Law Commons^™

A Fireside Chat With A Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

United States Of America V. Donald J. Trump, Defendant, Jack Smith

U.S. Department of Justice Publications and Materials

Violations: Count 1: 18 U.S.C. § 371 (Conspiracy to Defraud the United States) Count 2: 18 U.S.C. § 1512(k) (Conspiracy to Obstruct an Official Proceeding) Count 3: 18 U.S.C. §§ 1512(c)(2), 2 (Obstruction of and Attempt to Obstruct an Official Proceeding) Count 4: 18 U.S.C. § 241 (Conspiracy Against Rights)

The Grand Jury charges that, at all times material to this Indictment, on or about the dates and at the approximate times stated below:

1. The Defendant, DONALD J. TRUMP, was the forty-fifth President of the United States and a candidate for re-election in 2020. The Defendant lost the 2020 …

Advancing America’S Emblematic Right: Doctrinal Bases For The Fundamental Constitutional Right To Vote Per Se, Susan H. Bitensky

University of Miami Law Review

This Article identifies and examines the Supreme Court’s longstanding unintelligibility with respect to recognition of a fundamental right to vote per se under the Constitution. In a host of equal protection cases, the Court’s refusal to “say what the law is” in this regard has produced a chaotic jurisprudence on the status of the right. Because ours is a constitutional schema consisting of multiple types of rights to vote, the refusal manifests as judicial reliance on and acclamation of some unspecified right to vote. It is refusal by lack of clarity. The unsorted right has led some scholars to conclude …

Moore V. Harper: The Independent State Legislature Theory And The Court At The Brink, Braden Fain

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

Moore v. Harper tasks the Supreme Court with considering a fringe legal idea known as the Independent State Legislature Theory (ISLT). Donald Trump gave ISLT new life by invoking the theory during his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Instead of presidential elections, the litigation in Moore concerns congressional elections and partisan gerrymandering. Were the Court to accept ISLT, the theory would render states effectively impotent to curb gerrymandering and would aggrandize the Court's authority in federal elections. Scholars have recognized the theory's threat to American democracy and have accordingly produced a detailed record debunking the ISLT. …

The Meaning, History, And Importance Of The Elections Clause, Eliza Sweren-Becker, Michael Waldman

Washington Law Review

Historically, the Supreme Court has offered scant attention to or analysis of the Elections Clause, resulting in similarly limited scholarship on the Clause’s original meaning and public understanding over time. The Clause directs states to make regulations for the time, place, and manner of congressional elections, and grants Congress superseding authority to make or alter those rules.

But the 2020 elections forced the Elections Clause into the spotlight, with Republican litigants relying on the Clause to ask the Supreme Court to limit which state actors can regulate federal elections. This new focus comes on the heels of the Clause serving …

June 9, 2021: We Need A Nov. 3 National Commission, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “We Need a Nov. 3 National Commission“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

Deepfakes: A New Content Category For A Digital Age, Anna Pesetski

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

Technology has advanced rapidly in recent years, greatly benefitting society. One such benefit is people’s ability to have quick and easy access to information through news and social media. A recent concern, however, is that manipulated media, otherwise known as “deepfakes,” are being released and passed off as truth. These videos are crafted with technology that allows the creator to carefully change details of the video’s subject to make him appear to do or say things that he never did. Deepfakes are often depictions of political candidates or leaders and have the potential to influence voter choice, thereby altering the …

Persyaratan Pencalonan Kepala Daerah Dalam Uu Nomor 10 Tahun 2016 Dan Kaitannya Dengan Pelaksanaan Fungsi Kaderisasi Oleh Partai Politik, Dessy Marliani Listianingsih

"Dharmasisya” Jurnal Program Magister Hukum FHUI

In order to embody a good local governance must start from creating governors who have good competence and quality, this is reflected in training or caderization. In this case, political parties have an important role to carry out their political recruitment functions, in which there are also contributions in caderizationing, selecting, and offering prospective governors to the people through the elections. Governors who are offered to the people through the elections should be a product of a gradual and continuous caderization. Therefore, the contents of the Law number 10 of 2016 as a legal platform for the election of regional …

March 9, 2021: The Future Of Mail-In Voting In Pennsylvania--The Week's Column, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “The Future of Mail-in Voting in Pennsylvania--the week's column“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

Our Campaign Finance Nationalism, Eugene D. Mazo

Pepperdine Law Review

Campaign finance is the one area of election law that is most difficult to square with federalism. While voting has a strong federalism component—elections are run by the states and our elected officials represent concrete geographical districts—our campaign finance system, which is rooted in the First Amendment, almost entirely sidesteps the boundaries of American federalism. In so doing, our campaign finance system creates a tenuous connection between a lawmaker’s constituents, or the people who elect him, and the contributors who provide the majority of his campaign cash. The recent explosion of outside spending in American elections by wealthy individuals and …

