Law and Politics Commons^™

The Supreme Court And The Politics Of Death, Stephen F. Smith

Journal Articles

This article explores the evolving role of the U.S. Supreme Court in the politics of death. By constitutionalizing the death penalty in the 1970s, the Supreme Court unintentionally set into motion political forces that have seriously undermined the Court's vision of a death penalty that is fairly administered and imposed only on the worst offenders. With the death penalty established as a highly salient political issue, politicians - legislators, prosecutors, and governors - have strong institutional incentives to make death sentences easier to achieve and carry out. The result of this vicious cycle is not only more executions, but less …

Grasping Smoke: Enforcing The Ban On Political Activity By Charities, Lloyd Histoshi Mayer

Journal Articles

The rule that charities are not allowed to intervene in political campaigns has now been in place for over fifty years. Despite uncertainty about the exact reasons for Congress' enactment of it, skepticism by some about its validity for both constitutional and public policy reasons, and continued confusion about its exact parameters, this rule has survived virtually unchanged for all of those years. Yet while overall noncompliance with the income tax laws has drawn significant scholarly attention, few scholars have focused on violations of this prohibition and the IRS' attempts to enforce it.
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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 …

The Federal Constitutional Court: Guardian Of German Democracy, Donald P. Kommers

Journal Articles

Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court rivals the Supreme Court of the United States in protecting political democracy. Its jurisprudence of democracy has shaped the course and character of German politics while upholding the rule of law and defending the constitutionally prescribed “free democratic basic order.” In furtherance of these objectives, the Constitutional Court has invalidated regulations limiting the rights of minor parties and constitutionalizing measures designed to stabilize Germany’s system of parliamentary government. These purposes have been served by constitutional decisions on voting rights, public funding of election campaigns, dissolution of Parliament, and proportional representation, including the limiting 5 percent clause. …

Caesar, Succession, And The Chastisement Of Rulers, Patrick Martin, John M. Finnis

Journal Articles

Julius Caesar's reign as dictator and praefectus morum for life ended with his assassination in 44 B.C. It was preceded by over four hundred years of consular rule, a system of executive government by two consuls, elected for a one-year term. Consular government began in 509 B.C., ending the hundred-year rule of the Tarquin kings. Three works printed in 1594 recalled for English readers the overthrow of the Tarquins and the establishing of consular government. One was dedicated to the Earl of Essex. Another, by William Shakespeare, was dedicated to Essex's close companion, the Earl of Southampton. The third work …

Religious Claims And The Dynamics Of Argument, M. Cathleen Kaveny

Journal Articles

This Article investigates the questions whether and when religious claims may enter into public debate about important political issues by considering the purposes of argument in the public square. These purposes include: (1) argument as self-disclosure; (2) argument as persuasion; and (3) argument as bulwark against engagement with the ideas of others. The Article argues that restrictions on the use of religious claims in public deliberations and discussion impede the legitimate functions of public argument as self-disclosing and persuasive activities. In contrast, such restrictions contribute to the use of argument as bulwark, which is arguably destructive to public deliberation in …

The Recusal Alternative To Campaign Finance Legislation, John Copeland Nagle

Journal Articles

Typical campaign finance proposals focus on limiting the amount of money that can be contributed to candidates and the amount of money that candidates can spend. This article suggests an alternative proposal that places no restrictions on contributions or spending, but rather targets the corrupting influence of contributions. Under the proposals, legislators would be required to recuse themselves from voting on issues directly affecting contributors. I contend that this proposal would prevent corruption and the appearance of corruption while remedying the first amendment objections to the regulation of money in campaigns.

