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Ranked-Choice Voting As Reprieve From The Court-Ordered Map, Benjamin P. Lempert Jun 2021

Ranked-Choice Voting As Reprieve From The Court-Ordered Map, Benjamin P. Lempert

Michigan Law Review

Thus far, legal debates about the rise of ranked-choice voting have centered on whether legislatures can lawfully adopt the practice. This Note turns attention to the courts and the question of remedies. It proposes that courts impose ranked-choice voting as a redistricting remedy. Ranked-choice voting allows courts to cure redistricting violations without also requiring that they draw copious numbers of districts, a process the Supreme Court has described as a “political thicket.” By keeping courts away from the fact-specific, often arbitrary judgments involved in redistricting, ranked-choice voting makes for the redistricting remedy that best protects the integrity of the judicial …


Paths Of Resistance To Our Imperial First Amendment, Bertrall L. Ross Ii Apr 2015

Paths Of Resistance To Our Imperial First Amendment, Bertrall L. Ross Ii

Michigan Law Review

In the campaign finance realm, we are in the age of the imperial First Amendment. Over the past nine years, litigants bringing First Amendment claims against campaign finance regulations have prevailed in every case in the Supreme Court. A conservative core of five justices has developed virtually categorical protections for campaign speech and has continued to expand those protections into domains that states once had the authority to regulate. As the First Amendment’s empire expands, other values give way. Four key cases from this era illustrate the reach of this imperial First Amendment. In Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc. v. …


Defining Corruption And Constitutionalizing Democracy, Deborah Hellman Jun 2013

Defining Corruption And Constitutionalizing Democracy, Deborah Hellman

Michigan Law Review

The central front in the battle over campaign finance laws is the definition of corruption. The Supreme Court has allowed restrictions on the giving and spending of money in connection with elections only when they serve to avoid corruption or the appearance of corruption. The constitutionality of such laws, therefore, depends on how the Court defines corruption. Over the years, campaign finance cases have conceived of corruption in both broad and narrow terms, with the most recent cases defining it especially narrowly. While supporters and critics of campaign finance laws have argued for and against these different formulations, both sides …


Conditions On Taking The Initiative: The First Amendment Implications Of Subject Matter Restrictions On Ballot Initiatives, Anna Skiba-Crafts May 2009

Conditions On Taking The Initiative: The First Amendment Implications Of Subject Matter Restrictions On Ballot Initiatives, Anna Skiba-Crafts

Michigan Law Review

Nearly half of U.S. states offer a ballot initiative process that citizens may use to pass legislation or constitutional amendments by a popular vote. Some states, however, impose substantive restrictions on the types of initiatives citizens may submit to the ballot for a vote-precluding, for example, initiatives lowering drug penalties or initiatives related to religion. Circuit courts are split on whether and how such restrictions implicate the First Amendment. This Note argues that-rather than limiting "expressive conduct" protected only minimally by the First Amendment, or limiting pure conduct that does not garner any First Amendment protectionsubject matter restrictions on ballot …


Causation Or Correlation? The Impact Of Lulac V. Clements On Section 2 Lawsuits In The Fifth Circuit, Elizabeth M. Ryan Feb 2009

Causation Or Correlation? The Impact Of Lulac V. Clements On Section 2 Lawsuits In The Fifth Circuit, Elizabeth M. Ryan

Michigan Law Review

Under section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, illegal vote dilution exists when an electoral standard, practice, or procedure results in a denial or abridgement of the right to vote on account of race or color Plaintiffs demonstrate vote dilution by introducing evidence regarding a variety of objective factors, including whether voting in the jurisdiction in question is polarized along racial lines. In 1993, the Fifth Circuit adopted a new standard for section 2 plaintiffs trying to prove racially polarized voting. The Fifth Circuit held that demonstrating a mere correlation between race and vote was insufficient to establish racially polarized …


Reinforcing Representation: Congressional Power To Enforce The Fourteenth And Fifteenth Amendments In The Rehnquist And Waite Courts, Ellen D. Katz Jun 2003

Reinforcing Representation: Congressional Power To Enforce The Fourteenth And Fifteenth Amendments In The Rehnquist And Waite Courts, Ellen D. Katz

Michigan Law Review

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 …


The Unwelcome Judicial Obligation To Respect Politics In Racial Gerrymandering Remedies, Jeffrey L. Fisher Mar 1997

The Unwelcome Judicial Obligation To Respect Politics In Racial Gerrymandering Remedies, Jeffrey L. Fisher

Michigan Law Review

Like it or not, the attack on "bizarrely" shaped majority-minority electoral districts is now firmly underway. Nearly four years have passed since the Supreme Court first announced in Shaw v. Reno that a state's redistricting plan that is "so extremely irregular on its face that it rationally can be viewed only as an effort to segregate the races for purposes of voting" may violate the Equal Protection Clause. Such a district, the Court held, reinforces racial stereotypes, carries us further from the goal of a political system in which race no longer matters, and "threatens to undermine our system of …


Constitutional Law-Elections-Jurisdiction Of State Courts To Entertain Actions Arising Out Of Congressional Elections, C. Douglas Kranwinkle Mar 1964

Constitutional Law-Elections-Jurisdiction Of State Courts To Entertain Actions Arising Out Of Congressional Elections, C. Douglas Kranwinkle

