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Articles 1 - 30 of 41
Full-Text Articles in Law
The "Bounds" Of Moore: Pluralism And State Judicial Review, Leah M. Litman, Katherine Shaw
The "Bounds" Of Moore: Pluralism And State Judicial Review, Leah M. Litman, Katherine Shaw
Articles
In Moore v. Harper, the Supreme Court rejected a maximalist version of the “independent state legislature theory” (ISLT), invoking state judicial practices both before and after the Constitution was ratified. This piece uses Moore’s method to examine another variation on the ISLT, one pushed most recently by Justice Brett Kavanaugh and before him by Chief Justice William Rehnquist. The Rehnquist-Kavanaugh version of the ISLT would empower federal courts to review state officers’ interpretation of state laws regarding federal elections. But the logic of Moore is fatal to that potential version of the ISLT. The Rehnquist-Kavanaugh version of the ISLT contemplates …
Mary Lou Graves, Nolen Breedlove, And The Nineteenth Amendment, Ellen D. Katz
Mary Lou Graves, Nolen Breedlove, And The Nineteenth Amendment, Ellen D. Katz
Articles
This close examination of two cases is part of a larger ongoing project to provide a distinct account of the Nineteenth Amendment. In 1921, the Alabama Supreme Court held the Nineteenth Amendment required that any poll tax be imposed equally on men and women. Sixteen years later, the Supreme Court disagreed. Juxtaposing these two cases, and telling their story in rich context, captures my larger claim that—contrary to the general understanding in the scholarly literature—the Nineteenth Amendment was deliberately crafted as a highly circumscribed measure that would eliminate only the exclusively male franchise while serving steadfastly to preserve and promote …
Textualism, Judicial Supremacy, And The Independent State Legislature Theory, Leah Litman, Katherine Shaw
Textualism, Judicial Supremacy, And The Independent State Legislature Theory, Leah Litman, Katherine Shaw
Articles
This piece offers an extended critique of one aspect of the so-called “independent state legislature” theory. That theory, in brief, holds that the federal Constitution gives state legislatures, and withholds from any other state entity, the power to regulate federal elections. Proponents ground their theory in two provisions of the federal Constitution: Article I’s Elections Clause, which provides that “[t]he Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof,” and Article II’s Presidential Electors Clause, which provides that “[e]ach State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature …
The Support-Or-Advocacy Clauses, Richard Primus, Cameron O. Kistler
The Support-Or-Advocacy Clauses, Richard Primus, Cameron O. Kistler
Articles
Two little known clauses of a Reconstruction-era civil rights statute are potentially powerful weapons for litigators seeking to protect the integrity of federal elections. For the clauses to achieve their potential, however, the courts will need to settle correctly a contested question of statutory interpretation: do the clauses create substantive rights, or do they merely create remedies for substantive rights specified elsewhere? The correct answer is that the clauses create substantive rights.
Thin And Thick Conceptions Of The Nineteenth Amendment Right To Vote And Congress's Power To Enforce It, Richard L. Hasen, Leah M. Litman
Thin And Thick Conceptions Of The Nineteenth Amendment Right To Vote And Congress's Power To Enforce It, Richard L. Hasen, Leah M. Litman
Articles
This Article, prepared for a Georgetown Law Journal symposium on the Nineteenth Amendment’s one-hundred-year anniversary, explores and defends a “thick” conception of the Nineteenth Amendment right to vote and Congress’s power to enforce it. A “thin” conception of the Nineteenth Amendment maintains that the Amendment merely prohibits states from enacting laws that prohibit women from voting once the state decides to hold an election. And a “thin” conception of Congress’s power to enforce the Nineteenth Amendment maintains that Congress may only supply remedies for official acts that violate the Amendment’s substantive guarantees. This Article argues the Nineteenth Amendment does more. …
Section 2 After Section 5: Voting Rights And The Race To The Bottom, Ellen D. Katz
Section 2 After Section 5: Voting Rights And The Race To The Bottom, Ellen D. Katz
Articles
Five years ago, Shelby County v. Holder released nine states and fifty-five smaller jurisdictions from the preclearance obligation set forth in section 5 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). This obligation mandated that places with a history of discrimination in voting obtain federal approval—known as preclearance—before changing any electoral rule or procedure. Within hours of the Shelby County decision, jurisdictions began moving to reenact measures section 5 had specifically blocked. Others pressed forward with new rules that the VRA would have barred prior to Shelby County.
