Law Commons^™

The Brief History Of "Voter-Owned Elections" In Portland, Oregon: If Public Financing Can't Make It There, Can It Make It Anywhere?, Paul A. Diller

Paul Diller

From 2006 to 2010, Portland, Oregon, experimented with a publicly financed campaign system called "Voter-Owned Elections." In 2010, Portland's voters declined to renew the system. This article assesses Portland's experience with public financing and draws lessons therefrom that may inform efforts to promote public financing at the national, state, and local levels.

Circumventing The Electoral College: Why The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact Survives Constitutional Scrutiny Under The Compact Clause, Michael Brody

Michael Brody

The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVC) presents an emerging legal issue that straddles the line between political science and law. The NPVC is an interstate compact in which member states will allocate all of their electoral votes to the winner of the national vote, as opposed to the traditional state vote. The bill would not be effective until states possessing a majority of the nation's electoral votes (270) have become members. If enacted by enough states, the NPVC would all but put an end to the Electoral College, and the United States would essentially move to a direct national …

Politicians As Fiduciaries, D. Theodore Rave

Teddy Rave

When incumbent legislators draw the districts from which they are elected, the conflict of interest is glaring: they can and do gerrymander district lines to entrench themselves. Despite recognizing that such incumbent self-dealing works a democratic harm, the Supreme Court has not figured out what to do with political gerrymandering claims, which inherently require first-order decisions about the allocation of raw political power—decision that courts are institutionally ill-suited to make. But the same type of agency problem arises all the time in corporate law. And though we do not think courts are any better at making business decisions than political …

Regulating From Typewriters In An Internet Age: The Development & Regulation Of Mass Media Usage In Presidential Campaigns, Anthony J. King

Anthony J. King

The American election process has become a misleading process of campaign promises and self-promotion, thus diluting its primary and most fundamental purpose. This discrepancy can be traced to three primary groups; (1) the candidates, who supplied the motive; (2) the mass media, who supplied the means; and (3) the electorate, who so far have allowed it to happen. Seeking to remedy the situation lawmakers have turned to regulations of the media in attempt to assure fairness and nurture the marketplace of ideas. These numerous attempts at fairness have been met with a mixed reception and mixed results leading to questions …

When Mistakes Matter: Election Error And The Dynamic Assessment Of Materiality, Justin Levitt

Justin Levitt

The ghosts of the 2000 presidential election will return in 2012. Photo-finish, and error-laden, elections recur in each cycle. When the margin of error exceeds the margin of victory, officials and courts must decide which, if any, errors to discount or excuse, knowing that the answer will likely determine the election’s winner. Yet in the past eleven years, despite widespread agreement on the likelihood of another meltdown, neither courts nor scholars have developed consistent principles for resolving the errors that cause the chaos.

This Article advances such a principle. It argues that the resolution of an election error should turn …

When Mistakes Matter: Election Error And The Dynamic Assessment Of Materiality, Justin Levitt

Justin Levitt

The ghosts of the 2000 presidential election will return in 2012. Photo-finish, and error-laden, elections recur in each cycle. When the margin of error exceeds the margin of victory, officials and courts must decide which, if any, errors to discount or excuse, knowing that the answer will likely determine the election’s winner. Yet in the past eleven years, despite widespread agreement on the likelihood of another meltdown, neither courts nor scholars have developed consistent principles for resolving the errors that cause the chaos.

This Article advances such a principle. It argues that the resolution of an election error should turn …

Section 5 Of The Voting Rights Act And Its Place In Post-Racial America, Enbar Toledano

Enbar Toledano

The Fifteenth Amendment purported to withdraw race and color from the calculus of suffrage. Instead, it gave rise to an era of creative exclusion in which Southern states erected one barrier after another and Congress floundered in its attempts to secure the black vote it had promised. After ninety-five years, progress at last seemed possible with the introduction of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA), an echo of the Fifteenth Amendment fitted with shiny, new teeth. Section 5 of the VRA reversed the inertia of discrimination by requiring states with a demonstrated history of employing disfranchising voting practices to …

Non-Compactness And Voter Exchange; Towards A Constitutional Cure For Gerrymandering, Shlomo Angel

Shlomo Angel

No abstract provided.

E-Elections: Time For Japan To Embrace Online Campaigning, Matthew J. Wilson

Matthew J. Wilson

Asia has embraced the Internet and social media. Japan and South Korea rank among the world’s leaders in technological innovation and Internet penetration. China boasts over 420 million Internet users, and other Asian countries have experienced the widespread acceptance of online technologies. With the rapid ascendency of the Internet and social media, however, Asian countries have sometimes struggled with striking the proper balance between individual rights and the legal regulation of online activities. One prime example of such struggle involves the clash between Japan’s election laws and individual political freedoms.

