Law Commons^™

Foreword, Richard B. Collins

Publications

No abstract provided.

Counter-Majoritarian Power And Judges' Political Speech, Michael R. Dimino

ExpressO

Canons of ethics restrict judicial campaigning and prohibit sitting judges from engaging in political activity. Only recently, in Republican Party v. White, 536 U.S. 765 (2002), has the Supreme Court addressed the constitutionality of these restrictions, concluding that judicial candidates must be allowed some opportunity to discuss legal and political issues in their campaigns. But White left many questions unanswered about the permissible scope of restrictions on judges’ political activity.

This Article suggests that those questions will be answered not by applying principles of free speech, but by analyzing the opportunities the restrictions provide for independent judicial policy-making. Restrictions on …

Originalism, Ceremonial Deism And The Pledge Of Allegiance, Z. Ryan Pahnke

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Defining The Constitutional Question In Partisan Gerrymandering, Richard Briffault

Faculty Scholarship

Vieth v. Jubelirer is a significant setback to efforts to challenge partisan gerrymandering in court. Four members of the Supreme Court repudiated Davis v. Bandemer and concluded that partisan gerrymanders present a nonjusticiable question, while the fifth, Justice Kennedy, determined that the Court ought to "refrain from intervention" at this time, although he left open the hope that gerrymandering might become justiciable if the right standard of proving a gerrymander is ever found. Yet, strikingly, all nine members of the Supreme Court agreed that, justiciable or not, partisan gerrymanders do raise a constitutional question and some partisan gerrymanders are unconstitutional. …

Not For Attribution: Government's Interest In Protecting The Integrity Of Its Own Expression, Helen Norton

Publications

Public entities increasingly maintain that the First Amendment permits them to ensure that private speakers' views are not mistakenly attributed to the government. Consider, for example, Virginia's efforts to ban the Sons of Confederate Veterans' display of the Confederate flag logo on state-sponsored specialty license plates. Seeking to remain neutral in the ongoing debate over whether the Confederate flag is a symbol of "hate" or "heritage," Virginia argued that the state would be wrongly perceived as endorsing the flag if the logo appeared on a state-issued plate adorned by the identifier "VIRGINIA." The Fourth Circuit was unpersuaded, holding that the …

Defining Democracy: The Supreme Court's Campaign Finance Dilemma, Lori A. Ringhand

Scholarly Works

On December 10, 2003 the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in McConnell v. FEC. In McConnell, the Court was asked to determine the constitutionality of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act ("BCRA"). A divided Court, in a deeply fractured decision in which six justices wrote individual opinions, upheld the major provisions of the legislation. Yet despite the almost 300 pages of reasoning provided by the Court, and a voluminous record developed by the district court, the Justices could not agree on what purportedly is the central issue in campaign finance law: whether the challenged regulations were necessary …

Say Cheese: The Constitutionality Of State-Mandated Airtime On Public Broadcasting Stations In Wisconsin, Andrew D. Cotlar

Federal Communications Law Journal

Last year, the State of Wisconsin passed legislation which would require statechartered public broadcasting television networks to carry political advertising for candidates free of charge. In this article, Andrew Cotlar raises many concerns about the wisdom of such legislation and the impact this trend may have on public broadcasters throughout the nation. The author begins by analyzing the current position of the law on political access requirements, at both federal and state levels, and then argues that the public television stations should continue to be free to exercise substantial editorial discretion. The Article proceeds to critique the Wisconsin statute as …

Regulating Political Parties Under A Public Rights First Amendment, Gregory P. Magarian

Scholarship@WashULaw

The recently-enacted McCain-Feingold campaign finance law pushes to the fore the questions of whether and to what extent the First Amendment allows government to regulate the electoral activities of political parties. One of the new law's primary components is its attempt to eliminate so-called "soft money"- unlimited donations to national political parties that the Democrats and Republicans have used to circumvent legal limits on campaign contributions? One congressional opponent of the new law called it "the death knell" for political parties' role in elections." Not surprisingly, both major parties have attacked McCain-Feingold. Most Republicans in Congress opposed the legislation, and …

