Law and Politics Commons^™

When Presidential Campaigns End, What Happens To The Leftover Money?, Richard Briffault

Faculty Scholarship

Andrew Yang and Michael Bennet have ended their campaigns for president.

What happens to the money they have raised, but not yet spent?

I teach and write about campaign finance law. There is one clear rule about that money: Candidates can’t use it for personal expenses, like mortgage payments, groceries, clothing purchases or vacations. But there are a lot of other options, both within politics and outside of it.

Election 2020 Sees Record $11 Billion In Campaign Spending, Mostly From A Handful Of Super-Rich Donors, Richard Briffault

Faculty Scholarship

Total spending in the 2020 federal elections is projected to set a new record of almost US$11 billion by November.

When adjusted for inflation, that’s over 50% higher than 2016 election spending. This year’s federal election spending – for the presidency, the Senate and the House of Representatives – is on track to be double what it was in 2008.

The surge in campaign spending is striking. But my research on campaign finance regulation suggests the volume of election spending is not the main problem with the U.S. campaign finance system.

The real challenge for American democracy is where this …

Strengthening The U.S.-Japan Alliance: Pathways For Bridging Law And Policy, Columbia Law School, 2020, Nobuhisa Ishizuka, Masahiro Kurosaki, Matthew C. Waxman

Faculty Scholarship

During the three years leading up to this year ’s 60th anniversary of the signing of the 1960 U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, a series of workshops were held under the joint sponsorship of Columbia Law School’s Center for Japanese Legal Studies and the National Defense Academy of Japan’s Center for Global Security. Bringing together experts in international law and political science primarily from the United States and Japan, the workshops examined how differing approaches to use of force and understandings of individual and collective self-defense in the two countries might adversely affect their alliance.

The workshop participants explored the underlying causes …

Antitrust & Corruption: Overruling Noerr, Tim Wu

Faculty Scholarship

We live in a time when concerns about influence over the American political process by powerful private interests have reached an apogee, both on the left and the right. Among the laws originally intended to fight excessive private influence over republican institutions were the antitrust laws, whose sponsors were concerned not just with monopoly, but also its influence over legislatures and politicians. While no one would claim that the antitrust laws were meant to be comprehensive anti-corruption laws, there can be little question that they were passed with concerns about the political influence of powerful firms and industry cartels.

Since …

Political Wine In A Judicial Bottle: Justice Sotomayor's Surprising Concurrence In Aurelius, Christina D. Ponsa-Kraus

Faculty Scholarship

For seventy years, Puerto Ricans have been bitterly divided over how to decolonize the island, a U.S. territory. Many favor Puerto Rico’s admission into statehood. But many others support a different kind of relationship with the United States: they believe that in 1952, Puerto Rico entered into a “compact” with the United States that transformed it from a territory into a “commonwealth,” and they insist that “commonwealth” status made Puerto Rico a separate sovereign in permanent union with the United States. Statehood supporters argue that there is no compact, nor should there be: it is neither constitutionally possible, nor desirable …

For Coöperation And The Abolition Of Capital, Or, How To Get Beyond Our Extractive Punitive Society And Achieve A Just Society, Bernard E. Harcourt

Faculty Scholarship

In hindsight, the term "capitalism" was always a misnomer, coined paradoxically by its critics in the nineteenth century. The term misleadingly suggests that the existence of capital produces a unique economic system or that capital itself is governed by economic laws. But that's an illusion. In truth, we do not live today in a system in which capital dictates our economic circumstances. Instead, we live under the tyranny of what I would call "tournament dirigisme": a type of state-directed gladiator sport where our political leaders bestow spoils on the wealthy, privileged elite.

We need to displace this tournament dirigisme with …

Speech Inequality After Janus V. Afscme, Charlotte Garden

Faculty Articles

This Article explores the growing divide between the Roberts Court’s treatment of the free speech rights of wealthy individuals and corporations in campaign finance cases as compared to its treatment of the rights of public-sector labor unions and their members. First, it highlights some internal contradictions in the Janus Court’s analysis. Then, it discusses the growing—yet mostly ignored—divergence in the Court’s treatment of corporate and labor speakers with respect to the use of market influence to achieve political influence.The Article has two Parts. In Part I, I explain how the Court reached its decision in Janus before critiquing the decision’s …

The Separation Of Migrant Families At The Border Under The Trump Administration’S Zero-Tolerance Policy: A Critical Analysis Of The Mistreatment Of Immigrant Children Held In U.S. Custody, Dhillon Ramkhelawan

Child and Family Law Journal

This article provides a critical analysis of the Trump Administration’s zero-tolerance policy that separated migrant families at the Southwest United States border from April to June 2018. It will provide a statistical analysis regarding the number of migrant children that were separated from their parents during this time period, and it will describe the poor living conditions that many of these children were subjected to as they waited for their parent’s immigration cases to be decided. Additionally, this article will also critically analyze the United States’ history of mistreating migrant children who started to flee their war-torn countries in Central …

