Politics And The Public’S Right To Know,
2014
Notre Dame Law School
Politics And The Public’S Right To Know, Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer
Journal Articles
In the United States it is taken for granted that members of the public should have access to information about their government. This access takes many forms, including the ability to obtain copies of government documents, the ability to attend meetings of government officials, and the related obligations of government officials to document their activities and to reveal certain otherwise private information about themselves. This access also is often limited by countervailing concerns, such as the privacy of individual citizens and national security. Nevertheless, the presumption both at the federal level and in every state is to provide such access. …
Partitioning And Rights: The Supreme Court’S Accidental Jurisprudence Of Democratic Process,
2014
University at Buffalo School of Law
Partitioning And Rights: The Supreme Court’S Accidental Jurisprudence Of Democratic Process, James A. Gardner
Journal Articles
In democracies that allocate to a court responsibility for interpreting and enforcing the constitutional ground rules of democratic politics, the sheer importance of the task would seem to oblige such courts to guide their rulings by developing an account of the nature and prominent features of the constitutional commitment to democracy. The U.S. Supreme Court, however, has from the beginning refused to develop a general account – a theory – of how the U.S. Constitution establishes and structures democratic politics. The Court’s diffidence left a vacuum at the heart of its constitutional jurisprudence of democratic process, and like most vacuums, …
Voting Rights Law And Policy In Transition,
2014
Indiana University Maurer School of Law
Voting Rights Law And Policy In Transition, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer, Guy-Uriel E. Charles
Articles by Maurer Faculty
No abstract provided.
State's Rights, Last Rites, And Voting Rights,
2014
Indiana University Maurer School of Law
State's Rights, Last Rites, And Voting Rights, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer, Guy-Uriel Charles
Articles by Maurer Faculty
There are two ways to read the Supreme Court's decision in Shelby County Alabama v. Holder: as a minimalist decision or as a decision that undermines the basic infrastructure of voting rights policy, law, and jurisprudence. In this Article, we present the case for reading Shelby County as deeply destabilizing. We argue that Shelby County has undermined three assumptions that are foundational to voting rights policy, law, and jurisprudence. First, the Court has generally granted primacy of the federal government over the states. Second, the Court has deferred to Congress particularly where Congress is regulating at the intersection of race …
Citizens United And Social Welfare Organizations: The Tangled Relationships Among Guidance, Compliance, And Enforcement,
2014
University of Miami School of Law
Citizens United And Social Welfare Organizations: The Tangled Relationships Among Guidance, Compliance, And Enforcement, Frances R. Hill
Articles
No abstract provided.
Neoliberal Political Law,
2014
Fordham University School of Law
The Forgotten Law Of Lobbying,
2014
Fordham University School of Law
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 …
Voting Rights Law And Policy In Transition,
2014
Duke Law School
Voting Rights Law And Policy In Transition, Guy-Uriel E. Charles, Luis E. Fuentes-Rohwer
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Corruption Temptation,
2014
Duke Law School
Corruption Temptation, Guy-Uriel Charles
Faculty Scholarship
In response to Professor Lawrence Lessig’s Jorde Lecture, I suggest that corruption is not the proper conceptual vehicle for thinking about the problems that Professor Lessig wants us to think about. I argue that Professor Lessig’s real concern is that, for the vast majority of citizens, wealth presents a significant barrier to political participation in the funding of campaigns. Professor Lessig ought to discuss the wealth problem directly. I conclude with three reasons why the corruption temptation ought to be resisted.
Citizens United, States Divided: An Empirical Analysis Of Independent Political Spending,
2014
University of Colorado Law School
Citizens United, States Divided: An Empirical Analysis Of Independent Political Spending, Douglas M. Spencer, Abby K. Wood
Publications
What effect has Citizens United v. FEC had on independent spending in American politics? Previous attempts to answer this question have focused solely on federal elections, where there is no baseline for comparing changes in spending behavior. We overcome this limitation by examining the effects of Citizens United as a natural experiment on the states. Before Citizens United, about half of the states banned corporate independent expenditures and thus were "treated" by the Supreme Court's decision, which invalidated these state laws. We rely on recently released state-level data to compare spending in "treated" states to spending in the "control" states, …
Swing State Rulings On Restrictive Voting Laws Highlight The Need For Comprehensive Electoral Reform,
2014
University of Colorado Law School
Swing State Rulings On Restrictive Voting Laws Highlight The Need For Comprehensive Electoral Reform, Michael Lavigne
University of Colorado Law Review
The right to elect our leaders has been one of the defining features of America's political system from its very beginning. Throughout the two and a half centuries that the United States has existed, that right to vote has gradually been expanded to previously disenfranchised groups, and strengthened through legislation like the Voting Rights Act, Help America Vote Act, and National Voter Registration Act. However, recent elections-such as Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004-have shown that the right to vote can still be undermined by incompetent or conflicted officials. Additionally, measures whose purpose is ostensibly to prevent voter fraud, …
The Geography Of Racial Stereotyping: Evidence And Implications For Vra ‘Preclearance’ After Shelby County,
2014
University of California, Davis, School of Law
The Geography Of Racial Stereotyping: Evidence And Implications For Vra ‘Preclearance’ After Shelby County, Christopher S. Elmendorf, Douglas M. Spencer
Publications
The Supreme Court in Shelby County v. Holder (2013) effectively enjoined the preclearance regime of the Voting Rights Act. The Court deemed the coverage formula, which determines the jurisdictions subject to preclearance, insufficiently grounded in current conditions. This Article proposes a new, legally defensible approach to coverage based on between-state differences in the proportion of voting age citizens who subscribe to negative stereotypes about racial minorities and who vote accordingly. The new coverage formula could also account for racially polarized voting and minority population size, but, for constitutional reasons, subjective discrimination by voters is the essential criterion. We demonstrate that …
Democratic Capital: A Voting Rights Surge In Washington Could Strengthen The Constitution For Everyone,
2014
American University Washington College of Law
Democratic Capital: A Voting Rights Surge In Washington Could Strengthen The Constitution For Everyone, Jamin B. Raskin
Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals
No abstract provided.
