The Constitution established a system of representative government that purposefully excluded political parties. Today, however, political parties are integral to representative government. In this thesis, I build an ideal of Equal Partisan Consideration that protects citizens’ partisanship but limits how partisanship can motivate legislation. Legislators must work in the public interest and uphold citizens’ associational and equal protection rights. So, electoral laws that burden some citizens’ democratic participation based on their partisan views unconstitutionally violate representational rights. Partisan gerrymandering and ballot access restrictions provide real-life examples of partisan discrimination and suggest how Equal Partisan Consideration analysis can protect representational rights.
Calvelli, Aidan,
"Equal Partisan Consideration: A Theory of Constitutional Partisanship"
(2019).
Political Science Theses and Dissertations.
Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library.
https://doi.org/10.26300/434s-m619
