Law and Politics Commons^™

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

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Documentation Assessment Of The Diebold Voting System, S. Candice Hoke, Dave Kettyle

Law Faculty Reports and Comments

The California Secretary of State commissioned a comprehensive, independent evaluation of the electronic voting systems certified for use within the State. This team, working as part of the “Top to Bottom” Review (“TTBR”), evaluated the documentation supplied by Diebold Election System, Inc.

Ratification Of Reapportionment Plans Drawn By Redistricting Commissions, Poonam Kumar

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Partisan gerrymandering is a danger that threatens the foundations of the American democratic structure. This Note argues that partisan gerrymandering must be eliminated in order to foster political competition and ensure government accountability. Without a judicial solution, redistricting commissions present a viable option to help cure the ills of partisan gerrymandering. This Note argues that automatic and mandatory state supreme court judicial review must be the process by which the redistricting plans drawn by these commissions are ratified. Automatic judicial review permits redistricting to remain a legislative task while giving the judiciary a quintessential judicial task. In addition, this Note …

Collaborative Public Audit Of The November 2006 General Election, S. Candice Hoke, Collaborative Audit Committee

Law Faculty Reports and Comments

We hope that this Audit Report will assist the Ohio Secretary of State, all Ohio local Boards of Election, election reform organizations, and other election officials nationwide in seeing how an independent audit process can be created and function at the local level. Additionally, we hope the public will recognize that this Report contains the kind of information that all election administrative agencies need to better achieve the public charge for producing accurate election results and to facilitate sound improvements in election administrative practices.

Deliberation Or Tabulation? The Self-Undermining Constitutional Architecture Of Election Campaigns, James A. Gardner

Buffalo Law Review

Perhaps the one completely uncontested truth in the shared public ideology of American politics is that an election campaign ought to be a serious occasion in the life of a democratic polity, a time when citizens reflect maturely on the great public issues of the day. On this view, the ultimate purpose of election campaigns is to offer voters and candidates a meaningful opportunity for deliberation and persuasion. Of course, the typical modern American election campaign does not seem seriously reflective and deliberative so much as shallow and unengaging. Reasoned persuasion seems to play a minor role, if that. The …

Political Advocacy And Taxable Entities: Are They The Next "Loophole"?, Donald B. Tobin

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

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.

How To Think About Voter Fraud (And Why), Chad Flanders

All Faculty Scholarship

In recent months, debates over voter fraud have consumed state legislatures and blogs, courts and election commissions. The prevailing way of framing that debate has been in terms of numbers and statistics: how much voter fraud is there, and does the amount of voter fraud justify new measures to prevent it? In my essay, I argue for a shift away from statistical analysis and towards normative discourse. Only if we understand why (and whether) voter fraud is bad will we be able to decisively settle debates about what should be done about it, if anything.

The first part of my …

Wrtl And Randall: The Roberts Court And The Unsettling Of Campaign Finance Law, Richard Briffault

Faculty Scholarship

The first term of the Roberts Court was a potentially pivotal moment in campaign finance law. The Court both broke its pattern of deference to federal and state regulations that had marked the last half-dozen years and began to take a more critical approach to campaign finance restrictions. In Randall v. Sorrell, the Court struck down a Vermont law that sought to limit expenditures and to lower contributions in state and local elections. The expenditure restriction decision was no surprise, as it essentially reaffirmed the Court's rejection of expenditure limits in Buckley v. Valeo three decades ago. But the …

The Value Of Incumbency: A Law And Economics Interpretation Of Primary Challenges, Robert Steinbuch

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

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 …

The Much Maligned 527 And Institutional Choice, Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer

Journal Articles

The continuing controversy over 527 organizations has led Congress to impose extensive disclosure requirements on these political organizations and to consider imposing extensive restrictions on their funding as well. The debate about what laws should govern these entities has, however, so far almost completely ignored the fact that such laws raise a complicated institutional choice question.