Three Questions For The Right To Vote Amendment,
2014
Columbia Law School
Three Questions For The Right To Vote Amendment, Richard Briffault
Faculty Scholarship
Should the United States Constitution be amended to guarantee the right to vote? To the average citizen – and probably many lawyers – this almost certainly would be taken as an absurd question. Most people probably assume that the right to vote is, at least in principle, already guaranteed by the Constitution even if our practices fall short of our ideals. But, in fact, although the Constitution frequently refers to the “right … to vote” – and the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence has long treated voting as a fundamental right – the right to vote per se is nowhere guaranteed. A …
The Geopolitics Of Election Approval: The Us Response To Honduras And Venezuela,
2013
Western New England University School of Law
The Geopolitics Of Election Approval: The Us Response To Honduras And Venezuela, Lauren Carasik, Susan Scott, Azadeh Shahshahani
Media Presence
No abstract provided.
The Incompatible Treatment Of Majorities In Election Law And Deliberative Democracy,
2013
University at Buffalo School of Law
The Incompatible Treatment Of Majorities In Election Law And Deliberative Democracy, James A. Gardner
Journal Articles
Deliberative democracy offers a distinctive and appealing conception of political life, but is it one that might be called into service to guide actual reform of existing election law? This possibility seems remote because election law and deliberative democracy are built around different priorities and theoretical premises. A foundational area of disagreement lies in the treatment of majorities. Election law is structured, at both the legislative and constitutional levels, so as to privilege majorities and systematically to magnify their power, whereas deliberative democracy aims at privileging minorities (or at least de-privileging majorities). The main purpose of the election law now …
Honduras’ Presidential Election Demands An Investigation,
2013
Western New England University School of Law
Honduras’ Presidential Election Demands An Investigation, Lauren Carasik, Azadeh Shahshahani
Media Presence
No abstract provided.
State Session Freeze Laws—Potential Solution Or Unconstitutional Restriction?,
2013
Seattle University School of Law
State Session Freeze Laws—Potential Solution Or Unconstitutional Restriction?, Dru Swaim
Seattle University Law Review
Since the Citizens United decision in 2010 reduced Congress’s ability to constitutionally regulate money in elections, proponents of campaign finance reform have looked for alternative ways to achieve the goals of greater transparency and reduce the amount of money spent in federal elections. In the three years since Citizens United, the amount of money spent in federal campaigns has increased exponentially. In fact, the total amount of money spent in federal elections has nearly doubled since 2000. Citizens United represents a serious blow to the traditional methods used to restrict the amount of money in politics: limitations on the amounts …
Election Law Pleading,
2013
University of Kentucky College of Law
Election Law Pleading, Joshua A. Douglas
Law Faculty Scholarly Articles
This Article explores how the Supreme Court’s recent pleading decisions in Twombly and Iqbal have impacted election litigation. It explains how Twombly and Iqbal’s “factual plausibility” standard usually does not help in an election case, because there is often little factual dispute regarding the operation of the election practice. Instead, the real question in a motion to dismiss is whether the plaintiff has stated a viable cause of action against the government defendant who is administering the election. But Twombly and Iqbal’s rule does not assist in answering this question. That is, Twombly and Iqbal are incongruent with …
Electoral Competition In Connecticut's State House Races: The Trial Run Of The Citizens' Election Program,
2013
Sacred Heart University
Electoral Competition In Connecticut's State House Races: The Trial Run Of The Citizens' Election Program, Lesley A. Denardis
Political Science & Global Affairs Faculty Publications
The Citizens Election Fund, Connecticut's version of a clean elections law, was established in 2005 in the wake of the corruption scandal during the administration of Governor John Rowland. Modeled after the public financing systems of Maine and Arizona, Connecticut's law has been touted as the most comprehensive in the nation. This paper will address whether the introduction of the Citizens' Election Program has increased the level of electoral competition by specifically focusing on state house seats in Connecticut during the 2008 and 2010 election cycles. Contestation for seats in the Connecticut General Assembly is a particularly salient issue due …
