Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 3 of 3
Full-Text Articles in Law
Virtuous Judges And Electoral Politics: A Contradiction?, Marie Failinger
Virtuous Judges And Electoral Politics: A Contradiction?, Marie Failinger
Faculty Scholarship
Judge Thomas J. Spargo serves as a fascinating poster-child in the debate on what’s wrong (or right) with judicial elections. Judge Spargo, campaigning for re-election as Justice of the Berne Town Court in upstate New York, was accused of “failing to observe the high standards of conduct” expected as a judge because he handed out doughnuts to voters. Judge Spargo’s case and others illustrate that popular debates about the merits of judicial elections versus judicial selection commissions have probably been mis-focused on two “second-order questions rather than concentrating on “first-order” concerns in judicial selection. This article discusses these questions and …
The Appearance Of Election Law, John Nagle
The Appearance Of Election Law, John Nagle
Journal Articles
The recent attention to election law implies that questions of reapportionment, voting rights, campaign finance, and the counting of votes belong to the same category of legal questions. In each instance, the evolving Supreme Court jurisprudence emphasizes appearances. The appearance of legislative districts, the appearance of corruption, and the appearance of partisanship are just some of the distinct ways in which the Court has concluded that appearance matter. As with other appearances, what looks to some observers like a gerrymandered district or a corrupting contribution is seen by others as a legitimate apportionment or an innocent expression of political support. …
Taxing Political Donations: The Case For Corrective Taxes In Campaign Finance, David Gamage
Taxing Political Donations: The Case For Corrective Taxes In Campaign Finance, David Gamage
Articles by Maurer Faculty
Command-and-control regulations are generally thought to be inferior to incentive-based alternatives. This essay proposes an incentive-based approach for regulating campaign finance. In place of our current regime of contribution ceilings, the essay calls for a graduated system of contribution taxes. Rather than capping the size of political donations at a specified dollar level, we should tax donations based on a schedule of graduated rates - the larger the size of a contribution, the higher the level of taxation.
Contribution taxes generate two primary advantages over contribution ceilings. First, contribution taxes preserve more total surplus. This surplus can be shared by …