Rendering Unto Caesar Or Electioneering For Caesar--Loss Of Church Tax Exemption For Participation In Electoral Politics, Alan L. Feld

Faculty Scholarship

The restriction on church participation in political campaigns contained in the Internal Revenue Code operates uneasily. It appears to serve the useful purpose of separating the spheres of religion and electoral politics. But the separation often is only apparent, as churches in practice signal support for a particular candidate in a variety of rays that historically have not cost them their exemptions. Although the limited enforcement by the Internal Revenue Service has reflected the sensitive nature of the First Amendment values present, the federal government should provide more formal elaboration by statute or regulation. Focus on the use of funds …

Nixon V. Shrink Missouri Government Pac: The Beginning Of The End Of The Buckley Era?, Richard Briffault

Faculty Scholarship

In Nixon v. Shrink Missouri Government PAC, the Supreme Court emphatically reaffirmed a key element of the campaign finance doctrine first articulated in Buckley v. Valeo a quarter-century earlier that governments may, consistent with the First Amendment, impose limitations on the size of contributions to election campaigns. Shrink Missouri was significant because the Eighth Circuit decision reversed by the Supreme Court had sought to strengthen the constitutional protection provided to contributions and had invalidated limitations on donations to Missouri state candidates that were actually higher than the limits on donations to federal candidates that the Supreme Court had previously …

This Could Be Your Culture--Junk Speech In A Time Of Decadence, Pierre Schlag

Publications

No abstract provided.

Voice In Government: The People, Emily Calhoun

Publications

No abstract provided.

Advocacy And Scholarship, Paul F. Campos

Publications

The apex of American legal thought is embodied in two types of writings: the federal appellate opinion and the law review article. In this Article, the author criticizes the whole enterprise of doctrinal constitutional law scholarship, using a recent U.S. Supreme Court case and a Harvard Law Review article as quintessential examples of the dominant genre. In a rhetorical tour de force, the author argues that most of modern constitutional scholarship is really advocacy in the guise of scholarship. Such an approach to legal scholarship may have some merit as a strategic move towards a political end; however, it has …

How To Do Things With The First Amendment, Pierre Schlag

Publications

No abstract provided.

Silence And The Word, Paul Campos

Publications

No abstract provided.

Toward Meaningful Judicial Elections: A Case For Reform Of Canon 7, Michele Radosevich

Seattle University Law Review

This Comment argues that elections can give us good judges who are both accountable to the voters and able to decide cases impartially. To accomplish this, we must, in the words of one local media commentator, “take off the muzzle and allow judges to discuss issues.” But before one can propose change, one should understand the present system and the purposes it was designed to serve. Part II of this Comment examines Canon 7 of the Washington Code of Judicial Conduct and the balance it strikes between accountability and impartiality. Part III explores how the Canon has been interpreted in …

The Thomas Hearings: Watching Ourselves, Robert F. Nagel

Publications

No abstract provided.

An Objective And Practical Test For Adjudicating Political Patronage Dismissals, Kathleen M. Dugan

Cleveland State Law Review

Political patronage dismissal is not a new phenomenon, but judicial recognition of claims specifically alleging improper dismissal based on political affiliation has occurred only within the last twenty years. While the federal circuit courts have struggled to establish a standard by which to adjudicate patronage dismissal cases, their struggles have resulted in a plethora of inconsistent conclusions. Neither has the Supreme Court constructed a sufficiently concrete test to determine when an employee is exempt from patronage dismissal. The Elrod test is flawed in not limiting dismissals to political policymakers, and the Branti test is inadequate as it delegates the selection …

Teaching Tolerance, Robert F. Nagel

Publications

No abstract provided.

Freedom Of Speech As Therapy, Pierre Schlag

Publications

No abstract provided.

The First Amendment And Distributional Voting Rights Controversies, Emily M. Calhoun

Publications

No abstract provided.

Unconstitutional Conditions Upon Public Employment: New Departures In The Protection Of First Amendment Rights, Harold H. Bruff

Publications

No abstract provided.