February 24, 2021: It Is Not Clear Whether Republicans Really Believe The 2020 Election Was Stolen--This Week's Column, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “ It Is Not Clear Whether Republicans Really Believe the 2020 Election Was Stolen--This Week's Column“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

January 28, 2021: Miike Kelly Got Closer Than People Think To Stealing The Election For Trump, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Mike Kelly Got Closer than People Think to Stealing the Election for Trump“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

January 11, 2021: Pa. Senate Republicans Need To Seat Dem. Jim Brewster--This Week's Column In The Pennsylvania Capital-Star, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Pa. Senate Republicans Need to Seat Dem. Jim Brewster--this week's column in the Pennsylvania Capital-Star“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

November 8, 2020: Joe Biden Wins, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Joe Biden Wins“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

November 5, 2020: Count All The Pennsylvania Ballots--Conservative Justices Are Seeing The Ghost Of Bush V. Gore, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Count All the Pennsylvania Ballots--Conservative Justices Are Seeing the Ghost of Bush v. Gore“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

November 4, 2020: Looks Like President Trump Was Reelected, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Looks Like President Trump Was Reelected“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

Protecting The States From Electoral Invasions, Drew Marvel

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

Since the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the threat of foreign interference in U.S. elections has loomed large in the minds of the American public. During the 2016 campaign season, Russian government-backed hackers infiltrated the networks and computers of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), and various campaign officials, harvesting private information and installing spyware and malware for ongoing intelligence purposes. U.S. intelligence officials have indicated that, using similar tactics, the Russian hackers also targeted election systems and officials in all fifty states, successfully breaching at least two of those states’ election systems, Illinois and Florida. …

Are Presidential Electors Free To Vote As They Wish, Despite A State’S Popular Vote?, Alan Raphael, Elliott Mondry

Faculty Publications & Other Works

No abstract provided.

How Many Votes Is Too Few?, Rebecca Green

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Election Law Localism In The Time Of Covid-19, Richard Briffault

Faculty Scholarship

In just a few short months, the COVID-19 pandemic has already provoked multiple election law disputes. These have tended to track the same normative and policy conflicts that have marked election law for years, particularly the tension between strict adherence to preexisting rules and the willingness to stretch or relax those rules in order to deal with emergency conditions, and the overlapping debate over whether the primary threat to the integrity of the electoral system is fraud or the legal and administrative obstacles to voting during a pandemic. A third, but much less discussed, strand in the emerging COVID-19 election …

Covid-19 And The Law: Elections, Richard Briffault

Faculty Scholarship

With one Supreme Court decision, lower federal and state court decisions, pending litigation, and proposals around the country for major changes in how elections are conducted, COVID-19 has already had and likely will continue to have a significant impact on election law.

The discussion that follows proceeds in two parts. The first addresses the initial consequences of COVID-19 as an electoral emergency. Voters were due to go to the polls in states around the country just as the pandemic was gathering force and governors and mayors were calling on people to stay at home and avoid large gatherings – which, …

Democratic Inclusion, Cognitive Development, And The Age Of Electoral Majority, Vivian E. Hamilton

Vivian E. Hamilton

No abstract provided.

Do Judicial Elections Facilitate Popular Constitutionalism; Can They?, Nicole Mansker, Neal Devins

Neal E. Devins

No abstract provided.

The Upside Of Deep Fakes, Jessica Silbey, Woodrow Hartzog

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

Essays On Institutions And Development, Andrew Jonelis

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

The essays in this dissertation examine how political institutions affect economic development. In the first essay, I examine how executive control of the legislature shapes the time horizon of governing politicians and its effect on economic growth. The second essay examines how border changes over the past two centuries have provided different areas within modern countries with different institutional histories and how this affects the geographic concentration of economic activity. For the final essay, I examine whether elections have an effect on macroeconomic volatility when controlling for the democratic nature of the regime.

December 18, 2018: The Continuing Disintegration Of Politics In America, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “The Continuing Disintegration of Politics in America“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

December 7, 2018: Needed: A Party Of Democracy, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Needed: A Party of Democracy“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

November 9, 2018: The Electoral College, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “The Electoral College“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

A New Voting Rights Act For A New Century: How Liberalizing The Voting Rights Act’S Bailout Provisions Can Help Pass The Voting Rights Advancement Act Of 2017, Mario Q. Fitzgerald

Brooklyn Law Review

The U.S. Supreme Court struck down the coverage formula of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) in Shelby County. v. Holder in 2013. Members of Congress have attempted to renew the VRA with an updated coverage formula through the Voting Rights Advancement Acts of 2015 and of 2017. Unfortunately, Congressional Republicans have not supported either bill. Even if passed in its current form, the Supreme Court is likely to strike down the Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2017 (VRAA) for violating the principle of “equal sovereignty between the States” as set forth by the Court in Shelby County. Therefore, this note …

August 12, 2018: Decent Republicans, Especially Law Professors, Have Got To Stop Voter Suppression, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Decent Republicans, Especially Law Professors, Have Got to Stop Voter Suppression“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.