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Hutchinson seems to neglect a few key factors in assuming the minority vote would be weakened by the district system. First, he seems to neglect the fact that in many districts blacks and/or latinos are the majority so their votes would still go towards points for their candidate. Second, he completely neglects the large number of minorities in smaller states throughout the country. In many metropolitan areas in the midwest blacks and latinos make up a significant (and sometimes majority) vote within their district, however their votes are overshadowed by the equal number of rural white voters throughout the rest of their state. These metropolitan "minorities" in states where the overall population is predominately white stand to gain greatly by a district system, this alone would probably offset the difference in lost votes in states like California and New York (which I think the author overestimates). Finally, and most importantly, has the author ever stopped to consider that the current system might over represent minorities in swing states at the expense of the majority or non-swing states? It seems clear to me that while it would be greatly beneficial for the democrats to be able to take entire states by courting a select few voters in certain key districts (and as a democrat I can appreciate that) it is at the expense of fairness within the electoral and democratic systems for minorities to hold the entire state's votes ransom in some backbone states, just as it is unfair for the majority to hold the entire state's votes ransom in other backbone states. In the end, I still assert that the harm of shifting from winner-take-all to a district system is minimal and, more importantly, that it is in the interest of basic fairness and democratic process for us to continually (and realistically) strive towards smaller and smaller units making up points to decide elections until it is one day possible for the popular vote to rule the day.
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"The courts that first rode the warhorse of virtual representation into battle on the res judicata front invested their steed with near-magical properties." ~27 F.3d 751
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