Michigan Law Review

Relator was the losing candidate in an election for the office of Representative to the United States Congress. He commenced proceedings in the House, pursuant to statute, contesting the seating of his opponent, and petitioned the Minnesota Supreme Court to enjoin and restrain the Minnesota Secretary of State from issuing a certificate of election until the contest was finally determined. Relator based his petition on a Minnesota statute which provides that the Secretary of State may not issue a certificate of election in case of a contest until it has been determined by the proper court. A temporary injunction and …


Legislative Apportionment And Representative Government: The Meaning Of Baker V. Carr, Jo Desha Lucas Feb 1963

Legislative Apportionment And Representative Government: The Meaning Of Baker V. Carr, Jo Desha Lucas

Michigan Law Review

In three recent cases the Supreme Court has reopened the question of the extent to which federal courts will review the general fairness of state schemes of legislative apportionment. It is a question on which the Court has had nothing to say for over a decade, leaving the bar to patch together the current state of the law from the outcome of cases disposed of without opinion considered against a backdrop of language used in earlier decisions.


Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review Nov 1911

Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Adverse Possession--Actual Possession--Occupation of Part; Banks and Banking--Payment of Deposits on Forged Checks--Liability--Affirmative Defense; Banks and Banking--Payment of Check--Forged Indorsements; Cancellation of Instrument for Want of Consideration--Stauts Quo; Charities--Charitable Gift--Validity; Commerce--Interstate Commerce--Continuous Shipment--Violation of Elkins Act; Constitutional Law--Power of Judicial Department--Infringement on Executive; Conversion--Return of Goods as Defense; Conveyancing--Grantee's Name Left Blank; Courts--State Courts--Jurisdiction over National Banks; Criminal Law--Harmless Error in Admission of Evidence; Equity--Subrogation of Mortgagor to Rights of Mortgagee; Evidence--Admissibility of Statements in Corroboration of Testimony of Discredited Witness; Evidence--Other Offenses as Evidence of Offense Charged; Fixtures--Between Vendor of Chattel and Mortgagee of Land; Husband and Wife--Action Against …


Recent Important Decisions, Michigal Law Review Feb 1910

Recent Important Decisions, Michigal Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Appeal and Error--Attorney's Interest in Case on Appeal--Contingent Fee; Bankruptcy--discharge--subsequent Action for Fraud; Bills and Notes--Usury No Defense Against a bona Fide Holder--Construction of Negotiable Instruments Statute; Boundaries--Street, Terminus A Quo; Carriers--Hepbern Act--State and Federal Courts--Phrase "Caused by It"; Chattel Mortgages--Payment without Notice of Assignment--Construction of a Mortgage Provision; Constitutional Law--Equal Protection of Laws--Statute Requiring Screens on Cars Operated by Corporations; Constitutional Law--Equal Protection of the Laws--Class Legislation; Contracts--No Recovery Under an Entire Illegal Contract; Contracts--Validity of Contract in Contemplation of Divorce; Courts--Federal Courts--authority of Decision of State Courts--"Telegraph"; Covenants--Breach of that Against Incumbrances; Elections--Ballots--Indication of Choice by Voter; Evidence--Facts …


Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review May 1905

Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Bailments--Care Required of Agistor--Special Contracts; Bankruptcy--Trading Corporations--Hotels; Common Carriers--discrimination--Exclusive Depot Privileges; Conditional Sales--Street Railway Equipment--Rights of Vendor; Constitutional Law--Class Legislation--Equal Protection of the Amendment of the Federal Constitution and the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights; Constitutional Law--Interference with Civil rights--Power of Congress to Enforce the Fourteenth Amendment; Contempt of Court--Fraudulent Claims; Contract--Assignment; Contract to Indemnify Against negligence--Statutory Prohibition--Public Policy; Corporations--Sale of corporate Property to Directors--Validity; Damages--Remote; Deeds--Duress--Grantor in Possession; Deeds--Restriction Against Building Tenement House--Deeds--Standing Timber--Construction; Equity--Possession of Personal Property; Evidence--Hypothetical Question; Execution--Exemptions--Life Insurance; Fixtures--Mortgage--Distruction of Property; Foreign Corporations--Service of Summons of Officer of; Highway--Rights of Abutting Owner; Husband and Wife--Contracts--Effects of …


Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review Feb 1904

Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Administrators--Right to Convey Inchoate Homestead; Agency--Scope of Authority--Sunday Contract; Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors--Action to set Aside; Bankruptcy--Discharge--Debt Created in Fiduciary Relation--Laundry Agent; Bills and Notes--Banks--Payment of Draft to Impost--Liability to Drawer; Chattel Mortgages-Validity--Mortgagor's Possession and Power of Sale in Ordinary Course of Business; Constitutional Law--Due Process at Law--Forfeiture of Lands for Failure to Pay Taxes; Constitutional Law--Local Option Law--Use of Liquors in Religious Worship--Discrimination; Contract for the Benefit of Third Persons--Enforcement by Beneficiary--Assignment; Corporations--Oral Subscription to Stock--Statute of Frauds; Corporations--Promissory Notes--Proof of Execution; Courts--Jurisdiction of State Court to Enjoin a Receiver Appointed by Federal Court; Damages--Automobiles--Frightening Horses--Excessive Speed; …