Law Commons^™

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

UF Law Faculty Publications

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 …

Section 3: Legacy Of Bush V. Gore, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.

Prosecuting Conduit Campaign Contributions - Hard Time For Soft Money, Robert D. Probasco

Faculty Scholarship

In recent years, there have been several high-profile prosecutions for violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act, involving contributions nominally by one individual but funded or reimbursed by another individual deemed to be the true contributor. Prosecutions of these “conduit contribution” cases have been surprising in at least three significant respects. First, the prosecutions have been based on violations of FECA’s reporting requirements and may not have involved any violations of the substantive prohibitions or limitations of contributions. Second, the defendants were the donors rather than campaign officials who actually filed reports with FECA. Third, the cases were prosecuted as …

Professionalism, Oversight, And Institution-Balancing: The Supreme Court's "Second Best" Plan For Political Debate On Television, Lili Levi

Articles

Televised political debates have become a staple of modern elections. Proponents of open access to such debates argue that third party participation is a democratic necessity. They see as catastrophic the Supreme Court's decision in Arkansas Educational Television Commission v. Forbes, in which a state broadcaster was given the discretion to exclude a minor party candidate from a televised debate so long as the decision was viewpoint-neutral. This Article reads the Court's decision as a functional, "second best" solution that seeks to mediate the expressive and democratic values implicated in both open and closed access models. More generally, the …

The Search For Incontrovertible Visual Evidence, Paul F. Campos

Publications

No abstract provided.

How Democratic Are Initiatives?, Richard B. Collins

Publications

No abstract provided.

Challenges To Racial Redistricting In The New Millennium: Hunt V. Cromartie As A Case Study, Guy-Uriel Charles, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Electoral College, The Right To Vote, And Our Federalism: A Comment On A Lasting Institution, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer, Guy-Uriel Charles

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Trying To Make Peace With Bush V. Gore (Symposium: Bush V. Gore Issue 2001), Richard D. Friedman

Articles

The Supreme Court's decision in Bush v. Gore, shutting down the recounts of Florida's vote in the 2000 presidential election and effectively awarding the election to George W. Bush, has struck many observers, including myself, as outrageous.' Decisions of the Supreme Court should be more than mere reflections of ideological or partisan preference thinly camouflaged behind legalistic language. It would therefore be pleasant to be able to believe that they are more than that. Accordingly, Judge Richard Posner's analysis,2 in which he defends the result reached by the Court-though not the path by which it got there-is particularly welcome. Though …

Election Disputes And The Constitutional Right To Vote, Joseph W. Little

UF Law Faculty Publications

This commentary is an enlargement of a talk delivered at the annual conference of the Socio-Legal Studies Association (United Kingdom) held in Bristol, England, in April 2001. The purpose was to raise questions about where the "right-to-vote" comes from in the Florida and U.S. Constitutions and whether the constitutional right-to-vote possesses useful legal force in the judicial resolution of a closely-contested election. The Gore-Bush Florida election controversy was the stimulus.

Among the subsidiary questions are: What should a written constitution for a democratic government say about the right to vote? And, how, if at all, should constitutional litigation play a …

Voluntary Campaign Finance Reform, John C. Nagle

Journal Articles

Any effort to achieve voluntary campaign finance reform raises two questions: Is it really voluntary, and does it really work? In Part I of this Essay, I examine the voluntariness of "voluntary" campaign finance reform. Agreements like that reached by Clinton and Lazio last year—what I term "purely voluntary agreements"—satisfy most legal tests for voluntariness. By contrast, the voluntariness of spending limits and other campaign restrictions that are imposed as a condition for receiving government funding of a political campaign—what I term "governmentally induced agreements"—is more doubtful. The extant jurisprudence recognizes that Buckley prohibits governmental actions that are more coercive …

Federalism, Preclearance, And The Rehnquist Court, Ellen D. Katz

Articles

Lopez v. Monterey County is an odd decision. Justice O'Connor's majority opinion easily upholds the constitutionality of a broad construction of section 5 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) in language reminiscent of the Warren Court. Acknowledging the "substantial 'federalism costs" resulting from the VRA's "federal intrusion into sensitive areas of state and local policymaking," Lopez recognizes that the Reconstruction Amendments "contemplate" this encroachment into realms "traditionally reserved to the States." Justice O'Connor affirms as constitutionally permissible the infringement that the section 5 preclearance process "by its nature" effects on state sovereignty, and applies section 5 broadly, holding the statute …

'Bush' V. 'Gore': What Was The Supreme Court Thinking?, Richard D. Friedman

Articles

One of the most astonishing episodes in American political history ended last month with perhaps the most imperial decision ever by the United States Supreme Court. In one stroke, the Court exercised power that belonged to Congress, the legislature of Florida, Florida's courts and administrators, and, most importantly, the people of the state.