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Selected Works

Tabatha Abu El-Haj

First Amendment

Articles 1 - 3 of 3

Full-Text Articles in Law

Beyond Campaign Finance Reform, Tabatha Abu El-Haj Dec 2015

Beyond Campaign Finance Reform, Tabatha Abu El-Haj

Tabatha Abu El-Haj

The average American voter is apathetic, ignorant and polarized, or so we are told. Except, it turns out, with respect to her views on the outsized political influence of the super wealthy: poll after poll reveals a bipartisan consensus that wealthy interests exert too much political influence and there is good evidence to support these concerns. While the public blames the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC for this situation, experts in the field know that the constitutional constraints on our ability to limit the political influence of moneyed elites long-predate Citizens United and pose a formidable barrier …

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Friends, Associates And Associations: Theoretically And Empirically Grounding The Freedom Of Association, Tabatha Abu El-Haj Dec 2013

Friends, Associates And Associations: Theoretically And Empirically Grounding The Freedom Of Association, Tabatha Abu El-Haj

Tabatha Abu El-Haj

This Article argues that while the freedom of association is back at the center of the First Amendment, it suffers from the fact that it has been both theoretically and doctrinally subsumed by the freedom of speech. The First Amendment’s self-governance interest is necessarily broader than an interest in political debate and a vibrant marketplace of political ideas.

Association and associations enable the political participation that can turn ideas and debate into the action required to create democratic accountability. Free association doctrine is, therefore, uniquely positioned to promote representative government by protecting conditions necessary for an active citizenry.

A reoriented …

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Changing The People: Legal Regulation And American Democracy, Tabatha Abu El-Haj Dec 2010

Changing The People: Legal Regulation And American Democracy, Tabatha Abu El-Haj

Tabatha Abu El-Haj

The world in which we live, a world in which law pervades the practice of democratic politics – from advance regulation of public assemblies to detailed rules governing elections – is the product of a particular period of American history. Between 1880 and 1930, states and municipalities increased governmental controls over the full range of nineteenth-century avenues for democratic participation. Prior to this legal transformation, the practice of democratic politics in the United States was less structured by law and more autonomous from formal state institutions than it is today. Exposing this history challenges two core assumptions driving the work …

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