This Article seeks to resolve that question by developing a new institutional choice framework to guide this and similar choices. The Article first explores the context for making this determination by describing the current laws governing 527s, including both federal election laws administered by …

Election Law, Christopher R. Nolen

University of Richmond Law Review

Advances in Virginia's election law happen incrementally. This year was typical in that regard. While over one hundred bills and resolutions pertaining to elections were introduced in the 2006 Regular Session of the General Assembly, the legislature was judicious in its approval of election related legislation. This article surveys recent developments in Virginia's election laws by focusing on those legislative enactments and judicial decisions that are significant, interesting, or show some developing trend in the area of election law.

Where Do We Draw The Line? Partisan Gerrymandering And The State Of Texas, Whitney M. Eaton

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Why Legislative Findings Can Pad-Lock Redistricting Plans In Racial-Gerrymandering Cases, 39 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1371 (2006), Frank Adams

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Making Our Congressional Elections More Competitive; A Proposal For A Limited Number Of Statewide At-Large Elections In Our More Populous States, 39 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1425 (2006), Walter M. Frank

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Self-Defeating Minimalism, Adam B. Cox

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

Everyone wants a piece of Tom DeLay. The former majority leader is under investigation and indictment, and even the Supreme Court threatened last Term to undo one of his signal achievements. In 2003, DeLay orchestrated a highly unusual mid-decade revision of Texas’s congressional map. The revised map was a boon to Republicans, shifting the Texas congressional delegation from 15 Republicans and 17 Democrats to 21 Republicans and 11 Democrats. The map was attacked as an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander and a violation of the Voting Rights Act. When the Supreme Court agreed to hear those challenges in LULAC v. Perry, many …

Cultural Compactness, Daniel R. Oritz

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

The Supreme Court’s opinions in LULAC v. Perry, the Texas redistricting case, confounded expectation. While many believed that the Court would develop the law governing partisan gerrymandering in one direction or another, it did not. As exactly before, such claims are justiciable but there is no law to govern them. In other words, the courthouse doors are open, but until some plaintiff advances a novel theory persuasive to five justices, no claims will succeed. On the other hand, few expected the Court to make any major changes to doctrine under the Voting Rights Act and Shaw v. Reno. But LULAC …

This Way To The Egress And Other Reflections On Partisan Gerrymandering Claims In Light Of Lulac V. Perry, Bernard Grofman

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

After winning control of both houses of the legislature and the governorship, Texas Republicans eventually succeeded in redistricting Texas’s congressional seats in 2003, replacing a 2001 court-drawn plan. LULAC v. Perry reviewed a number of challenges to that second redistricting. The decision deals with a multiplicity of issues, including, most importantly, the standard for violations of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and the nature of tests for unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering. While there are some clear holdings in the case, several of them reflect different combinations of Justices in the majority and, since there are six different opinions, it …

Anthony Kennedy's Blind Quest, Scot Powe, Steve Bickerstaff

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

League of United Latin American Citizens [LULAC] v. Perry embraced, in the context of partisan gerrymandering, Felix Frankfurter’s conclusion that the Supreme Court should not enter the political thicket of legislative apportionment. Two years earlier in Vieth v. Jubelirer, the Court split 4–1–4 on the justiciability of partisan gerrymandering. O’Conner and the three conservatives held it was nonjusticiable. Each of the four moderate liberals offered a test showing it was justiciable. Kennedy dissented from the conservatives while simultaneously rejecting each of the four tests offered. He announced he was waiting for a better test. When far superior tests were offered …

Lulac On Partisan Gerrymandering: Some Clarity, More Uncertainty, Richard Briffault

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

In League of United Latin American Citizens (“LULAC”) v. Perry, the Supreme Court, for the second time in two years, agonized over partisan gerrymandering. LULAC’s rejection of a Democratic challenge to the Texas legislature’s mid-decade pro-Republican congressional redistricting resembles the Court’s 2004 dismissal of a Democratic gerrymandering suit against Pennsylvania’s pro-Republican congressional redistricting plan in Vieth v. Jubelirer. As in Vieth, the Justices wrangled over justiciability, the substantive standard for assessing the constitutionality of partisan gerrymandering claims, and the interplay of justiciability and constitutionality. As in Vieth, the Court was highly fragmented: Vieth produced five separate opinions, while LULAC took …

