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Articles 61 - 90 of 98
Full-Text Articles in Election Law
Visions Of The Republic Symposium: State Solutions To State Problems: Using State Constitutions To Fight Voter Suppression, Russell Spivak
Visions Of The Republic Symposium: State Solutions To State Problems: Using State Constitutions To Fight Voter Suppression, Russell Spivak
Fordham Law Review Online
Federal action has been undertaken throughout our nation’s history to both quell voter suppression and expand the franchise, countering racist state efforts to restrict the vote. In the face of shrinking federal solutions, those seeking to protect the vote must look for new methods. This Article proposes that advocates look more deeply at state constitutional law and pursue claims in state court to vindicate voting rights, as state constitutional provisions and precedent may provide fertile ground. In advancing this argument, the Article swiftly reviews the history of the federal government’s actions to protect voting throughout our nation’s history as well …
Visions Of The Republic Symposium: The People: A Pre-Primer For Critically Reevaluating Representation & Court Power In The Present, Marvin L. Astrada
Visions Of The Republic Symposium: The People: A Pre-Primer For Critically Reevaluating Representation & Court Power In The Present, Marvin L. Astrada
Fordham Law Review Online
What exactly is an American? Who or what are the People? Is there an authentic, viable American political identity or community? Or do the deep ruptures and balkanization that seem to pervade law and politics— ranging from pandemics, national security, impeachment, and the environment, to issues of an everyday, local nature—indicate a crisis of legitimacy, cohesion, and national community?
Are Two Minorities Equal To One?: Minority Coalition Groups And Section 2 Of The Voting Rights Act, Kevin Sette
Are Two Minorities Equal To One?: Minority Coalition Groups And Section 2 Of The Voting Rights Act, Kevin Sette
Fordham Law Review
Following Jim Crow, vote dilution is the second-generation barrier standing between minority voters and the polls. Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) protects racial and language minorities from these vote dilution practices. To sustain a section 2 claim, a protected “class of citizens” must satisfy the criteria laid out by the U.S. Supreme Court in Thornburg v. Gingles. First, the class must constitute the majority of a hypothetical single-member voting district. Second, the class must be politically cohesive. Third, the minority class’s preferred candidate must be defeated by a white majority voting bloc. What the …
The “Whip Hand”: Congress’S Elections Clause Power As The Last Hope For Redistricting Reform After Rucho, Kevin Wender
The “Whip Hand”: Congress’S Elections Clause Power As The Last Hope For Redistricting Reform After Rucho, Kevin Wender
Fordham Law Review
Redistricting activists have long argued that partisan gerrymandering poses a fundamental threat to American democracy. These concerns have become particularly acute as increasingly sophisticated technologies have enabled legislators to draw highly gerrymandered maps that powerfully entrench partisan advantage. Despite these concerns, the U.S. Supreme Court, in the 2019 case of Rucho v. Common Cause, declared partisan gerrymandering to be a political issue outside the purview of the federal courts. The decision dealt a major blow to redistricting activists who, for over fifty years, had hoped that the Court would intervene to combat the drawing of electoral districts for partisan …
Faithless Electors: Keeping The Ties That Bind, Scott Eckl
Faithless Electors: Keeping The Ties That Bind, Scott Eckl
Fordham Law Review
Every four years, the United States chooses a president and vice president. Millions of Americans exercise the right to vote, believing that they are voting for the candidates of their choice. In actuality, 538 relatively unknown party insiders known as electors officially choose the president a month later in fifty-one obscure meetings. Most of the time, these electors mirror the popular votes. However, whether these electors are required to do so and whether the states can enforce laws requiring them to do so are open questions. The Tenth Circuit recently declared statutes that bind electors unconstitutional. A few months before …
State Courts, The Right To Vote, And The Democracy Canon, Rebecca Guthrie
State Courts, The Right To Vote, And The Democracy Canon, Rebecca Guthrie
Fordham Law Review
Entire elections can be determined by the way a state judge chooses to interpret an election statute. And yet, there has been little scholarly attention on how judges construe statutes regulating elections at the state level. This Note begins to redress that lack of attention by undertaking an in-depth analysis of one interpretive tool historically invoked by state courts. The “Democracy Canon” is a substantive canon urging courts to liberally construe election statutes in favor of voter enfranchisement. By conducting a review of both historical and modern references to the Democracy Canon by state courts, this Note argues that courts …
Putting Students First: Why Noncitizen Parents Should Be Allowed To Vote In School Board Elections, Jennifer Butwin
Putting Students First: Why Noncitizen Parents Should Be Allowed To Vote In School Board Elections, Jennifer Butwin
Fordham Law Review Online
This Essay addresses whether noncitizen parents of school children should be allowed to vote in school board elections. They are currently prohibited from doing so in all but a dozen jurisdictions in only three states. Part I provides background on school boards of education. Part II explores the debate surrounding noncitizen voting in school board elections. It then argues that noncitizen parents’ distinct interest and stake in school board elections support affording them the right to vote in these elections. Moreover, studies show that allowing noncitizen parents to vote would increase the academic achievement of immigrant children, most of whom …