The Clone Wars: The Right To Embryonic Gene Editing Under German Law, Keren Goldberger

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

Germany has the strictest genetic engineering laws in the world and bans virtually all kinds of embryonic gene editing. Since the invention of CRISPR, however, embryonic gene editing is more precise, and the possibilities of curing genetic diseases are more real than ever. This Note will argue for the right to embryonic gene editing through an analysis of German constitutional privacy and right to life jurisprudence. Ultimately, this Note argues for a right to procreate under German law that is backed by the state’s affirmative duty to encourage and protect life. When the technology is available, German Law should not …

Reducing The Governance Gap For Corporate Complicity In International Crimes, Seunghyun Nam

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

With increasing reports of corporations involved in serious human rights abuses that amount to international crimes, there are greater calls for states to hold these corporations accountable. Still, many obstacles and challenges remain when it comes to holding corporations accountable. Complex corporate structures, the extraterritorial dimension of the abuses, competition among states and businesses, lack of institutional capacity on the part of states, and lack of legal coordination among states collectively create an impunity gap. The case studies of the situation in Burma and the Democratic Republic of Congo involving foreign companies aim to illustrate this governance gap. With growing …

International Law Or International Politics? The Guaidó V. Maduro Conundrum At The Inter-American Development Bank, Félix A. Quintero Vollmer

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

No abstract provided.

Think We’Re Powerless Against Hate Speech? The Constitution Provides Plenty Of Room To Address It, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

Collected biweekly contributions to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news site.

Brief Of Professors Of Law, Us V. Bergdahl, Joshua E. Kastenberg, Rachel E. Vanlandingham, Geoffrey S. Corn

Faculty Scholarship

When scrutinizing executive actions for unlawful command influence, this Court must account for a president’s immense power over the military. The extant judicial test for unlawful command influence – a violation of due process in the military setting – is a contextual one, and hence must consider the unique and unparalleled authority of the Commander-In-Chief over the military and individual service-members when the president’s actions are at issue. This executive power should also be evaluated in light of its myriad, and historically important, constitutional and statutory constraints – some predating the birth of the United States – that appropriately continue …

Building A Lifeline: A Proposed Global Platform And Responsibility Sharing Model For The Global Compact On Refugees, Sarnata Reynolds, Juan Pablo Vacatello

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

In 2016, the leaders of 193 governments committed to more equitable and predictable sharing of responsibility for refugees as part of the New York Declaration, to be realized in the Global Compact on Refugees. To encourage debate, this paper presents the first global model to measure the capacity of governments to physically protect and financially support refugees and host communities. The model is based on a new database of indicators covering 193 countries, which assigns a fair share to each country and measures current government contributions to the protection of refugees. The model also proposes a new government-led global platform …

Calif. Supreme Court Right To Strike Down Law Requiring Trump To Release Tax Returns To Get On The Ballot, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

Collected biweekly contributions to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news site.

The Special Norms Thesis: Why Congress's Constitutional Decision-Making Should Be Disciplined By More Than The Usual Norms Of Politics, Mark Rosen

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Regulation And The New Politics Of (Energy) Market Entry, David B. Spence

Notre Dame Law Review

This Article examines the dynamics of nongovernmental organization (NGO) opposition to proposed energy infrastructure in the twenty-first century, specifically the tactics and issue arguments used by NGOs to oppose new energy infrastructure. The analysis is built around a data set comprising information more than four hundred NGOs whose missions include active opposition to one or more of nine different types of energy projects, including various types of fossil fuel infrastructure, renewable energy facilities, and smart grid technology.

Part I of this Article explains the legal context in which NGOs may challenge the approval of new energy projects. Siting regulation typically …

The United States, The International Criminal Court, And The Situation In Afghanistan, Sara L. Ochs

Notre Dame Law Review Reflection

The United States has always had a very complicated and tense relationship with the International Criminal Court (ICC) and with international criminal law generally. Yet, under the Trump administration, the U.S.–ICC relationship has deteriorated to an unprecedented level. Within the last few years, the U.S. government has launched a full-scale attack on the ICC—denouncing its legitimacy, authority, and achievements, blocking investigations, and loudly withdrawing all once-existing support for the court.

These hostilities bubbled over following the November 2017 request by the ICC Chief Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, for the court to open an investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against …

Still Writing At The Master’S Table: Decolonizing Rhetoric In Legal Writing For A “Woke” Legal Academy, 21 The Scholar 255 (2019), Teri A. Mcmurtry-Chubb

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Sb 77 - Protection For Monuments, Evelyn Graham, Timothy J. Graves

Georgia State University Law Review

The Act prohibits persons and entities from destroying, concealing, or relocating any publicly or privately owned monument. Monuments may only be relocated when necessary for construction, expansion, or alteration to a site of equal prominence within the same municipality. Violators of this legislation are subject to treble the amount of the cost to repair or replace such monument, exemplary damages, attorney’s fees, court costs, and being charged with a misdemeanor.