Strict In Theory, Loopy In Fact, Nathaniel Persily

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

Most Supreme Court-watchers find the decision in LULAC v. Perry notable for the ground it breaks concerning Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and the ground it refuses to break on the topic of partisan gerrymandering. I tend to think the Court’s patchwork application of Section 2 to strike down a district on vote dilution grounds is not all that dramatic, nor is its resolution of the partisan gerrymandering claims all that surprising. The truly unprecedented development in the case for me was Justice Scalia’s vote to uphold what he considered a racial classification under the Equal Protection Clause, …

Limiting The Presidency To Natural Born Citizens Violates Due Process, 39 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1343 (2006), Paul A. Clark

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Final Report Of The Cuyahoga County Election Review Panel, S. Candice Hoke, Ronald B. Adrine, Tom J. Hayes

Law Faculty Reports and Comments

The Panel was charged with identifying the deficiencies in the May 2, 2006 Cuyahoga County election, ascertain the causes and contributing factors of those deficiencies and provide recommendations to remedy the deficiencies.

Can Direct Democracy Be Made Deliberative?, Ethan J. Leib

Faculty Scholarship

Every election cycle a great number of citizens take to the polls to vote on public policy matters directly. Direct democracy has problems. And an account of deliberative democracy—far from being a source to critique direct democracy—might provide a solution. I have three goals here. First, I hope to identify some problems with the mechanisms of direct democracy that most states and many cities throughout the country employ: the initiative and the referendum. Next, I will offer a potential solution to these institutional problems using aspects of the theory of deliberative democracy, a theory often marshaled to undermine direct democracy. …

Reflections On Bush V. Gore: The Role Of The United States Supreme Court, David Boies

Florida A & M University Law Review

No abstract provided.

From Laredo To Fort Worth: Race, Politics And The Texas Redistricting Case, Ellen D. Katz

Articles

LULAC v. Perry held that Texas violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act when it displaced nearly 100,000 Latino residents from a congressional district in Laredo to protect the Republican incumbent they refused to support. At the same time, the Justices let stand the dismantling of a so-called “coalition” district in Fort Worth where African-American voters comprising a minority of the district’s population allegedly enjoyed effective control in deciding the district’s representative. Only Justice Kennedy supported the outcome in both Laredo and Fort Worth. His opinion marks the first time that he, or indeed a majority of the Justices, …

A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing: Gaffney And The Improper Role Of Politics In The Districting Process, Robert A. Koch

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The Supreme Court unanimously agrees that excessive partisan gerrymandering is unconstitutional. A plurality of the Court, however, would hold partisan gerrymandering claims to be nonjusticiable due to the lack of a judicially manageable standard. This Note synthesizes the opinions of a majority of the Court in Vieth v. Jubelirer on the precise harms of partisan gerrymandering and argues that excessive partisan gerrymandering unconstitutionally burdens the representational rights of individual voters. This Note proposes a judicially manageable standard to address that representational harm based on the Court's standard in Shaw v. Reno.

Preparing For 2006: A Constitutional Argument For Closing The 527 Soft Money Loophole, Jeffrey P. Geiger

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Regulating Section 527 Organizations, Gregg D. Polsky, Guy-Uriel E. Charles

Scholarly Works

In this Essay, we consider whether the Federal Election Commission (FEC) has the authority to regulate independent 527 organizations (e.g., Swiftboat Veterans for Truth, Moveon.org, etc.) as political committees under the Federal Election Campaign Act. This issue, which was hotly debated during the last election cycle when it was considered and ultimately tabled by the FEC, is an extremely complex one that requires a deep understanding of election, tax, administrative, and constitutional law. After considering how these areas of law intersect, we conclude that the FEC lacks the authority to regulate independent 527 organizations as political committees.