What The Marriage Equality Cases Tell Us About Voter Id, Ellen D. Katz
What The Marriage Equality Cases Tell Us About Voter Id, Ellen D. Katz
Articles
Two years ago, United States u. Windsor tossed out the Defense of Marriage Act ("DOMA"). Thereafter, proponents of marriage equality secured dozens of notable victories in the lower courts, a smattering of setbacks, and last June, the victory they sought in Obergefell v. Hodges. During this same period, opponents of electoral restrictions such as voter identification have seen far less sustained success. Decided the day before Windsor, Shelby County v. Holder scrapped a key provision of the Voting Rights Act ("VRA") while making clear that plaintiffs might still challenge disputed voting regulations under Section 2 of the VRA and the …
Dismissing Deterrence, Ellen D. Katz
Dismissing Deterrence, Ellen D. Katz
Articles
The proposed Voting Rights Amendment Act of 20144 (VRAA)[...]’s new criteria defining when jurisdictions become subject to preclearance are acutely responsive to the concerns articulated in Shelby County[ v. Holder]. The result is a preclearance regime that, if enacted, would operate in fewer places and demand less from those it regulates. This new regime, however, would not only be more targeted and less powerful, but, curiously, more vulnerable to challenge. In fact, the regime would be more vulnerable precisely because it is so responsive to Shelby County. Some background will help us see why.
Universalism And Civil Rights (With Notes On Voting Rights After Shelby), Samuel R. Bagenstos
Universalism And Civil Rights (With Notes On Voting Rights After Shelby), Samuel R. Bagenstos
Articles
After the Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County v. Holder, voting rights activists proposed a variety of legislative responses. Some proposals sought to move beyond measures that targeted voting discrimination based on race or ethnicity. They instead sought to eliminate certain problematic practices that place too great a burden on voting generally. Responses like these are universalist, because rather than seeking to protect any particular group against discrimination, they formally provide uniform protections to everyone. As Bruce Ackerman shows, voting rights activists confronted a similar set of questions—and at least some of them opted for a universalist approach—during the campaign …
Hollowed-Out Democracy, Kate Andrias
Hollowed-Out Democracy, Kate Andrias
Articles
Professors Joseph Fishkin’s and Heather Gerken’s essay for this symposium, The Two Trends That Matter for Party Politics, along with the larger project of which it is a part, marks a notable turn (or return) in the law-of-democracy field. Unlike much recent scholarship, Fishkin’s and Gerken’s work does not offer a comprehensive theory of corruption or equality, but instead analyzes the relationship between campaign finance law and the actual functioning of political parties in our democracy. In brief, Fishkin and Gerken tell us that our contemporary political parties are at once highly polarized and oddly weak. They claim this is …
Election Law's Lochnerian Turn, Ellen D. Katz
Election Law's Lochnerian Turn, Ellen D. Katz
Articles
This panel has been asked to consider whether "the Constitution [is] responsible for electoral dysfunction."' My answer is no. The electoral process undeniably falls well short of our aspirations, but it strikes me that we should look to the Supreme Court for an accounting before blaming the Constitution for the deeply unsatisfactory condition in which we find ourselves.
What Was Wrong With The Record?, Ellen D. Katz
What Was Wrong With The Record?, Ellen D. Katz
Articles
Shelby County v. Holder offers three reasons for why the record Congress amassed to support the 2006 reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) was legally insufficient to justify the statute's continued regional application: (1) the problems Congress documented in 2006 were not as severe as those that prompted it to craft the regime in 1965; (2) these problems did not lead Congress to alter the statute's pre-existing coverage formula; and (3) these problems did not exclusively involve voter registration and the casting of ballots.
