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Full-Text Articles in Law
Constitutional Law--First Amendment--No Constitutional Right To Vote For Donald Duck: The Supreme Court Upholds The Constitutionality Of Write-In Voting Bans In Burdick V. Takushi, Jeanne M. Kaiser
Faculty Scholarship
This Note examines the Supreme Court decision in Burkick v. Takushi in detail and questions the Court's conclusion that the voters' interest in casting write-in votes is so slight that write-in bans are presumptively valid. The Note concludes that the Burdick decision is both inconsistent with the Court's previous ballot access jurisprudence, and restricts the electoral process at a time when voters are clamoring for more diverse choices in the voting booth. Section I of this Note briefly reviews a number of cases that considered the constitutionality of legislation governing candidate access to election ballots. The ballot access cases are …
Constitutional Identity, George P. Fletcher
Constitutional Identity, George P. Fletcher
Faculty Scholarship
The aim of this Article is to introduce and clarify a new way of thinking about decisions in close cases, particularly those that address basic issues of constitutional law. When constitutional language fails to offer an unequivocal directive for decision, the recourse of the judge is not always to look "outward" toward overarching principles of political morality. In an illuminating array of cases, the acceptable way to resolve the disputes and to explain the results is to turn "inward" and reflect upon the legal culture in which the dispute is embedded. The way to understand this subcategory of decisions is …