Law Commons^™

Race And The California Recall Election: A Top Ten List Of Ironies, Sylvia R. Lazos, Keith Aoki, Steven Bender

Scholarly Works

Arnold Schwarzenegger's election as governor of California in the 2003 recall campaign is rife with cruel ironies. An immigrant himself, he beat the grandson of Mexican immigrants, Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante, by playing the race card, and managed to dodge allegations of his praise for Hitler as a strong leader. While the pundits say that the California recall was about angry voters lashing back at faithless, self-dealing politicians, more lurks beneath the surface. In California, racial and ethnic minorities now comprise a majority of the population, and the recall election brought barely concealed and seething schisms to the surface. Californians, …

The Most Rational Branch: Guinn V. Legislature And The Judiciary's Role As Helpful Arbiter Of Conflict, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

When the Nevada Supreme Court decided Guinn v. Legislature, one would have thought from reading the popular press accounts that the court had forcibly displaced the State legislature by means of a violent coup d'etat. Newspaper accounts of the decision referred to it as a usurpation of power in violation of clear constitutional language, belittling the court in language sometimes more appropriate to the baseball bleachers than to serious editorial commentary. Following suit, politicized elements of the citizenry began a recall effort (seemingly unsuccessful as of this writing) directed at the court as well as joining the chorus of criticisms. …

Malignant Democracy: Core Fallacies Underlying Election Of The Judiciary, Jeffrey W. Stempel

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There is no requirement of democratic theory that mandates that all public offices be filled by election. This is particularly true in modern democratic states, which are simply too large to justify the administrative burden of electing everyone who has significant responsibilities in our society.

Examples of this are everywhere in modern democracies, such as the United States and Europe. In England, for example, the Prime Minister is not directly elected by the people. Does this mean Great Britain has ceased to be a democracy? In most large, sophisticated nation-states, national cabinet officers have great power but are the political …

Reverse Political Checkoff Per Se Illegal As Violation Of Federal Election Campaign Act, Jay S. Bybee

Scholarly Works

This casenote summarizes the district court for the District of Columbia’s decision in Federal Election Commission v. National Education Association.