Election Law And White Identity Politics, Joshua S. Sellers
Election Law And White Identity Politics, Joshua S. Sellers
Fordham Law Review
The role of race in American politics looms large in several election law doctrines. Regrettably, though, these doctrines’ analyses of race, racial identity, and the relationships between race and politics often lack sophistication, historical context, or foresight. The political status quo is treated as race-neutral, when in fact it is anything but. Specifically, the doctrines rely upon sanguine theories of democracy uncorrupted by white identity–based political calculations, while in fact such calculations, made on the part of both voters and political parties, are pervasive. In this Article, I appraise the doctrine pertaining to majority-minority voting districts, racial gerrymandering doctrine, the …
Rethinking Presidential Eligibility, Eugene D. Mazo
Rethinking Presidential Eligibility, Eugene D. Mazo
Fordham Law Review
Many aspiring American Presidents have had their candidacies challenged for failing to meet the Constitution’s eligibility requirements. Although none of these challenges have ever been successful, they have sapped campaigns of valuable resources and posed a threat to several ambitious men. This Article examines several notable presidential eligibility challenges and explains why they have often been unsuccessful. The literature on presidential eligibility traditionally has focused on the Eligibility Clause, which enumerates the age, residency, and citizenship requirements that a President must satisfy before taking office. By contrast, very little of it examines how a challenge to one’s candidacy impacts a …
Reforming The Contested Convention: Rethinking The Presidential Nomination Process, Michael T. Morley
Reforming The Contested Convention: Rethinking The Presidential Nomination Process, Michael T. Morley
Fordham Law Review
The presidential nomination process could be substantially improved through a few minor tweaks that would reduce unnecessary uncertainty, bolster its democratic underpinnings, and improve the connections among its various components. First, certain fundamental rules governing national conventions should be determined well in advance of the presidential nominating process, before any primaries or caucuses are held or delegates selected, and not be subject to change or suspension at the convention itself. Second, parties should enhance the democratic moorings of their national conventions by requiring presidential candidates to win a greater number of presidential preference votes to be placed into nomination. Third, …
“Natural Born” Disputes In The 2016 Presidential Election, Derek T. Muller
“Natural Born” Disputes In The 2016 Presidential Election, Derek T. Muller
Fordham Law Review
The 2016 presidential election brought forth new disputes concerning the definition of “natural born Citizen.” The most significant challenges surrounded the eligibility of Senator Ted Cruz, born in Canada to a Cuban father and an American mother. Unlike challenges to President Barack Obama’s eligibility, which largely turned on conspiratorial facts, challenges to Cruz’s eligibility turned principally on the law and garnered more serious attention concerning a somewhat cryptic constitutional clause. Understandably, much attention focused on the definition of “natural born citizen” and whether candidates like Cruz qualified. Administrative challenges and litigation in court revealed deficiencies in the procedures for handling …
Election Law And The Presidency: An Introduction And Overview, Jerry H. Goldfeder
Election Law And The Presidency: An Introduction And Overview, Jerry H. Goldfeder
Fordham Law Review
Americans now fully appreciate that presidential candidates are vying for a majority of the Electoral College votes, rather than the individual votes of constituents. Modern campaigns are organized around this goal, and commentators are focused on this reality. As a result, there has been an increased cry to reform the electoral process. After all, if every other public official in the land is elected by receiving more votes than their competitors, why should the President of the United States be elected in this apparently undemocratic fashion? The process appears even more unusual in that electors are chosen pursuant to state …
Third-Party And Independent Presidential Candidates: The Need For A Runoff Mechanism, Edward B. Foley
Third-Party And Independent Presidential Candidates: The Need For A Runoff Mechanism, Edward B. Foley
Fordham Law Review
Consider what 2016 might have looked like if this better electoral system had been in place. Bloomberg then could have entered the race without risking being a spoiler. In a three-way race—Bloomberg, Clinton, and Trump—Bloomberg might have fizzled out, leaving a two-way race between Clinton and Trump. Since that is essentially how the election ended up anyway, the country would have been no worse off for having had a chance to consider Bloomberg as an alternative. But suppose, however, with Trump’s candidacy spinning out of control in a series of unacceptable comments (as it appeared to do in early August),11 …
Ramshackle Federalism: America’S Archaic And Dysfunctional Presidential Election System, Anthony J. Gaughan
Ramshackle Federalism: America’S Archaic And Dysfunctional Presidential Election System, Anthony J. Gaughan
Fordham Law Review
Accordingly, this Article proposes five sensible and achievable reforms to modernize the presidential election system. Each requires Congress and the federal government to play a much more proactive role in the presidential election system. The Constitution may be founded on federalist principles, but excessive decentralization is not serving us well in presidential election administration. In an age of tumultuous and accelerating change, the presidential election system must be modernized to meet the needs of twenty-first century America.
