Law Commons^™

"Gouging The Government": Why A Federal Contingency Fee Lobbying Prohibition Is Consistent With First Amendment Freedoms, Meredith A. Capps

Vanderbilt Law Review

Washington Post writer David Segal once observed, "[f]or most Americans the words 'Washington lobbyist' have roughly the same cachet as, say, 'deadbeat dad."" Both lawmakers and the public regard lobbying as an unsavory part of the political process. Much of this perception stems from the vast sums of money spent each year on lobbying activity. For example, in the first half of 2004 alone, mortgage funding companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac reported spending over $11 million on lobbying activities, General Electric spent $8.5 million, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce spent $20.1 million-and these were only three of the …

The Needle And The Damage Done: The Pervasive Presence Of Obsolete Mass Media Audience Models In First Amendment Doctrine, Mehmet Konar-Steenberg

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Do audiences need the government's protection from mass media? Or are they capable of choosing media and protecting themselves? For decades, judicial opinion on this issue developed in the form of judicial notice, speculation, and assumption. Yet during that time, a rich social science discipline was emerging that could have helped to address these issues based on empirical research about mass media effects and audiences. Given the renewed importance of this issue, it is time to bridge the gap between the law of mass media content regulation and the social science research into mass media consumption.

To that end, this …

The "Privilege Of Speech" In A "Pleasantly Authoritarian Country", Hans C. Clausen

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Giving credence to Alexis de Tocqueville's argument that in democratic societies the love of equality is greater than the love of freedom is a recently emerging trend among Western nations to legally proscribe speech critical of homosexuality. Such laws, in various forms, now exist in a large and growing minority of countries in Europe and North America. The goal of these laws is much grander than preventing discrimination against homosexuals; rather, the objective is seemingly to promote the social acceptance of gay and lesbian lifestyles. These laws provide for civil remedies and in some instances even criminal sanctions for speech …

Unincorporated, Unprotected: Religion In An Established State, Kathryn E. Komp

Vanderbilt Law Review

In the summer of 2004, the group American Veterans Standing for God and Country ("American Veterans") began a cross-country pilgrimage to carry a 5,200-pound statue of the Ten Commandments to Washington D.C. The infamous statue cost Roy Moore his job as Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court when he refused to remove it from the lobby of the state courthouse in 2002. American Veterans took up Moore's cause, however, and in October they brought the Commandments statue to a Christian rally in Washington, D.C. The group then planned to ask Congress to display the statue permanently in the Capitol …