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Articles 1 - 11 of 11
Full-Text Articles in Law
Election Administration As A Licensed Profession, Ganesh Sitaraman, Kevin M. Stack
Election Administration As A Licensed Profession, Ganesh Sitaraman, Kevin M. Stack
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
This Essay argues that election administrators should be subject to a professional licensing regime, much like licensing in medicine and law. Making election administration a licensed profession would not only expand requirements for training, but also enhance the professional identification of these officials, reinforcing norms of integrity and impartiality. By raising barriers to entry, licensing would make it more costly for partisans to obtain these offices. Licensing could also improve public confidence in the professionalism of election administration. Such a reform meets our moment. While many states have increased training requirements for election administrators, significant gaps remain. Moreover, existing reforms …
Judicial Retention Elections For State Appellate Judges: The Implications Of The Ballot-Access Cases, James Blumstein
Judicial Retention Elections For State Appellate Judges: The Implications Of The Ballot-Access Cases, James Blumstein
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
This Article considers methods by which state appellate court judges are selected. It focuses on the evolution of and rationale for the so-called merit-selection system, a hybrid approach that prevails in a substantial number of jurisdictions. Under merit selection, there is an initial gubernatorial appointment based on recommendations from a nominating committee and a retention election, which is limited to a single candidate and a single question: whether the initially appointed appellate judge should be retained so as to serve a new term. The retention election is a form of election that satisfies states’ requirements that judges be elected. But …
Putting The Constitution In Its Place, Edward L. Rubin
Putting The Constitution In Its Place, Edward L. Rubin
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
The fact that Donald Trump became President in 2016, despite losing the popular vote by a substantial margin, has brought renewed attention to the Electoral College system. In "Forging the American Nation," Shlomo Slonim provides an illuminating account of the process that led to this bizarre method of determining the outcome of presidential elections. But Professor Slonim's book also provides insights into the origins of many other structural features of our constitutional system that are of questionable value in a modern democracy, such as elections by state for the Senate, the Senate's exclusive exercise of legislative authority for treaties and …
Is Groton The Next "Evenwel"?, Paul H. Edelman
Is Groton The Next "Evenwel"?, Paul H. Edelman
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
In Evenwel v Abbott the Supreme Court left open the question of whether states could employ population measures other than total population as a basis for drawing representative districts so as to meet the requirement of ``one person- one vote'' (OPOV). It was thought that there was little prospect of resolving this question soon as no appropriate instances of such behavior was known. That belief was mistaken. In this note I report on the Town of Groton, Connecticut which uses registered voting data to apportion seats in its Representative Town Meeting, and has done so since its incorporation in 1957. …
The Ideological Consequences Of Selection: A Nationwide Study Of The Methods Of Selecting Judges, Brian T. Fitzpatrick
The Ideological Consequences Of Selection: A Nationwide Study Of The Methods Of Selecting Judges, Brian T. Fitzpatrick
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
One topic that has gone largely unexplored in the long debate over how best to select judges is whether there are any ideological consequences to employing one selection method versus another. The goal of this study is to assess whether certain methods of selection have resulted in judiciaries that skew to the left or right compared with the public at large in those states. In particular, I examine the ideological preferences of state appellate judges in all 50 states over a 20-year period (1990-2010) as measured by their relative affiliation with the Republican or Democratic Party through campaign contributions, voter …
Contracting Around "Citizens United", Ganesh Sitaraman
Contracting Around "Citizens United", Ganesh Sitaraman
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
The Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United v. FEC is widely considered a major roadblock for campaign finance reform, and particularly for limiting third party spending in federal elections. In response to the decision, commentators, scholars, and activists have outlined a wide range of legislative and regulatory proposals to limit the influence of third party spending, including constitutional amendments, public financing programs, and expanded disclosure rules. To date, however, they have not considered the possibility that third party spending can be restrained by a self-enforcing private contract between the opposing campaigns. This Essay argues that private ordering, rather than public …
Selectica Resets The Trigger On The Poison Pill: Where Should The Delaware Courts Go Next?, Paul H. Edelman, Randall S. Thomas
Selectica Resets The Trigger On The Poison Pill: Where Should The Delaware Courts Go Next?, Paul H. Edelman, Randall S. Thomas
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Since their invention in 1982, shareholder rights plans have been the subject of intense controversy. Rights plans, or as they are known more pejoratively “poison pills,” enable a target board to “poison” a takeover attempt by making it prohibitively expensive for a bidder to acquire more than a certain percentage of the target company’s stock (until recently 15-20%). Not surprisingly, some commentators view rights plans as an inappropriate means of shifting power from shareholders to the board of directors.
In this Article, we critically examine Delaware law on the use of shareholder rights plans and propose a new approach to …
Election As Appointment: The Tennessee Plan Reconsidered, Brian T. Fitzpatrick
Election As Appointment: The Tennessee Plan Reconsidered, Brian T. Fitzpatrick
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Tennessee's merit system for selecting judges - referred to as the Tennessee Plan - has been controversial ever since it was enacted in 1971 to replace contested elections. The greatest controversy has been whether the Plan is even constitutional. The Tennessee constitution states that all judges "shall be elected by the qualified voters" of the state. Yet, under the Tennessee Plan, the governor appoints all appellate judges, and those judges come before the voters only after a period of time on the bench and only in uncontested yes-no retention referenda. In 1977, the people of Tennessee were asked to amend …
Getting The Math Right, Paul H. Edelman
Getting The Math Right, Paul H. Edelman
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Over the last 40 years of one person, one vote jurisprudence, the Supreme Court has distilled a stable and predictable test for resolving the basic numerical issue in equal representation: how much population difference between districts is permissible? Yet there remains one area of representation into which the Court has refused to venture: apportionment of Congress. In its only opinion on the mechanics of the decennial of apportionment, the Court deferred to Congress. It deferred because, unlike districting, it could not find a single workable measure for apportionment. But the reason it could not find such a measure was that …
Pick A Number, Any Number: State Representation In Congress After The 2000 Census, Paul H. Edelman, Suzanna Sherry
Pick A Number, Any Number: State Representation In Congress After The 2000 Census, Paul H. Edelman, Suzanna Sherry
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
In this essay, Professors Edelman and Sherry explain the mathematics behind the allocation of congressional seats to each state, and survey the different methods of allocation that Congress has used over the years. Using 2000 census figures, they calculate each state's allocation under five different methods, and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the various methods.
From De Facto To Statutory Exemption: An Analysis Of The Evolution Of Legislative Policy Regarding The Federal Taxation Of Campaign Finance, Jeffrey Schoenblum
From De Facto To Statutory Exemption: An Analysis Of The Evolution Of Legislative Policy Regarding The Federal Taxation Of Campaign Finance, Jeffrey Schoenblum
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
This article first explores the development of the de facto system of tax exemption and identifies the tensions that led to its demise. The analysis then details the substitution of a statutory structure in place of the traditional informal arrangement and examines the potential present in that structure for substantial IRS interference in the political process.