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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Dialectical Regulation Of Rule 14a-8: Intersystemic Governance In Corporate Law, Robert B. Ahdieh
The Dialectical Regulation Of Rule 14a-8: Intersystemic Governance In Corporate Law, Robert B. Ahdieh
Faculty Scholarship
In recent years, Rule 14a-8 of the Securities Exchange Act - first adopted more than sixty years ago to increase shareholder participation in corporate governance - has been the subject of a flurry of litigation, scholarly analysis, and SEC rulemaking. Most recently, following several years of debate, the SEC issued a significant clarification of the rule, reversing the Second Circuit's hotly contested interpretation of it in AFSCME v. AIG. For the most part, the debates surrounding Rule 14a-8 - including in the latter case - have focused on the scope of the rule's exceptions. This paper, selected for reprinting in …
Testimony Before The U.S. House Of Representatives, Elections Subcommittee Of The House Administration Committee, Concerning The Importance Of Independent Post-Election Auditing And Reviewing Impediments To Election Auditing And Greater Transparency., Candice Hoke
Law Faculty Presentations and Testimony
Mandatory election audits are a critical step for restoring public confidence in the electoral system and for learning what problems exist (in equipment, systems, and personnel) so that they might be effectively corrected. Unfortunately, the promise of auditing will be severely undermined if the federal auditing entity lacks independence from the election administrative authority. Secretaries of State can play a number of crucial additional roles that will facilitate efficient and effective election audits, but because of the appearance of conflicts of interest should not be supervising and conducting federal audits. The federal audit effort will be greatly enhanced if the …
Oversight Hearing On The Election Assistance Commission, David A. Super
Oversight Hearing On The Election Assistance Commission, David A. Super
Congressional Testimony
No abstract provided.
Ensuring That Florida's Language Minorities Have Access To The Ballot, Jonel Newman
Ensuring That Florida's Language Minorities Have Access To The Ballot, Jonel Newman
Articles
No abstract provided.
The Importance Of The Secret Ballot In Law Faculty Personnel Decisions: Promoting Candor And Collegiality In The Academy, Ira Robbins
Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals
This article began as an exercise in self-education. At a recent faculty meeting, my colleagues were preparing to vote on a slate of candidates. Because discussion had become heated, a tenured faculty member moved for asecret ballot on the appointments committee's recommendation. The main argument in favor of the secret ballot was that, for the protection of untenured professors (who have equal votes with tenured professors on questionsof hiring new faculty), neither their senior colleagues nor the Dean should be permitted to know how they voted. The ensuing discussion on whether to hold a secret ballot was no less heated …
Taking Shareholder Rights Seriously, Julian Velasco
Taking Shareholder Rights Seriously, Julian Velasco
Journal Articles
The great corporate scandals of the recent past and the resulting push for legal reform have revived the role of the shareholder in the corporation as a subject of great debate. Those who favor an expanded role for shareholders in corporate governance tend to focus on developing new legal rights for shareholders, and their critics respond with reasons why such rights are unnecessary and inappropriate. While these issues certainly are worthy of consideration, issues concerning existing shareholder rights are more fundamental. If existing rights are adequate or could be improved, then new rights may not be necessary; but if existing …
Not Like The South? Regional Variation And Political Participation Through The Lens Of Section 2, Ellen D. Katz
Not Like The South? Regional Variation And Political Participation Through The Lens Of Section 2, Ellen D. Katz
Book Chapters
Congress voted last summer to reauthorize the expiring provisions of the Voting Rights Act. Among the reauthorized provisions is the Section 5 preclearance process, which requires "covered" jurisdictions to obtain federal approval before implementing changes to their voting laws. It is widely assumed that the reauthorization of Section 5 will survive constitutional scrutiny only if the record Congress amassed to support the statute documents pervasive unconstitutional conduct in covered jurisdictions for which preclearance offers a remedy. This paper takes issue with that assumption, arguing that precedent requiring such a record for new congressional legislation enforcing civil rights ought not apply …
Reviving The Right To Vote, Ellen D. Katz
Reviving The Right To Vote, Ellen D. Katz
Articles
Losers in partisan districting battles have long challenged the resulting districting plans under seemingly unrelated legal doctrines. They have filed lawsuits alleging malapportionment, racial gerrymandering, and racial vote dilution, and they periodically prevail. Many election law scholars worry about these lawsuits, claiming that they needlessly "racialize" fundamentally political disputes, distort important legal doctrines designed for other purposes, and provide an inadequate remedy for a fundamentally distinct electoral problem. I am not convinced. This Article argues that the application of distinct doctrines to invalidate or diminish what are indisputably partisan gerrymanders is not necessarily problematic, and that the practice may well …
Congressional Power To Extend Preclearance: A Response To Professor Karlan, Ellen D. Katz
Congressional Power To Extend Preclearance: A Response To Professor Karlan, Ellen D. Katz
Articles
Is the core provision of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional? Many people now think that the Act's preclearance requirement is invalid, but Professor Karlan is not among them. In part, that is because she is not convinced the problems that originally motivated Congress to impose preclearance have been fully remedied. Professor Karlan points out the many ways section 5 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) shapes behavior in the jurisdictions subject to the statute--not just by blocking discriminatory electoral changes, but also by influencing less transparent conduct by various political actors operating in these regions. Do not be so sure, …
Mission Accomplished?, Ellen D. Katz
Mission Accomplished?, Ellen D. Katz
Articles
My study of voting rights violations nationwide suggests that voting problems are more prevalent in places “covered” by the Act than elsewhere. Professor Persily’s careful and measured defense of the renewed statute posits that this evidence is the best available to support reauthorization. The evidence matters because if, as critics charge, the regional provisions of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) are no longer needed, minority voters should confront fewer obstacles to political participation in places where additional federal safeguards protect minority interests than in places where these safeguards do not operate. In fact, minority voters confront more.
Solving The ‘Initiatory Construction’ Puzzle (And Improving Direct Democracy) By Appropriate Refocusing On Sponsor Intent, Glenn Smith
Faculty Scholarship
This Article synthesizes and critiques a dozen years of scholarship about judicial construction of legislation passed by voter initiative. The Article then makes a comprehensive case for an alternative approach: an appropriately enhanced focus on the intent of initiative sponsors. More specifically, the Article validates, through analysis of recent California decisions, a longstanding scholarly consensus that the prevailing judicial search for "the intent of the voters" is seriously flawed. The Article provides the first synthesis to date of reform proposals offered by "initiatory-construction" scholars; the discussion contends that these proposals collectively fail four key evaluation criteria. Building on the 2003 …