Law Commons^™

Election Law And Election Subversion, Lisa Marshall Manheim

Articles

Scholars of American election law used to take the rule of law as a given. The legal system, while highly imperfect, appeared sturdy, steady, and functional. Recent election cycles—culminating in dramatic attempts at election subversion—have revealed this assumption beginning to break down. Without the rule of law as a dependable constant, the study of election law quickly expands. Legal experts now are simultaneously occupied with: first, the substance of election laws; second, the design of election institutions; and third, the threat of participants unlawfully undermining elections from within. This Essay identifies and contextualizes the rule-of-law pivot that is reflected in …

Presidential Control Of Elections, Lisa Marshall Manheim

Articles

An election that is “disputed” lacks two qualities after Election Day: a clear winner and a concession. These elections instead depend on legal processes — recounts, court proceedings, and more — for resolution. As a result, when a sitting President, running for reelection, becomes immersed in a disputed presidential election, he potentially enjoys an advantage over his opponent. He can attempt to exploit the powers of the presidency to push these legal proceedings in his favor. As a practical matter, this advantage can be formidable. A sitting president can resort to his extraordinary bully pulpit, for example, to influence public …

Presidential Control Over Disputed Elections, Lisa Marshall Manheim

Articles

An election that is “disputed” lacks two qualities after Election Day: a clear winner and a concession. These elections instead depend on legal processes — recounts, court proceedings, and more — for resolution. As a result, when a sitting President, running for reelection, becomes immersed in a disputed presidential election, he potentially enjoys an advantage over his opponent. He can attempt to exploit the powers of the presidency to push these legal proceedings in his favor. As a practical matter, this advantage can be formidable. A sitting president can resort to his extraordinary bully pulpit, for example, to influence public …

Cracks In The Foundation, Lisa Marshall Manheim

Articles

This essay is part of a symposium on Richard L. Hasen’s book, Election Meltdown: Dirty Tricks, Distrust, and the Threat to American Democracy (2020). It discusses how intentional voter suppression runs contrary to a universalist conception of voting and exacerbates the other major threats facing American elections.

Amending Codes Of Judicial Conduct To Impose Campaign Contribution And Expenditure Limits On Judicial Campaigns, Hugh D. Spitzer, Philip A. Talmadge

Articles

Every judicial campaign year, millions of dollars pour into individual court races around the country. The bulk of that money is donated by lawyers, businesses, and others with financial interests in how judges, especially appellate judges, decide cases. United States Supreme Court rulings on political contributions and spending have hamstrung the ability of states to control larges-cale expenditures in judicial races. This essay reviews empirical research by political scientists who have documented the effect of large campaign donations on how judges decide cases and on the public's perception of court impartiality. It describes how legislatures and courts have addressed (or …

Judging Congressional Elections, Lisa Marshall Manheim

Articles

This Article reveals what passes as federal constitutional law in this area: a chaotic set of ad hoc, state-based interpretations that vary drastically by jurisdiction. Some states, for example, have interpreted Article I, Section 5 to permit courts to adjudicate congressional election contests. Others have concluded the opposite. Through such conflicting interpretations, state courts have contributed to a deep, intractable split on the provision's meaning and reach.

State legislatures have compounded the discord by enacting statutes that codify their interpretations, a move that renders their constitutional determinations practically unreviewable. Meanwhile, both Houses of Congress continue to adjudicate these congressional election …

Electoral Evidence, Peter Nicolas

Articles

Each year, millions of Americans cast votes for specific candidates or on specific ballot measures. Each such vote generates potential "electoral evidence," the admissibility of which may be the subject of dispute in subsequent litigation. The evidence may take various forms, including the marked ballot itself, a voter's testimony regarding her vote, or her written or oral statements regarding her vote.

Electoral evidence is most commonly offered in litigation over the election outcome itself, with the parties seeking to determine how certain individuals voted to resolve a close election. However, its potential relevance is not limited to such proceedings. It …

The Nudging Ballot? A Response To Professor Foley, Lisa Marshall Manheim

Articles

In a response to Professor Edward Foley's The Speaking Ballot: A New Way to Foster Equality of Campaign Discourse [89 N.Y.U. L. Rev. Online 52 (2014)], Professor Manheim notes that "the speaking ballot may, in fact, affect elections, that influence may be due less to a flourishing of informed and reasoned debate and more to the exploitation of subtle forms of voter manipulation." She raises questions about the decisions faced by election officials on candidate photographs and videos and timing of updated videos. She concludes: "In short, Professor Foley, through his call for the facilitation, rather than the limitation, of …

Redistricting Litigation And The Delegation Of Democratic Design, Lisa Marshall Manheim

Articles

This Article seeks to reveal how the practice of litigating as redistricting, which has evolved into a form of litigation highly susceptible to procedural manipulation, has created a type of redistricting that grants profound power to those who choose to litigate. In so doing, this Article rejects any understanding of the redistricting process that understands the influence of litigants to be somehow negated or neutralized by the involvement of courts. It recognizes, moreover, that many of the defining features of redistricting litigation–which are, in certain respects, analogous to those characterizing other problematic forms of litigation–nevertheless reflect some of the most …

Ignore The Rumors—Campaigning From The Pulpit Is Okay: Thinking Past The Symbolism Of Section 501(C)(3), Michael Hatfield

Articles

This Article is enough to ruin many Thanksgiving family dinners. It is about American religion, politics, and taxes. Mostly it is about taxes. As I will explain, this is what sets it apart from the contemporary legal scholarship exploring the campaign restrictions on tax exempt churches. This Introduction identifies the problem addressed in the article, then introduces the contemporary legal scholarship and the alternative approach this article takes.

Part I of this Article introduces the reader to the legal context of "the problem" of churches being unable to campaign if they choose to be Tax Exempt under Section 501 (c) …

Race And Place: Geographic And Transcendent Community In The Post-Shaw Era, Lisa A. Kelly

Articles

Race and Place is a narrative article, both fictional and true, dedicated to exploring the dual realities of a geographic and transcendent community in the context of the Supreme Court's recent decisions in Shaw v. Reno and Miller v. Johnson. The Court has allowed and affirmed constitutional challenges to districts drawn to empower African-Americans "with nothing in common but the color of their skin." The Article draws upon history, literature, political science, and law to critique the Court's assumptions concerning the challenged districts and to demonstrate the existence of African-American communities of interest which are both geographically bounded by …

A Model Bill On The Reporting Of Campaign Contributions And Expenditures, William H. Rodgers, Jr.

Articles

Public demand for strict and effective accountability of public officials engaged in political election campaigns has increased dramatically in recent times. Development of concrete measures to implement the objective, however, has been less quick to materialize. In this article, Professor Rodgers proposes model state legislation to require reporting of campaign contributions and expenditures by most political candidates and committees. The controlling principle of the proposed legislation is total disclosure of all aspects of political campaign financing. The Model Bill contains an effective procedure for administration and enforcement of its provisions.