South Carolina's 'Evolutionary Process', Ellen D. Katz
South Carolina's 'Evolutionary Process', Ellen D. Katz
Articles
When Congress first enacted the Voting Rights Act (VRA) in 1965, public officials in South Carolina led the charge to scrap the new statute. Their brief to the Supreme Court of the United States described the VRA as an “unjustified” and “arbitrary” affront to the “Equality of Statehood” principle, and a “usurp[ation]” of the State’s legislative and executive functions. Not surprisingly, the Warren Court was unpersuaded and opted instead to endorse broad congressional power to craft “inventive” remedies to address systematic racial discrimination and to “shift the advantage of time and inertia from the perpetrators of evil to its victims.” …
Shelby County V. Holder: Why Section 2 Matters, Ellen D. Katz
Shelby County V. Holder: Why Section 2 Matters, Ellen D. Katz
Articles
Editor’s Note: Professor Ellen D. Katz writes and teaches about election law, civil rights and remedies, and equal protection. She and the Voting Rights Initiative at Michigan Law filed a brief as amicus curiae in Shelby County v. Holder, on which the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments February 27. Here, she examines why Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act bears consideration in the case, which involves a challenge to Section 5 of the act.
A Cure Worse Than The Disease?, Ellen D. Katz
A Cure Worse Than The Disease?, Ellen D. Katz
Articles
The pending challenge to section 5 of the Voting Rights Act insists the statute is no longer necessary. Should the Supreme Court agree, its ruling is likely to reflect the belief that section 5 is not only obsolete but that its requirements do more harm today than the condition it was crafted to address. In this Essay, Professor Ellen D. Katz examines why the Court might liken section 5 to a destructive treatment and why reliance on that analogy in the pending case threatens to leave the underlying condition unaddressed and Congress without the power to address it.
On Overreaching, Or Why Rick Perry May Save The Voting Rights Act But Destroy Affirmative Action, Ellen D. Katz
On Overreaching, Or Why Rick Perry May Save The Voting Rights Act But Destroy Affirmative Action, Ellen D. Katz
Articles
The State of Texas is presently staking out two positions that are not typically pursued by a single litigant. On the one hand, Texas is seeking the invalidation of the Voting Rights Act, and, on the other, the State is now defending the validity of the expansive race-based affirmative action policy it uses at its flagship university. This Essay presses the claim that Texas has increased the chance it will lose in bothTexas v. Holder andFisher v. University of Texas because it has opted to stake out markedly extreme positions in each. I argue that Texas would be more likely …
Democrats At Doj: Why Partisan Use Of The Voting Rights Act Might Not Be So Bad After All, Ellen D. Katz
Democrats At Doj: Why Partisan Use Of The Voting Rights Act Might Not Be So Bad After All, Ellen D. Katz
Articles
In notable ways, the ongoing dispute over redistricting in Texas offers a mirror image to one of the major redistricting battles of the last decade, only with Democratic and Republican roles reversed. In both Texas v. United States and Georgia v. Ashcroft, a state attorney general (AG) decided he would not ask the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) to approve new redistricting plans enacted in his state. In both cases, the state AGs were well aware that the Voting Rights Act (VRA) required them to obtain federal approval, known as preclearance, before changing any aspect of their state's election …
Barack Obama, Margarita Lopez Torres, And The Path To Nomination, Ellen D. Katz
Barack Obama, Margarita Lopez Torres, And The Path To Nomination, Ellen D. Katz
Articles
Operating within these regimes, Obama was able to mount a credible--and ultimately successful--challenge to the leadership's choice for the nomination while Lopez Torres could not. This article offers an explanation why. It argues that Obama succeeded where Lopez Torres failed because the nomination process Obama traversed was more penetrable and more contestable than the one Lopez Torres faced.
