Law Commons^™

To Protect The Right To Vote, Look To State Courts And State Constitutions, Joshua A. Douglas

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This Issue Brief details the scope of voting rights under state constitutions, an overlooked source of the right to vote. Part I considers both the lack of a federal constitutional right to vote and the explicit right mentioned in virtually all state constitutions. Part II describes recent state-level voter ID cases, providing a summary of how courts facing litigation over voter ID laws have employed their state constitutions. Part III contends that state courts, instead of simply following narrow federal jurisprudence in “lockstep,” should give broader, independent force to their explicit state constitutional provisions conferring the right to vote. Part …

Brief Of Amici Curiae Professors Joshua A. Douglas And Michael E. Solimine, Election Law Scholars, In Support Of Petitioners, Joshua A. Douglas, Michael E. Solimine

Law Faculty Advocacy

Professor Joshua A. Douglas and Professor Michael E. Solimine are election law experts who have a particular interest in the procedural aspects of election litigation. Professors Douglas and Solimine are filing this brief because they have a keen interest in ensuring that the federal courts employ the proper procedure in election law cases, as doing so helps to resolve these disputes in a manner that best comports with the unique aspects of the electoral system. This brief explains why district courts should not use the pleading standard from Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007) and Ashcroft …

Mapping The Treasure State: What States Can Learn From Redistricting In Montana, Caitlin Boland Aarab, The Honorable Jim Regnier

Montana Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Price Of Corruption, Usha Rodrigues

Scholarly Works

The Supreme Court recently held that campaign contributions under $5200 do not create a “cognizable risk of corruption.” It was wrong. This Essay describes a nexus of timely contributions and special-interest legislation. In the most noteworthy case, a CEO made a first-time $1000 donation to a member of Congress. The next day that representative introduced a securities bill tailored to the interests of the CEO’s firm.

Armed with this real-world account of how small-dollar campaign contributions coincided with favorable legislative action, the Essay reads McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission with a critical eye. In McCutcheon the Supreme Court assumed that …

Electoral Silver Linings After Shelby, Citizens United And Bennett, Ciara Torres-Spelliscy

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Reforms In Florida After The 2000 Presidential Election, Jon L. Mills

Jon L. Mills

Much has been written concerning the Florida recount, and the final U.S. Supreme Court decision in Bush v. Gore. Moreover, the popular media has mostly focused on the negatives of the Florida recount without delving into the exact reasons why Florida became the epicenter of this controversy. Not much has been written pinpointing the actual circumstances precipitating Florida's position after the election, nor discussing the theoretical underpinning of Florida election law, which embraces a broad liberal concept of respecting the “will of the voter.” By examining both the actual circumstances surrounding Florida in 2000 and recognizing that Florida election jurisprudence …

Election Law—Introduction, Jessica A. Levinson

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Legal Quagmire Of Irc § 501(C)(4) Organizations And The Consequential Rise Of Dark Money In Elections, Daniel C. Kirby

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Section 501(c)(4) organizations have recently become a hot topic with respect to campaign finance. Following the 2010 Supreme Court case, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the number of IRC § 501(c)(4) organizations ballooned in number, and the amount of money flowing through § 501(c)(4) groups increased 2390 percent from the 2008 election cycle to the 2012 election cycle. This essay explores the dangers to the campaign finance system of the substantial increase in spending by IRC § 501(c)(4) organizations. The foundational claim of this essay is that IRC § 501(c) is in need of a statutory and regulatory overhaul …

Youth Voting Rights Project 2015, Rachel J. Anderson

Voter Education Program Collection

The Youth Voting Rights Project educates students about voting rights and Nevada law and brings them onto the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, campus.

The Intratextual Independent "Legislature" And The Elections Clause, Michael T. Morley

Scholarly Publications

Many states have delegated substantial authority to regulate federal elections to entities other than their institutional legislatures, such as independent redistricting commissions empowered to determine the boundaries of congressional districts. Article I’s Elections Clause and Article II’s Presidential Electors Clause, however, confer authority to regulate federal elections specifically upon State “legislatures,” rather than granting it to States as a whole. An intratextual analysis of the Constitution reveals that the term “legislature” is best understood as referring solely to the entity within each state comprised of representatives that has the general authority to pass laws. Thus, state constitutional provisions or laws …

Remedial Equilibration And The Right To Vote Under Section 2 Of The Fourteenth Amendment, Michael T. Morley

Scholarly Publications

The modern "voting wars" involve repeated legal challenges alleging that procedures aimed at protecting the electoral process, such as proof-of-citizenship requirements for registration and voter identification laws, violate the fundamental constitutional right to vote. In adjudicating such cases, courts make effectively subjective judgments about whether the challenged statutes or regulations make voting too burdensome.

Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment offers critical, and previously overlooked, insight into the scope of the right to vote. It imposes a uniquely severe penalty-reduction in representation in the House of Representatives and Electoral College-when that right is violated or abridged. 'remedial deterrence," a crucial …

Toward A Fundamental Right To Evade Law? Protecting The Rule Of Unequal Racial And Economic Power In Shelby County And State Farm, Martha T. Mccluskey

Journal Articles

To rationalize its ruling on voting rights, Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder develops a constitutional vision of passivity in the face of institutionalized power to violate the law. This essay compares Shelby County to State Farm Mutual Automobile v. Campbell, a 2003 Supreme Court ruling involving a different subject area, state punitive damage awards. In both, the Court asserts newly articulated judicial power to override other branches, not to protect human rights, but rather to expand institutionalized immunity from those rights. On the surface, the Court’s rejection of state sovereignty in State Farm (protecting multistate corporations from high punitive damages) …

Dark Money In Motion: Mapping Issues Along The Money Trail, Frances R. Hill

Articles

No abstract provided.

Race, Federalism, And Voting Rights, Guy-Uriel E. Charles, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer

Faculty Scholarship

In Shelby County v. Holder, the Court struck down an important provision of the Voting Rights Act, section 4, on federalism grounds. The Court argued that Congress no longer had the power to enact section 4 because of the “federalism costs” imposed by the Act and because the Act violated "basic principles" of federalism. Unfortunately, the Court failed to articulate the costs to federalism imposed by the Act, much less conduct a cost-benefit analysis in order to determine whether the benefits of the Act outweighed its costs. Moreover, the Court failed to discuss whether the Reconstruction Amendments ought to matter …

Reynolds Reconsidered, Guy-Uriel E. Charles, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Price Of Corruption, Usha Rodrigues

Scholarly Works

The Supreme Court recently held that campaign contributions under $5200 do not create a “cognizable risk of corruption.” It was wrong. This Essay describes a nexus of timely contributions and special-interest legislation. In the most noteworthy case, a CEO made a first-time $1000 donation to a member of Congress. The next day that representative introduced a securities bill tailored to the interests of the CEO’s firm.

Armed with this real-world account of how small-dollar campaign contributions coincided with favorable legislative action, the Essay reads McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission with a critical eye. In McCutcheon the Supreme Court assumed that …

(Mis)Trusting States To Run Election, Joshua A. Douglas

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This Article critically examines recent Supreme Court election law jurisprudence, with a particular eye toward cases involving state election administration—a hotbed of litigation at the Court in recent years. Election administration entails the rules of operating an election and encompasses laws such as voter identification requirements, regulation of primaries, and other "nuts-and-bolts" aspects of the voting process. The Article focuses primarily on the last decade, mainly because that is when states have increasingly enacted stricter election regulations, supposedly in the name of "election integrity," but more likely to gain partisan advantage for the ruling party. In addition, during the first …