Although Japan generally subscribes to democratic traditions and the principle …

The Significance Of The Shift Toward As-Applied Challenges In Election Law, Joshua A. Douglas

Joshua A. Douglas

Last Term, the Supreme Court decided two election law cases that had significant implications for the ability of political actors to bring challenges to a state’s election regime. In Washington State Grange v. Washington State Republican Party and Crawford v. Marion County Election Board (the voter ID case), the Court rejected facial challenges to the laws and boldly stated that political actors may only challenge election laws as applied. In essence, this means that voters and others no longer can achieve pre-election, prospective relief, instead having to endure at least one election cycle under a law that might be invalid …

Paul V. The Clintons, Et Al: Fec Complicity And A Plea For Real And Present Campaign Finance Reform, Ellis Washington

Ellis Washington

This Article is an analysis of current legislation, case law and election law policy regarding campaign finance disclosure rules and the need for a truly independent Federal Election Commission to efficiently enforce existing election laws. Admittedly, this article isn’t as theoretical as other scholarly works on this subject, however, since campaign finance reform is a rather complex subject, I didn’t want to get caught up in the endless minutiae of legislative and court opinion other than a general review in the context of the case at bar as well as the present state of campaign finance reform policy. I also …

Revisiting The Fable Of Reform, Allison Hayward

Allison Hayward

The modern campaign finance fable has its root in progressive political arguments. Advocates placed great faith in the management by experts of social problems, and the application of scientific principles to politics. For campaign finance reform, this meant the study of campaigns, the diagnosis of corruption and the prescription of legislative remedies. To sustain this idea over time, as it turns out, required a fable. That fable justified past reform efforts as calculated, measured and reasonable remedies, prescribed by Congress (or legislators, or regulators) after careful examination of political ailments. As new symptoms arise, the fable taught that lawmakers (or …

Election Day At The Bar, Allison Hayward

Allison Hayward

Abstract: Election Day At The Bar Allison R. Hayward Since the 2000 election, national parties and a number of special interest groups have changed how they “lawyer up” for election day. They recruit nationally for attorneys to work in whatever “hot spots” develop. Yet in key jurisdictions their activities may amount to the unauthorized practice of law (“UPL’) UPL discipline of these attorneys may seem unlikely so long as all participants in elections desire to mobilize these volunteers. Yet enforcement could be triggered once local interests who rely on suppression or fraud recognize that outside volunteers will cause them to …

Is The Right To Vote Really Fundamental?, Joshua A. Douglas

Joshua A. Douglas

Before the end of this term, the Supreme Court will decide in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board whether Indiana may require voters to show identification before casting a ballot. The Court will choose a standard of review and will analyze the consolidated cases accordingly. What may surprise you about this case is that no one really knows whether the Court will apply strict scrutiny or some lower standard of review to this voting rights challenge. This is because the Court’s history of election law jurisprudence has been fractured: for some cases the Court has deemed the right to vote …

Renewing Intraparty Democracy: Assessing Competition, Deliberation, And Associational Rights Of Political Parties, Jonathan J. Thessin

Jonathan J Thessin

Among the many schools of thought on the design of political institutions are two particularly fashionable ones: competitive market theories and deliberative democracy theories. Competitive democrats argue for destabilizing the two-party system by enabling third parties to compete effectively; by contrast, deliberative democrats argue for more discussion before political decisions are made. Neither theory, however, pays sufficient attention to the internal character of parties. Oftentimes, dominant parties lock up political institutions and restrict meaningful discussion not only by imposing ballot restrictions on third parties but also by restricting access to party leadership.

This article argues for a shift away from …

Renewing Intraparty Democracy: Assessing Competition, Deliberation, And Associational Rights Of Political Parties, Jonathan J. Thessin

Jonathan J Thessin

Among the many schools of thought on the design of political institutions are two particularly fashionable ones: competitive market theories and deliberative democracy theories. Competitive democrats argue for destabilizing the two-party system by enabling third parties to compete effectively; by contrast, deliberative democrats argue for more discussion before political decisions are made. Neither theory, however, pays sufficient attention to the internal character of parties. Oftentimes, dominant parties lock up political institutions and restrict meaningful discussion not only by imposing ballot restrictions on third parties but also by restricting access to party leadership.

This article argues for a shift away from …

Gaining Access: A State Lobbying Case Study, Trevor D. Dryer

Trevor D. Dryer

Although many articles, both in scholarly journals and in the popular press, have addressed the role of lobbyists, few have examined how the process actually works on the ground in state capitols across the country. Through interviews with registered lobbyists in California, this Article provides insight into the sur-prising effect of reform legislation on the actual practice of lobbying. For exam-ple, the interviewees claimed that reforms—such as legislative term limits or pro-hibitions on lobbyists making campaign contributions—have not changed the role money plays for many lobbyists in gaining access, and have actually increased the influence of the professional lobby. These …