Does The Constitution Provide More Ballot Access Protection For Presidential Elections Than For U.S. House Elections?, Richard Winger
Does The Constitution Provide More Ballot Access Protection For Presidential Elections Than For U.S. House Elections?, Richard Winger
Fordham Law Review
Both the U.S. Constitution and The Federalist Papers suggest that voters ought to have more freedom to vote for the candidate of their choice for the U.S. House of Representatives than they do for the President or the U.S. Senate. Yet, strangely, for the last thirty-three years, the U.S. Supreme Court and lower courts have ruled that the Constitution gives voters more freedom to vote for the candidate of their choice in presidential elections than in congressional elections. Also, state legislatures, which have been writing ballot access laws since 1888, have passed laws that make it easier for minor-party and …
Time To End Presidential Caucuses, Sean J. Wright
Time To End Presidential Caucuses, Sean J. Wright
Fordham Law Review
Following the 2016 election cycle, there will be a great opportunity to implement reform. A major change should be to move away from presidential caucuses. They persist with, in the words of John Oliver, “complex, opaque rules.” These complex rules, which include participating in person for over an hour, negatively impacts participation in the electoral process. For example, in 2012, “participation rates in the Republican Party’s caucuses averaged 3 percent.” 3 percent. Compellingly, PolitiFact has observed that “[c]aucuses and delegate math can be incredibly confusing, and the arcane party structures don’t reflect how most people assume presidential selection works.” Yet, …
Beyond Citizens United, Nicholas Almendares, Catherine Hafer
Beyond Citizens United, Nicholas Almendares, Catherine Hafer
Fordham Law Review
The doctrine announced in Citizens United rendered most efforts to regulate campaign financing unconstitutional. We argue, however, that the doctrine allows for a novel approach to the concerns inherent in campaign financing that does not directly infringe on political speech, because it operates later in the process, after the election. This approach allows us to address a broad range of these issues and to do so with legal tools that are readily available. We describe two applications of our approach in this Article. First, we argue that courts should use a modified rational basis review when a law implicates the …
The Hatch Act Modernization Act: Putting The Government Back In Politics, Shannon D. Azzaro
The Hatch Act Modernization Act: Putting The Government Back In Politics, Shannon D. Azzaro
Fordham Urban Law Journal
No abstract provided.
A National Model Faces New Challenges: The New York City Campaign Finance System And The 2013 Elections, Janos Marton
A National Model Faces New Challenges: The New York City Campaign Finance System And The 2013 Elections, Janos Marton
Fordham Urban Law Journal
No abstract provided.
Empowering Small Donors: New York City’S Multiple Match Public Financing As A Model For A Post-Citizens United World, Amy Loprest, Bethany Perskie
Empowering Small Donors: New York City’S Multiple Match Public Financing As A Model For A Post-Citizens United World, Amy Loprest, Bethany Perskie
Fordham Urban Law Journal
No abstract provided.
Dark Money Rises: Federal And State Attempts To Rein In Undisclosed Campaign-Related Spending, Kristy Eagan
Dark Money Rises: Federal And State Attempts To Rein In Undisclosed Campaign-Related Spending, Kristy Eagan
Fordham Urban Law Journal
No abstract provided.
