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Articles 1 - 3 of 3
Full-Text Articles in Civil Rights and Discrimination
Administering Section 2 Of The Voting Rights Act After Shelby County, Christopher Elmendorf, Douglas Spencer
Administering Section 2 Of The Voting Rights Act After Shelby County, Christopher Elmendorf, Douglas Spencer
Douglas M. Spencer
Until the Supreme Court put an end to it in Shelby County v. Holder, Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act was widely regarded as an effective, low cost tool for blocking potentially discriminatory changes to election laws and administrative practices. The provision the Supreme Court left standing, Section 2, is generally seen as expensive, cumbersome and almost wholly ineffective at blocking changes before they take effect. This paper argues that the courts, in partnership with the Department of Justice, could reform Section 2 so that it fills much of the gap left by the Supreme Court’s evisceration of Section …
Did Multicultural America Result From A Mistake? The 1965 Immigration Act And Evidence From Roll Call Votes, Gabriel Chin, Doug Spencer
Did Multicultural America Result From A Mistake? The 1965 Immigration Act And Evidence From Roll Call Votes, Gabriel Chin, Doug Spencer
Douglas M. Spencer
Between July 1964 and October 1965, Congress enacted the three most important civil rights laws since Reconstruction: The Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1965. As we approach the 50th anniversary of these laws, it is clear that all three have fundamentally remade the United States; education, employment, housing, politics, and the population itself have irreversibly changed.
Arguably the least celebrated yet most consequential of these laws was the 1965 Immigration Act, which set the United States on the path to become a “majority minority” nation. In …
Legislating Incentives For Attorney Representation In Civil Rights Litigation, Sean Farhang, Douglas M. Spencer
Legislating Incentives For Attorney Representation In Civil Rights Litigation, Sean Farhang, Douglas M. Spencer
Douglas M. Spencer
In this paper we investigate whether, when Congress relies upon private lawsuits to implement a law, the details of the legislation can importantly influence the extent to which the private bar is mobilized to carry out the prosecutorial function. We ask: In statutes with private rights of action, can Congress substantially affect the degree to which plaintiffs are represented by counsel? Using an original and novel dataset based upon review of archived litigation documents for cases filed in the Northern and Eastern Districts of California over the two decades spanning 1981 to 2000, we examine the effects of the Civil …