First Amendment Commons^™

Aligning Judicial Elections With Our Constitutional Values: The Separation Of Powers, Judicial Free Speech, And Due Process, Jason D. Grimes

Cleveland State Law Review

This Note consists of five Parts. Part II traces the historical development of state judicial elections from the perspective of the Framers' doctrine of separation of powers. It shows that judicial elections were borne more of historical contingency than constitutional design. Part II then assesses the recent history of elections to the Ohio Supreme Court. It determines that Ohio's judicial elections share two problems with many other states: millions of dollars given to judicial candidates by special interests likely to appear before the court, and candidates' broad freedom of speech to earn the political and financial support of these special …

Crawford V. Marion County Election Board: A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words And Exactly One Vote, Brian C. Crook

University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class

No abstract provided.

Politics At The Pulpit: Tax Benefits, Substantial Burdens, And Institutional Free Exercise, Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer

Journal Articles

More than fifty years ago, Congress enacted a prohibition against political campaign intervention for all charities, including churches and other houses of worship, as a condition for receiving tax deductible contributions. Yet the IRS has never taken a house of worship to court for alleged violation of the prohibition through political comments from the pulpit, presumably at least in part because of concerns about the constitutionality of doing so. This decision is surprising, because a careful review of Free Exercise Clause case law - both before and after the landmark Employment Division v. Smith decision - reveals that the prohibition …

Sit Down And Count The Cost: A Framework For Constitutionally Enforcing The 501(C)(3) Campaign Intervention Ban, Benjamin Leff

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code prohibits charities from intervening in a political campaign for or against a candidate for public office. The IRS currently interprets the campaign-intervention ban to absolutely prevent charities from communicating their views on candidates, even if such communications are completely financed by non-501(c)(3) affiliates.

This article argues that the current IRS enforcement paradigm is unconstitutional because it exceeds the government interest in preventing tax-deductible donations to be used for campaign-intervention. A constitutional interpretation exists under the current statutory framework, but it would require the IRS to shift its focus exclusively to campaign-intervention-related expenditures. The …

Election Apparel And The Fashion Police, Timothy Zick

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Magic Words And Millionaires: The Supreme Court's Assault On Campaign Funding, 42 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1 (2008), Michael J. Kasper

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Federal Campaign Finance Reform Based On Virginia Election Law, Rhodes B. Ritenour

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

New York Board Of Elections V. Torres: Brief Of Amici Curiae Law Professors Guy-Uriel E. Charles, Erwin Chemerinsky, Kareem Crayton, Steven P. Croley, Heather K. Gerken, Michael Kang, Ellen D. Katz, Ethan J. Leib, Michael Pitts, And Daniel P. Tokaji In Support Of Respondents, Ellen D. Katz

Appellate Briefs

The law professors named below teach and write about elections, voting rights, political parties, and electoral competition. Both basic and advanced law courses on voting and elections, as well as a wide range of scholarship on these subjects, regularly considers state authority to regulate conduct by political parties, candidates for office, and individual voters. Amici are among the many scholars who write and teach about the issues before the Court in this case.

Based on this expertise, and on careful review of this Court's decisions, amici argue in this brief that the nominating process the State of New York employs …

Legalized Gaming And Political Contributions: When The Diceman Cometh, Will Corruption Goeth?, 40 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1089 (2007), Bonny Bumiller

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Federal Election Commission & Political Blogging: A Perfect Balance Or Just Not Enough?, 24 J. Marshall J. Computer & Info. L. 611 (2006), Niki Vlachos

UIC John Marshall Journal of Information Technology & Privacy Law

No abstract provided.

Campaign Finance Reform, Electioneering Communications, And The First Amendment: Resuscitating The Third Exception, 38 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1315 (2005), Daniel B. Roth

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Rethinking Campaign-Finance Reform: The Pressing Need For Deregulation And Disclosure, 38 J. Marshall L. Rev. 633 (2004), Cecil C. Kuhne Iii

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Republican Party Of Minnesota V. White: The Lifting Of Judicial Speech Restraint, David B. Bogard

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Section 5: First Amendment & Election Law, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.