Withdrawal: The Roberts Court And The Retreat From Election Law, Ellen D. Katz
Withdrawal: The Roberts Court And The Retreat From Election Law, Ellen D. Katz
Articles
Last Term the Supreme Court handed down four decisions that upheld diverse efforts by state governments to regulate the electoral process. The Court turned back challenges to New York’s method for nominating judicial candidates, Washington’s modified blanket primary system, Indiana’s voter identification requirement, and Alabama’s use of gubernatorial appointment to fill county commission vacancies in Mobile County. Unlike other recent election decisions, these were not close cases. All nine Justices supported the New York holding, while supermajorities voted in favor of the result in the others. This consensus, moreover, emerged even as the Court voted to reverse unanimous decisions by …
From Bush V. Gore To Namudno: A Response To Professor Amar, Ellen D. Katz
From Bush V. Gore To Namudno: A Response To Professor Amar, Ellen D. Katz
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In his Dunwody Lecture, Professor Akhil Amar invites us to revisit the Bush v. Gore controversy and consider what went wrong. This short essay responds to Professor Amar by taking up his invitation and looking at the decision through a seemingly improbable lens, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last June in Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. One (NAMUDNO) v. Holder. Among its many surprises, NAMUDNO helps illuminate the Court’s fundamental error nine years ago. Professor Amar forcefully argues that the mistrust with which the Justices in the Bush v. Gore majority viewed the Florida Supreme Court was both unjustified …
Why Counting Votes Doesn't Add Up: A Response To Cox And Miles' Judging The Voting Rights Act, Ellen D. Katz, Anna Baldwin
Why Counting Votes Doesn't Add Up: A Response To Cox And Miles' Judging The Voting Rights Act, Ellen D. Katz, Anna Baldwin
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In Judging the Voting Rights Act, Professors Adam B. Cox and Thomas J. Miles report that judges are more likely to find liability under section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) when they are African American, appointed by a Democratic president, or sit on an appellate panel with a judge who is African American or a Democratic appointee. Cox and Miles posit that their findings “contrast” and “cast doubt” on much of the “conventional wisdom” about the Voting Rights Act, by which they mean the core findings we reported in Documenting Discrimination in Voting: Judicial Findings Under Section 2 …
Congressional Power To Extend Preclearance: A Response To Professor Karlan, Ellen D. Katz
Congressional Power To Extend Preclearance: A Response To Professor Karlan, Ellen D. Katz
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Is the core provision of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional? Many people now think that the Act's preclearance requirement is invalid, but Professor Karlan is not among them. In part, that is because she is not convinced the problems that originally motivated Congress to impose preclearance have been fully remedied. Professor Karlan points out the many ways section 5 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) shapes behavior in the jurisdictions subject to the statute--not just by blocking discriminatory electoral changes, but also by influencing less transparent conduct by various political actors operating in these regions. Do not be so sure, …
Mission Accomplished?, Ellen D. Katz
Mission Accomplished?, Ellen D. Katz
Articles
My study of voting rights violations nationwide suggests that voting problems are more prevalent in places “covered” by the Act than elsewhere. Professor Persily’s careful and measured defense of the renewed statute posits that this evidence is the best available to support reauthorization. The evidence matters because if, as critics charge, the regional provisions of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) are no longer needed, minority voters should confront fewer obstacles to political participation in places where additional federal safeguards protect minority interests than in places where these safeguards do not operate. In fact, minority voters confront more.
