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Full-Text Articles in Law
Lies And Legality: Evaluating Legislation's Role In Monitoring Campaign Truthfulness, James E. Britton
Lies And Legality: Evaluating Legislation's Role In Monitoring Campaign Truthfulness, James E. Britton
Journal of Legislation Online Supplement
Given the gravity of a campaign to be elected to the highest office of what could conservatively be called a major international power, one might be tempted think that apparent perfidy would be a serious, and perhaps even criminal, charge. After all, these are men and women going out in front of every camera in the country and asking its people to consign their trust to them with their vote; doing so under false pretenses and misrepresentations seems to transcend the boundaries of the merely unsavory into the unconscionable. However, in reality, the inverse of that assertion actually carries the …
Politics At The Pulpit: Tax Benefits, Substantial Burdens, And Institutional Free Exercise, Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer
Politics At The Pulpit: Tax Benefits, Substantial Burdens, And Institutional Free Exercise, Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer
Journal Articles
More than fifty years ago, Congress enacted a prohibition against political campaign intervention for all charities, including churches and other houses of worship, as a condition for receiving tax deductible contributions. Yet the IRS has never taken a house of worship to court for alleged violation of the prohibition through political comments from the pulpit, presumably at least in part because of concerns about the constitutionality of doing so. This decision is surprising, because a careful review of Free Exercise Clause case law - both before and after the landmark Employment Division v. Smith decision - reveals that the prohibition …
Grasping Smoke: Enforcing The Ban On Political Activity By Charities, Lloyd Histoshi Mayer
Grasping Smoke: Enforcing The Ban On Political Activity By Charities, Lloyd Histoshi Mayer
Journal Articles
The rule that charities are not allowed to intervene in political campaigns has now been in place for over fifty years. Despite uncertainty about the exact reasons for Congress' enactment of it, skepticism by some about its validity for both constitutional and public policy reasons, and continued confusion about its exact parameters, this rule has survived virtually unchanged for all of those years. Yet while overall noncompliance with the income tax laws has drawn significant scholarly attention, few scholars have focused on violations of this prohibition and the IRS' attempts to enforce it.
This Article focuses on the elusive issue …
How Not To Count Votes, John C. Nagle
How Not To Count Votes, John C. Nagle
Journal Articles
Rutherford B. Hayes defeated Samuel Tilden by one electoral vote in the presidential election of 1876. In Fraud of the Century: Rutherford B. Hayes, Samuel Tilden, and the Stolen Election of 1876, Roy Morris, Jr. concludes that the election was stolen from Tilden by Republican partisans serving on the canvassing boards in the three Southern states - Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina - that were still under the control of Republican governments backed by the federal army. But in Centennial Crisis: The Disputed Election of 1876, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist defends the integrity and the actions of the …
The Recusal Alternative To Campaign Finance Legislation, John C. Nagle
The Recusal Alternative To Campaign Finance Legislation, John C. Nagle
Journal Articles
Typical campaign finance proposals focus on limiting the amount of money that can be contributed to candidates and the amount of money that candidates can spend. This article suggests an alternative proposal that places no restrictions on contributions or spending, but rather targets the corrupting influence of contributions. Under the proposals, legislators would be required to recuse themselves from voting on issues directly affecting contributors. I contend that this proposal would prevent corruption and the appearance of corruption while remedying the first amendment objections to the regulation of money in campaigns.