Reforming Campaign Finance Reform: The Future Of Public Financing,
2018
Columbia Law School
Reforming Campaign Finance Reform: The Future Of Public Financing, Richard Briffault
Faculty Scholarship
In his Seventh Annual Message to Congress on December 3, 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt proposed what he acknowledged was a “very radical measure”: public funding of election campaigns. Roosevelt had previously urged a federal campaign disclosure law and restrictions on corporate contributions, and Congress had adopted a corporate contribution ban earlier that year. But Roosevelt warned that disclosure and contribution limits alone would not be enough to truly reform campaign finance. “[L]aws of this kind,” that is, regulations of private campaign money, “from their very nature are difficult of enforcement,” Roosevelt observed. They posed the “danger” they would be “obeyed …
Patch By Patch: North Carolina's Crazy Quilt Of Campaign Finance Regulations,
2018
Campbell University School of Law
Patch By Patch: North Carolina's Crazy Quilt Of Campaign Finance Regulations, Anna V. Stearns
Campbell Law Review
After more than a decade of judicial intervention and legislative reforms, North Carolina's campaign finance laws resemble a crazy quilt - a patchwork of provisions pieced together from remnants and scraps. The law is a dizzying array of proscriptions, requirements, and exceptions, sometimes based on speaker identity and sometimes based on the content or context of the political message. This quilt is what remained after the Fourth Circuit's strained and confusing decision in North Carolina Right to Life, Inc. v. Leake, decided in 2008, immediately following the Supreme Court's landmark decision in McConnell v. FEC. This Comment evaluates and summarizes …
Judicial Intervention As Judicial Restraint,
2018
Duke Law School
Judicial Intervention As Judicial Restraint, Guy-Uriel Charles, Luis E. Fuentes-Rohwer
Faculty Scholarship
This paper examines the Court's decision in Gil v. Whitford. It advances two claims. First, it provides a comprehensive account of the Court's skepticism of judicial supervision of democratic politics, an account that we call the narrative of nonintervention. It situates Gill within that account and argues that the Court's reluctance to intervene is a function of the Court's institutional calculus that it ought to protect its legitimacy and institutional capital when it engages in what look like political fights. Second, the paper provides an instrumentalist account for judicial intervention. It argues that the Court should intervene to prevent partisan …
Incarcerated And Unrepresented: Prison-Based Gerrymandering And Why Evenwel’S Approval Of “Total Population” As A Population Base Shouldn’T Include Incarcerated Populations,
2017
William & Mary Law School
Incarcerated And Unrepresented: Prison-Based Gerrymandering And Why Evenwel’S Approval Of “Total Population” As A Population Base Shouldn’T Include Incarcerated Populations, Emily J. Heltzel
William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal
No abstract provided.
Gerrymandering And The Constitutional Norm Against Government Partisanship,
2017
Emory University School of Law
Gerrymandering And The Constitutional Norm Against Government Partisanship, Michael S. Kang
Michigan Law Review
This Article challenges the basic premise in the law of gerrymandering that partisanship is a constitutional government purpose at all. The central problem, Justice Scalia once explained in Vieth v. Jubilerer, is that partisan gerrymandering becomes unconstitutional only when it “has gone too far,” giving rise to the intractable inquiry into “how much is too much.” But the premise that partisanship is an ordinary and lawful purpose, articulated confidently as settled law and widely understood as such, is largely wrong as constitutional doctrine. The Article surveys constitutional law to demonstrate the vitality of an important, if implicit norm against …
Introduction: The Effects Of Selection Method On Public Officials,
2017
University at Buffalo School of Law
Introduction: The Effects Of Selection Method On Public Officials, Clayton J. Masterman
Journal Articles
No abstract provided.
Judging Law In Election Cases,
2017
Vanderbilt University Law School
Judging Law In Election Cases, Michael S. Kang, Joanna M. Shepherd
Vanderbilt Law Review
How much does law matter in election cases where the partisan stakes are high? At first glance, election cases may seem the worst context for studying the influence of law on judicial decision making. Election cases, which decide the applicable rules for a given election, often determine election outcomes and therefore feature the highest political stakes in the balance. There is great temptation for judges to decide these cases in a partisan fashion to help their side. And we have found empirically in earlier work that judges do often appear influenced by partisanship in deciding these cases for their own …
Judicial Reform As A Tug Of War: How Ideological Differences Between Politicians And The Bar Explain Attempts At Judicial Reform,
2017
Vanderbilt University Law School
Judicial Reform As A Tug Of War: How Ideological Differences Between Politicians And The Bar Explain Attempts At Judicial Reform, Adam Bonica, Maya Sen
Vanderbilt Law Review
What predicts attempts at judicial reform? We develop a broad, generalizable framework that both explains and predicts attempts at judicial reform. Specifically, we explore the political tug of war created by the polarization between the bar and political actors, in tandem with existing judicial selection mechanisms. The more liberal the bar and the more conservative political actors, the greater the incentive political actors will have to introduce ideology into judicial selection. (And, vice versa, the more conservative the bar and the more liberal political actors, the greater incentive political actors will have to introduce ideology into judicial selection.) Understanding this …
Howell V. Mcauliffe,
2017
University of Richmond School of Law
Howell V. Mcauliffe, L. Michael Berman
University of Richmond Law Review
No abstract provided.
The Last Frontier Of Disenfranchisement: A Fundamental Right For Individuals With Cognitive Disabilities,
2017
William & Mary Law School
The Last Frontier Of Disenfranchisement: A Fundamental Right For Individuals With Cognitive Disabilities, Hillary May
William & Mary Law Review
No abstract provided.