The Campain-Finance Crucible: Is Laissez Fair?, Jamin B. Raskin

Michigan Law Review

The 2001 passage of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act ("BCRA"), popularly known as "McCain-Feingold," set the stage for a momentous constitutional conflict in the United States Supreme Court in the 2003-04 Term. Among other things, the new legislation bans "soft money" contributions to the national political parties by corporations, labor unions, and individuals; prohibits state parties that are authorized to accept such contributions to spend the proceeds on activities related to federal elections; forbids federal candidates to participate in raising soft money; doubles the amount of "hard money" an individual can contribute in a federal election from $1,000 to $2,000 …

Judicial Elections, Campaign Financing, And Free Speech, Ronald D. Rotunda

Law Faculty Articles and Research

No abstract provided.

Racial Identity, Electoral Structures, And The First Amendment Right Of Association, Guy-Uriel Charles

Faculty Scholarship

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 …

Constitutional Law: State Campaign Contribution Limits: Nixon V. Shrink Missouri Government Pac: An Abridgment Of Freedom In The Name Of Democracy, Richard J. Baker

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Voluntary Campaign Finance Reform, John Copeland 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 …

Constitutional Law—First Amendment Rights Of Direct Democracy Participants Versus The State's Interest In Regulating The Election Process. Buckley V. American Constitutional Law Foundation, Inc., 119 S. Ct. 636 (1999)., Jennifer Modersohn

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Political Speech—Restrictions On Ballot-Initiative Petitions, Buckley V. American Constitutional Law Foundation, Mark L. Rienzi

Scholarly Articles

The Supreme Court has repeatedly noted that ballot and election regulations raise difficult questions about the interplay between the First Amendment's heightened protection for political speech, and states' need to regulate ballots and elections to ensure fair and orderly democracy. When making the delicate judgments between protecting political speech and allowing states to regulate elections, the Court has traditionally stated precisely which test it was employing to evaluate individual restrictions. Last Term, in Buckley v. American Constitutional Law Foundation, the Court invalidated several of Colorado's restrictions on the signature-gathering process for ballot initiative petitions. In so doing, the Court failed …

Section 5: Speech And Elections, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.

The Politics Of Ethics And Elections: Can Negative Campaign Advertising Be Regulated In Florida?, Cleveland Ferguson Iii

Florida State University Law Review

No abstract provided.

The First Amendment In The Supreme Court: The Future Lies Ahead, Dean Joel M. Gora

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Spending Limits And The Squandering Of Candidates' Time, Vincent A. Blasi

Faculty Scholarship

Today I begin with a narrow agenda, a single idea, but an extravagant ambition. My narrow agenda is that I wish to address only the topic of campaign spending limits, and only the issue of their constitutionality in the face of First Amendment objections. The policy questions regarding whether spending limits are equitable, efficacious, and/or enforceable are deeply difficult and interesting but beyond my ken on this occasion.

My single idea is that spending limits are best justified on the ground that they protect candidates for office from having to devote an inordinate amount of their time to the task …

A More Sensible Approach To Regulating Independent Expenditures: Defending The Constitutionality Of The Fed's New Express Advocacy Standard, Michael D. Leffel

Michigan Law Review

Campaign finance reformers argue that the "unholy alliance of private money and public elections" has created "a crisis of confidence in our elected officials." The now-deceased campaign reform advocate Philip M. Stem summed up the role of money in campaigns this way: "[M]oney-power has replaced people-power as the driving force in American politics and the determinant of electoral victory." One form of "money-power" in elections that received a great deal of attention in the last election cycle was "independent expenditures." Independent expenditures are funds spent by interested individuals or groups - usually in the form of television or radio advertisements …

Anonymous Campaign Literature And The First Amendment, Erika King

North Carolina Central Law Review

No abstract provided.

Anonymous Campaign Literature And The First Amendment, Erika Lietzan

Faculty Publications

Presently, forty-eight states and the District of Columbia have statutes that require the disclosure of some party's identity (for example, an author or a sponsor) on political literature pertaining to elections. The most common explanations given for these statutes are that they deter fraud and libel in the election arena and that they provide valuable information to the voters. Because these statutes regulate core political speech, however, they necessarily implicate the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Although campaign disclosure laws have been both struck down and sustained by state courts reviewing appealed convictions, the decisions have been disappointingly …

Washington's Ballot Restriction For Minor Party Candidates: When Is A Primary Not A Primary?, Emily Calhoun

Publications

No abstract provided.