Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Citizen Engagement In The Shrinking City: Toward Development Justice In An Era Of Growing Inequality, Barbara L. Bezdek

Faculty Scholarship

What are the aims of the revitalization conducted by local officials: for which social goods? Good for whom? By what means can the city’s people understand and influence the tradeoffs made by their government in the redevelopment of city blocks already occupied by residents. This is more than a matter of development finance or physical redevelopment. It is a question of social justice, of whose reality counts in the legal process utilized to reach development decisions and approve significant public subsidy for the projects that are remaking American cities.

Sherry Arnstein, writing in 1969 about citizen involvement in planning processes …

Faqs On 501(C)(4) Social Welfare Organizations, Donald B. Tobin

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Direct (Anti-)Democracy, Maxwell L. Stearns

Faculty Scholarship

Legal scholars, economists, and political scientists are divided on whether voter initiatives and legislative referendums tend to produce outcomes that are more (or less) majoritarian, efficient, or solicitous of minority concerns than traditional legislation. Scholars also embrace opposing views on which law-making mechanism better promotes citizen engagement, registers preference intensities, encourages compromise, and prevents outcomes masking cycling voter preferences. Despite these disagreements, commentators generally assume that the voting mechanism itself renders plebiscites more democratic than legislative lawmaking. This assumption is mistaken.

Although it might seem unimaginable that a lawmaking process that directly engages voters possesses fundamentally antidemocratic features, this Article …

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 …

A Tale Told By A President, Mark A. Graber

Faculty Scholarship

Part I of this essay makes the case for symbolic politics. Presidents often have political reasons for subjecting courts to mere words. Part II makes the case for constitutional hardball.

An Introduction To Social Choice, Maxwell L. Stearns

Faculty Scholarship

Social choice studies the differing implications of the concept of rationality (or transitivity) for individuals versus groups under specified conditions and the significance of these differences in various institutional decision making contexts. This introductory chapter on social choice for the Elgar Handbook on Public Choice (Elgar Publishing Company, Dan Farber and Anne O’Connell, editors), introduces the basic framework of social choice, considers the implications of social choice for various legal and policy contexts, and provides a framework for evaluating a range of normative proposals grounded in social choice for reforming lawmaking institutions. After a brief introduction, part II introduces the …

Improving Declassification: A Report To The President From The Public Interest Declassification Board - A Review With Commentary, Bill Sleeman

Faculty Scholarship

This article examines the December 2008 report of the Public Interest Declassification Board (PIDB) with a particular focus on the impact of the recommendations for improving access to classified information and comparing the report to past efforts at reforming the declassification process.

Reclaiming Egalitarianism In The Political Theory Of Campaign Finance Reform, Frank Pasquale

Faculty Scholarship

Recent advocacy for campaign finance reform has been based on an ideal of the democratic process which is unrealistic and unhelpful. Scholars should instead return to its egalitarian roots. This article examines how deliberative democratic theory became the main justification for campaign finance reform. It exposes the shortcomings of this deliberativist detour and instead models campaign spending as an effort to commodify issue-salience. Given this dominant function of money in politics, a more effective paradigm for reform is equalizing influence. Advocates of campaign regulation should return to the original principles of reformers; not an idealized vision of the democratic process, …

Anonymous Speech And Section 527 Of The Internal Revenue Code, Donald B. Tobin

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Thick And Thin: Interdisciplinary Conversations On Populism, Law, Political Science, And Constitutional Change, Mark A. Graber

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.