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How Do Corporations Play Politics?: The Fedex Story, Jill E. Fisch
How Do Corporations Play Politics?: The Fedex Story, Jill E. Fisch
Vanderbilt Law Review
Corporate political activity has been the subject of federal regulation since 1907, and the restrictions on corporate campaign contributions and other political expenditures continue to increase. Most recently, Congress banned soft money donations in the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 ("BCRA"), a ban upheld by the Supreme Court in McConnell v. FEC. Significantly, although the omnibus BCRA clearly was not directed exclusively at corporations, the Supreme Court began its lengthy opinion in McConnell by referencing and endorsing the efforts of Elihu Root, more than a century ago, to prohibit corporate political contributions. Repeatedly, within the broad context of campaign …
Moving Public Law Out Of The Deference Trap In Regulated Industries, Jim Rossi
Moving Public Law Out Of The Deference Trap In Regulated Industries, Jim Rossi
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
This Article argues that public law has fallen into what I call a deference trap in addressing conflicts in deregulated industries, such as telecommunications and electric power. The deference trap describes a judicial reluctance to intervene in disputes involving political institutions, such as regulatory agencies and states. By reassessing the deference trap across the legal doctrines that are effecting emerging telecommunications and electric power markets, public law can deliver much more for deregulated markets. The deference trap poses a particular cost as markets are deregulated, one that may not have been present during previous regulatory eras in which public and …