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Full-Text Articles in Law
A Solution Looking For A Problem: Testimony Before The 2010 Maryland General Assembly On Senate Bill 570/House Bill 986: Campaign Materials – Stockholder Approval, Larry S. Gibson
Faculty Scholarship
The U.S. Supreme Court in Citizens United v Federal Elections Commission declared unconstitutional under the First Amendment right to freedom of speech federal statutory limitations on corporate political expenditures. Before Citizens United, Maryland was already among the 26 states that permitted corporations to make direct political contributions and to make independent political expenditures. Consequently, Citizens United did not change Maryland election law and practice. The Maryland General Assembly has steadfastly resisted efforts to change the Maryland approach. Over the past several years, the General Assembly has repeatedly rejected bills that would have banned political contributions by business entities. Many in …
The Dilemma Of Direct Democracy, Craig M. Burnett, Elizabeth Garrett, Mathew D. Mccubbins
The Dilemma Of Direct Democracy, Craig M. Burnett, Elizabeth Garrett, Mathew D. Mccubbins
Faculty Scholarship
The dilemma of direct democracy is that voters may not always be able to make welfare- improving decisions. Lupia’s seminal work has led us to believe that voters can substitute voting cues for substantive policy knowledge. Lupia, however, emphasized that cues were valuable under certain conditions and not others. In what follows, we present three main findings regarding voters and what they know about California’s Proposition 7. First, much like Lupia reported, we show voters who are able to recall endorsements for or against a ballot measure vote similarly to people who recall certain basic facts about the initiative. We …
Can Mature Democracies Be Perfected?, Guy-Uriel Charles
Can Mature Democracies Be Perfected?, Guy-Uriel Charles
Faculty Scholarship
One of the more vexing questions about democracy that is often debated among political theorists, political scientists, and legal scholars is whether the democratic character of mature democracies can be improved. From one view, that of democratic realists, mature democracies are perfected as a matter of definition and as a matter of realistic expectations. Because mature democracies are those that respect core democratic principles, variations outside the core are simply policy differences based upon each democratic polity’s willingness to engage in a different set of trade-offs. For democratic realists, variations in democratic practice that are not related to core democratic …