The Ideological Consequences Of Selection: A Nationwide Study Of The Methods Of Selecting Judges,
2017
Vanderbilt University Law School
The Ideological Consequences Of Selection: A Nationwide Study Of The Methods Of Selecting Judges, Brian T. Fitzpatrick
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
One topic that has gone largely unexplored in the long debate over how best to select judges is whether there are any ideological consequences to employing one selection method versus another. The goal of this study is to assess whether certain methods of selection have resulted in judiciaries that skew to the left or right compared with the public at large in those states. In particular, I examine the ideological preferences of state appellate judges in all 50 states over a 20-year period (1990-2010) as measured by their relative affiliation with the Republican or Democratic Party through campaign contributions, voter …
The Road To A Constitutional Convention: Reforming The New York State Unified Court System And Expanding Access To Civil Justice,
2017
Latham & Watkins LLP
The Road To A Constitutional Convention: Reforming The New York State Unified Court System And Expanding Access To Civil Justice, Jonathan Lippman
Pace Law Review
This article will focus on the judiciary reforms and access to justice—starting with reforms to the structure of the Unified Court System and discussing other ways that a constitutional convention might serve to improve the operation of the courts. The article will then explore the state’s deficiency in providing its low-income citizens access to justice in civil matters relating to housing, family safety and security, and subsistence income, and how a convention can highlight these issues.
Unusual “Politics As Usual”: The 2017 Ballot Proposition Calling For A Constitutional Convention In New York,
2017
Canisius College
Unusual “Politics As Usual”: The 2017 Ballot Proposition Calling For A Constitutional Convention In New York, Peter J. Galie
Pace Law Review
The first task of constitutional reformers is to make the people of the state aware that they live under a constitution that, for better or worse, affects their everyday lives whether they live on in remotes sections of the Adirondacks routes in villages or a teeming megalopolis. Until this is done, the people are not likely to demand or even accept the more thoroughgoing revision so badly needed in New York.
The Amending Clause In The New York Constitution And Conventionphobia,
2017
Benjamin Center at SUNY New Paltz
The Amending Clause In The New York Constitution And Conventionphobia, Gerald Benjamin
Pace Law Review
The amending clause is the nineteenth of the New York State Constitution’s twenty articles. Followed only by the enacting clause, for all intents and purposes this is the document’s final word. Well, maybe not the final word. An alternative is to think of this amending clause as a part of an ongoing several-centuries-long conversation. The clause is a message from one past group of designers and drafters of New York’s governing system, the 1846 Constitutional Convention majority, to all of us who gave them the charge to “secure [for us] the blessings of freedom,” that is to “we the people” …
Singapore’S First Reserved Presidential Election: More Haste, Less Speed, And A Missed Opportunity?,
2017
Singapore Management University
Singapore’S First Reserved Presidential Election: More Haste, Less Speed, And A Missed Opportunity?, Tan K. B. Eugene
Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law
After much hype and anticipation that preceded it, Singapore’s sixth presidential election in September 2017 quickly reached an anti-climatic end when the Presidential Elections Committee in pre-qualifying three presidential hopefuls determined that only one person, Madam Halimah Yacob, was eligible to contest.
Redistricting Reform In Wisconsin To Curtail Gerrymandering: The Wisconsin Impartial Citizens Redistricting Commission,
2017
Marquette University Law School
Redistricting Reform In Wisconsin To Curtail Gerrymandering: The Wisconsin Impartial Citizens Redistricting Commission, Joseph W. Bukowski
Marquette Law Review
After an extremely partisan gerrymander in 2011, Wisconsin needs redistricting reform in order to eliminate partisan politics from the process. Now more than ever, momentum for change has reached its peak: the Wisconsin legislative maps as drawn in 2011 were ruled unconstitutional in Whitford v. Gill; the Supreme Court has recently ruled in favor of states implementing independent redistricting commissions; and nearly half of the states in the United States are beginning to use independent commissions for redistricting. This Comment proposes a unique approach for Wisconsin to adopt in order to curtail gerrymandering: the Wisconsin Impartial Citizens Redistricting Commission (WICRC). …
Section 6: Election Law Panel,
2017
William & Mary Law School
Section 6: Election Law Panel, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School
Supreme Court Preview
No abstract provided.
The Inaugural Abraham Lincoln Lecture On Constitutional Law: Electoral College Reform, Lincoln-Style,
2017
Northwestern Pritzker School of Law
The Inaugural Abraham Lincoln Lecture On Constitutional Law: Electoral College Reform, Lincoln-Style, Akhil Reed Amar
Northwestern University Law Review
This Inaugural Abraham Lincoln Lecture was delivered at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law on April 6, 2017.
How To Unlock The Voting Block: Oregon’S Sweeping Solution To Poor Voter Turnout: Automatic Registration,
2017
University of Miami Law School
How To Unlock The Voting Block: Oregon’S Sweeping Solution To Poor Voter Turnout: Automatic Registration, Gavin Rynard
University of Miami International and Comparative Law Review
No abstract provided.
The Faithless Elector And 2016: Constitutional Uncertainty After The Election Of Donald Trump,
2017
University of Missouri School of Law
The Faithless Elector And 2016: Constitutional Uncertainty After The Election Of Donald Trump, Alexander Gouzoules
Faculty Publications
Presidential electors are generally expected to vote for the candidate who won their state's election, and those who do not are referred to as "faithless electors." A majority of states have laws of varying types that bind their electors to vote for the winning presidential candidate. The 2016 election, for the first time in modern history, produced a serious movement urging electors to cast faithless votes against Donald Trump. Although this movement was not successful, 2016 saw the most faithless electors in recent history by a large margin. Three separate, ultimately unsuccessful, lawsuits were filed by would-be faithless electors in …