Campaign Finance Advisory Opinions At The State Level, Allen Dickerson, Zac Morgan
Campaign Finance Advisory Opinions At The State Level, Allen Dickerson, Zac Morgan
Fordham Urban Law Journal
No abstract provided.
Introduction, Martin E. Connor
The Public’S Right To Know Versus Compelled Speech: What Does Social Science Research Tell Us About The Benefits And Costs Of Campaign Finance Disclosure In Non-Candidate Elections?, Dick Carpenter, Jeffrey Milyo
The Public’S Right To Know Versus Compelled Speech: What Does Social Science Research Tell Us About The Benefits And Costs Of Campaign Finance Disclosure In Non-Candidate Elections?, Dick Carpenter, Jeffrey Milyo
Fordham Urban Law Journal
No abstract provided.
Saving Democracy: A Blueprint For Reform In The Post-Citizens United Era, Jocelyn Benson
Saving Democracy: A Blueprint For Reform In The Post-Citizens United Era, Jocelyn Benson
Fordham Urban Law Journal
Since the founding of our democracy, attempts to curb the influence of money in the political process consistently fall short of their goal. In fact, a growing number of cynics see campaign finance reform—or any effort to reduce the impact of money in the political process—as inherently doomed to fail. With the recent dearth of meaningful campaign finance reform on the federal level in the post-Citizens United era, reform advocates must look to the states to explore and enact changes to the law that will promote a healthier role for money in politics. This Article reviews efforts to reform government …
When “Testing The Waters” Tests The Limits Of Coordination Restrictions: Revising Fec Regulations To Limit Pre-Candidacy Coordination, Marc E. Klepner
When “Testing The Waters” Tests The Limits Of Coordination Restrictions: Revising Fec Regulations To Limit Pre-Candidacy Coordination, Marc E. Klepner
Fordham Law Review
During the preliminary stages of the 2016 presidential election, many prospective candidates took an active role in the Super PACs that would eventually support them after they became candidates. The regulatory system in place provides clear restrictions on Super PACs’ abilities to coordinate with candidates; however, what is less clear is whether such regulations restrict the behavior of individuals during pre-candidacy, known under Federal Election Commission (FEC) regulations as the “testing-the-waters” phase. This Note gives an overview of the laws and regulations governing Super PACs, as well as the regulations and FEC guidance concerning when an individual becomes a candidate. …
Voter Primacy, Sarah C. Haan
Voter Primacy, Sarah C. Haan
Fordham Law Review
This Article argues that Citizens United v. FEC expanded the audience for campaign finance disclosure to include a group that had never before been held relevant to campaign finance disclosure—corporate shareholders—and explores the constitutional, policy, and political consequences of this change. In part IV of Citizens United, the U.S. Supreme Court departed from more than thirty years of campaign finance disclosure analysis to treat corporate shareholders as a target audience for corporate electoral spending disclosure, holding that the governmental interest advanced by campaign finance disclosure laws includes an interest in helping corporate shareholders “determine whether their corporation’s political speech advances …
The Forgotten Law Of Lobbying, Zephyr Teachout
The Forgotten Law Of Lobbying, Zephyr Teachout
Faculty Scholarship
For most of American history, until the 1950s, courts treated paid lobbying as a civic wrong, not a protected First Amendment right. Lobbying was presumptively against public policy, and lobbying contracts were not enforced. Paid lobbying threatened the integrity of individuals, legislators, lobbyists, and the integrity of society as a whole. Some states had laws criminalizing lobbying; Georgia had an anti-lobbying provision in its Constitution. Inasmuch as there was a personal right to either petition the government, or share views with officers of the government, this right was not something one could sell -- it was not, in the term …
Neoliberal Political Law, Zephyr Teachout
The Political Morality Of Voting In Direct Democracy, Michael Serota, Ethan J. Leib
The Political Morality Of Voting In Direct Democracy, Michael Serota, Ethan J. Leib
Faculty Scholarship
The voting levers in candidate elections and in direct democracy elections are identical. The political obligations that bind the citizens that pull them are not. This Essay argues that voters in direct democracy elections, unlike their counterparts in candidate elections, serve as representatives of the people and are, accordingly, bound by the ethics of political representation. Upending the traditional dichotomy between representative and direct democracy, this Essay explains why citizens voting in direct democracy are representative legislators who must vote in the public interest and must not vote in their private interests.