Reviving The Right To Vote, Ellen D. Katz
Reviving The Right To Vote, Ellen D. Katz
Articles
Losers in partisan districting battles have long challenged the resulting districting plans under seemingly unrelated legal doctrines. They have filed lawsuits alleging malapportionment, racial gerrymandering, and racial vote dilution, and they periodically prevail. Many election law scholars worry about these lawsuits, claiming that they needlessly "racialize" fundamentally political disputes, distort important legal doctrines designed for other purposes, and provide an inadequate remedy for a fundamentally distinct electoral problem. I am not convinced. This Article argues that the application of distinct doctrines to invalidate or diminish what are indisputably partisan gerrymanders is not necessarily problematic, and that the practice may well …
From Laredo To Fort Worth: Race, Politics And The Texas Redistricting Case, Ellen D. Katz
From Laredo To Fort Worth: Race, Politics And The Texas Redistricting Case, Ellen D. Katz
Articles
LULAC v. Perry held that Texas violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act when it displaced nearly 100,000 Latino residents from a congressional district in Laredo to protect the Republican incumbent they refused to support. At the same time, the Justices let stand the dismantling of a so-called “coalition” district in Fort Worth where African-American voters comprising a minority of the district’s population allegedly enjoyed effective control in deciding the district’s representative. Only Justice Kennedy supported the outcome in both Laredo and Fort Worth. His opinion marks the first time that he, or indeed a majority of the Justices, …
Resurrecting The White Primary, Ellen D. Katz
Resurrecting The White Primary, Ellen D. Katz
Articles
An unprecedented number of noncompetitive or "safe" electoral districts operate in the United States today. Noncompetitive districts elect officials with more extreme political views and foster more polarized legislatures than do competitive districts. More fundamentally, they inhibit meaningful political participation. That is because participating in an election that is decided before it begins is an empty exercise. Voting in a competitive election is not, even though a single vote will virtually never decide the outcome. What a competitive election offers to each voter is the opportunity to be the coveted swing voter, the one whose support candidates most seek, the …
Reinforcing Representation: Enforcing The Fourteenth And Fifteenth Amendments In The Rehnquist And Waite Courts, Ellen D. Katz
Reinforcing Representation: Enforcing The Fourteenth And Fifteenth Amendments In The Rehnquist And Waite Courts, Ellen D. Katz
Articles
A large body of academic scholarship accuses the Rehnquist Court of "undoing the Second Reconstruction," just as the Waite Court has long been blamed for facilitating the end of the First. This critique captures much of what is meant by those generally charging the Rehnquist Court with "conservative judicial activism." It posits that the present Court wants to dismantle decades' worth of federal antidiscrimination measures that are aimed at the "reconstruction" of public and private relationships at the local level. It sees the Waite Court as having similarly nullified the civil-rights initiatives enacted by Congress following the Civil War to …
Federalism, Preclearance, And The Rehnquist Court, Ellen D. Katz
Federalism, Preclearance, And The Rehnquist Court, Ellen D. Katz
Articles
Lopez v. Monterey County is an odd decision. Justice O'Connor's majority opinion easily upholds the constitutionality of a broad construction of section 5 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) in language reminiscent of the Warren Court. Acknowledging the "substantial 'federalism costs" resulting from the VRA's "federal intrusion into sensitive areas of state and local policymaking," Lopez recognizes that the Reconstruction Amendments "contemplate" this encroachment into realms "traditionally reserved to the States." Justice O'Connor affirms as constitutionally permissible the infringement that the section 5 preclearance process "by its nature" effects on state sovereignty, and applies section 5 broadly, holding the statute …
'Bush' V. 'Gore': What Was The Supreme Court Thinking?, Richard D. Friedman
'Bush' V. 'Gore': What Was The Supreme Court Thinking?, Richard D. Friedman
Articles
One of the most astonishing episodes in American political history ended last month with perhaps the most imperial decision ever by the United States Supreme Court. In one stroke, the Court exercised power that belonged to Congress, the legislature of Florida, Florida's courts and administrators, and, most importantly, the people of the state.
Trying To Make Peace With Bush V. Gore (Symposium: Bush V. Gore Issue 2001), Richard D. Friedman
Trying To Make Peace With Bush V. Gore (Symposium: Bush V. Gore Issue 2001), Richard D. Friedman
Articles
The Supreme Court's decision in Bush v. Gore, shutting down the recounts of Florida's vote in the 2000 presidential election and effectively awarding the election to George W. Bush, has struck many observers, including myself, as outrageous.' Decisions of the Supreme Court should be more than mere reflections of ideological or partisan preference thinly camouflaged behind legalistic language. It would therefore be pleasant to be able to believe that they are more than that. Accordingly, Judge Richard Posner's analysis,2 in which he defends the result reached by the Court-though not the path by which it got there-is particularly welcome. Though …