Ingos As Political Actors, Makau Mutua

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Transitional Justice In Eastern Germany, Donald P. Kommers

Journal Articles

On October 3, 1990, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) ceased to exist. On that celebrated day of German unity, the GDR incorporated itself into the legal and political system of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). Economic and social union had taken place a few months earlier.' After 40 years, a people who had become accustomed to central planning, full employment, and state ownership of almost everything suddenly found themselves compacted into a profit-driven market economy rooted in private ownership. Equally swift was the legal revolution, for Unity Day witnessed the toppling of the GDR's judicial system, along with its …

Book Review, G. Marcus Cole

Journal Articles

G. Marcus Cole provides a thorough review of Towards a Post-Apartheid Future: Political & Economic Relations in Southern Africa by Gavin Maasdorp & Alan Whiteside (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992).

Probing Bork's Judicial Philosophy, Gerard V. Bradley

Journal Articles

Robert Bork: The Tempting of America. (New York: The Free Press, 1989. Pp. xiv, 432. $22.50.)

In the last third of The Tempting of America Robert Bork relives the painful ordeal of his lost nomination to the Supreme Court. Any sentient American then alive already knows that story: the campaign against him was full of half-truths, distortions, and just plain lies. Bork adds some confirming anecdotes, and I congratulate him for telling the tale candidly but without rancor. The loss is ours. In my opinion, Bork would have been among the two or three greatest justices of the last …

Review Essay: Liberalism And The Supreme Court, Donald P. Kommers

Journal Articles

In Liberalism and American Constitutional Law, Rogers M. Smith of Yale University takes stock of the American liberal tradition and its impact on the Supreme Court's constitutional jurisprudence. It argues that the tradition's political vision lacks philosophical coherence and that our constitutional law, by reflecting this incoherence, has failed to provide the legal community with a public philosophy suited to the needs of American society in the late twentieth century.His goal is to demonstrate the superiority of "rational liberty," both as a philosophical theory and practical guide to constitutional policymaking, over three major competing versions of liberal constitutionalism. To wit: …

Law And The Experience Of Politics In Late Eighteenth-Century North Carolina: North Carolina Considers The Constitution, Walter F. Pratt

Journal Articles

In 1788, delegates assembled in North Carolina to decide whether to ratify the Constitution. A debate erupted between Federalists and Anti-federalists regarding each Article of the then-drafted Constitution. This Article analyzes the debate, and proposes that the key difference was the function of the role of the law.

Conclusion: The Mobilizing Potential Of Class Actions, Lynn Mather

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Continuity And Change In American Constitutional Development And Public Policy: 1964-1976, Donald P. Kommers, Kevin C. Gallagher

Journal Articles

From the Introduction:

"This report adheres as much as possible to the form and structure of the first two surveys. Thus, we begin this report with an overview of recent presidential elections and a discussion of the American electoral process. The article then moves on to a treatment of changes in federal-state relations, government organization, the distribution of power among the branches and levels of government, and constitutional law as judicially defined. Unlike the previous reports, however, we have devoted nearly half of this survey to recent public policy in the area of civil rights. This extensive treatment of civil …

The Political Impact Of Constitutional Courts, Donald P. Kommers

Journal Articles

Introduction to the symposium issue.

Some Determinants Of The Method Of Case Disposition: Decision-Making By Public Defenders In Los Angeles, Lynn M. Mather

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Politics And Jurisprudence In West Germany: State Financing Of Political Parties, Donald P. Kommers

Journal Articles

The relationship between political parties and representative government has been an important consideration in the constitutional jurisprudence of the Federal Republic of Germany. The Federal Constitutional Court has gone further than any other constitutional tribunal in the West to promote a free and competitive party system, and the Court’s decisions affecting the status of parties under the Basic Law, especially those having to do with party finance, are a marvelous illustration of the interplay between politics and law. The Federal Constitutional Court’s decision in 1966 to invalidate a federal plan for subsidizing political parties is a good example of the …

The Supreme Court, Politics, And Modern Society, Donald P. Kommers

Journal Articles

Donald P. Kommers reviews Charles S. Hyneman's The Supreme Court on Trial (New York: Atherton Press, 1963).