offers an unusually clear and comprehensive portrait of one of the most influential institutions in modern American life.

Shaw vs. Reno and the World of Redistricting and Representation

Abstract: Justice O ' Connor's majority opinion in the 1993U.S. Supreme Court case of Shaw v. Reno has widely been seen as withdrawing judicial protection of minority voting rights -- a welcome development to those who believe as a matter of faith that discriminatory electoral rules, racist appeals in elections, and racially polarized voting are things of the distant past, but less hopeful to close students of redistricting and election campaigns of the last two decades. Deeply ambiguous, the opinion has spawned a wide range of interpretations, from assertions that it bans redistricters from taking the race of voters into account at all, even when they place them in majority-white districts, to contentions that it merely asks for further information about the basis for establishing certain "ugly" districts that have majorities of African Americans or Latinos. In this paper, which is based on research that I carried out for Shaw v. Hunt, the remand version of Shaw v. Reno, and Vera v. Richards, its Texas counterpart, I try to restore a sense of reality to the often factually incorrect assertions or implications of Justice O'Connor's opinion, not only by a close textual reading of the briefs and opinions in the Supreme Court case, but also by looking in considerable detail at the actual redistricting processes in North Carolina and Texas during the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. Were race, partisanship, and individual politicians' interests taken into account in redrawing districts before 1991, or were all previous reapportionments pristine exercises in civic virtue? Might the states in the 1990s have had compelling interests in redressing past racially discriminatory practices? Were the motives of the 1991-92redistrictings so uncomplicated that they can be easily and unambiguously determined by a quick glance at a map? For North Carolina, I also examine whether white and black public opinion and the voting records of white and black members of Congress differ systematically from each other. Do black voters need black faces to represent them? Shaw's vagueness affords the Supreme Court the possibility of gracefully backing away from its separate but unequal standards, standards that allow whites standing to sue without having to prove that the electoral rules at issue have a racially discriminatory effect and without having to show in detail that they were adopted with a racially discriminatory intent. In the final section, I outline five escape routes from Shaw, all of which are based on its factual inadequacies.