Law and Politics Commons^™

Public Financing's Last Breaths, Kellen Clemons

Legislation and Policy Brief

After this peculiar and unique election cycle, the public financing laws will have to be redeveloped in order to have any bearing on future elections. Without some change to the rules, candidates will continue to opt out and use the Internet and grassroots initiatives to out-raise one another, to the possible disadvantage of the goals of the public finance system. In essence, this election cycle has seen politics destroy the current public financing system. Through the advisory opinions of the Federal Election Commission and the decisions of the major candidates to opt out of public financing, the role of the …

Public Financing, George Bush, And Barack Obama: Why The Publicly Funded Campaign Does Not Work, And What We Can Do To Fix It, Jordan Acker

Legislation and Policy Brief

Today, there are very different public financing rules for both the general and primary election. In the primary, if a candidate meets the requirements for public funding, the federal government will match up to $250 of an individual’s total contributions to an eligible candidate. In order for this to occur, candidates must adopt strict finance limits. In the general election, if an eligible candidate accepts public funding, he or she must cease fundraising after the conclusion of the primaries, and spend the public funding that the Federal Election Commission (FEC) grants them. This money covers all campaign expenditures, except for …

The Model Rules Of Professional Conduct And Political Campaign Activities, Lauren Gilius

Legislation and Policy Brief

This article will examine whether the American Bar Association’s (“ABA”) Model Rules of Professional Conduct (“Model Rules”) should apply to lawyers in situations where a lawyer-candidate or a lawyer involved in a disingenuous political campaign activity, particularly when the lawyer was not convicted on criminal charges. Though the American Bar Association said that the Model Rules apply to dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation by lawyers, even when acting in a non-professional capacity, the support for applying the Rules in this context is lacking.

This article will first briefly discuss the development of applying the Model Rules to the non-professional conduct, …

Help America Vote Act Enforcement, Tiana Butcher

Legislation and Policy Brief

Although the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) features extensive mandates, its enforcement provisions of are weaker than those found in previous federal election reform laws, including the Voting Rights Act and the National Voter Registration Act. Activists argue this limited enforcement power is a failing of the Act. Congress may have chosen to adopt weak enforcement mechanisms due to political posturing, lack of funding, faulty technology, or lobbying by the states. Regardless of the reason behind this choice, stronger enforcement mechanisms in HAVA would, paradoxically, fail to encourage election reform or deter election reform altogether.

Citizens United And The Threat To The Regulatory State, Tamara R. Piety

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

Although Citizens United has been roundly criticized for its potential effect on elections and its display of judicial immodesty (or "activism"), the effect of the case which may be both most profound and perhaps most pernicious is its effect on the commercial speech doctrine. This is an aspect of the case which has been largely overlooked. Most people seem to be unaware of any connection between election law and the commercial speech doctrine-except, that is, those who have been working long and hard to accomplish the change it foreshadows. They are keenly aware of its implications.

Revolutions In Local Democracy? Neighborhood Councils And Broadening Inclusion In The Local Political Process, Matthew J. Parlow

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Political marginalization of minorities and government corruption are two key factors that have led to the overwhelming decline and decay of America's major cities. Local governments must combat the historical entrenchment of these two evils in order to reverse the trend toward demise. Neighborhood councils may be the best structural changes to local government because they provide more meaningful opportunities for political engagement of minority groups, while also serving as an antidote to systemic corruption in local government. This Essay analyzes the problems plaguing local government in urban cities and explores how neighborhood councils may be able to help address …

Leveraged Etfs: The Trojan Horse Has Passed The Margin-Rule Gates, William M. Humphries

Seattle University Law Review

What do the Great Depression, the Great Recession, and the demise of Lehman Brothers and Bear Sterns all have in common? One word: leverage. The misuse of leverage, in all its forms, contributed greatly to all of these events. Yet even today, common investors can purchase a leveraged exchange-traded fund (leveraged ETF), a complex product that uses leverage to increase returns, without triggering applicable laws designed to regulate the use of leverage. This Comment articulates the basics surrounding the functions and operations of leveraged ETFs and margin rules in order to assess the compatibility of the two. The Comment argues …

Throttling Miranda: Right Wing Ideologues Support The Government Against The Individual, Donald E. Wilkes Jr.

Popular Media

The 1966 Miranda v. Arizona decision is arguably the most important and undeniably the most famous of all U.S. Supreme Court criminal procedure decisions. The noble purpose of this legal landmark is to prevent Americans taken into custody by police on criminal charges from being subjected to improper interrogation practices calculated to compel citizens to incriminate themselves.

Few people realize that since the early 1970s the Supreme Court has been stealthily choking the life out of Miranda. The latest example of this process of slow strangulation occurred a few weeks ago, on June 1, when the Court in Berghuis …

Justifying Subversion: Why Nussbaum Got (The Better Interpretation Of) Butler Wrong, Ori J. Herstein

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

One of the most common critiques directed at deconstructive and poststructuralist theories is that they are amoral – rejecting the validity of the very idea of norms and moral principles as grounds for justifying or criticizing political action and social structures – and that in rejecting the validity of the distinction between what is just and what is unjust, they “collaborate with evil.” By now, an almost canonical example of this common critique is found in Martha Nussbaum’s highly critical essay on the work of Judith Butler, titled The Professor of Parody.3 Here, I focus on Nussbaum’s critique and on …

Free And Fair Elections, Violence And Conflict, Muna Ndulo, Sara Lulo

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Elections are a defining characteristic of democracy, and thus form an integral part of the democratization process. Over the past decade, electoral systems and processes have become a centerpiece of UN peacekeeping missions and post-conflict democratization projects undertaken by intergovernmental organizations and donor agencies such as World Bank and USAID. The emphasis on elections as an element of UN peacekeeping missions is linked to a shift in focus to state rebuilding (or state creation, as was the case in East Timor). Elections thus provide a means for “jump-starting a new, post-conflict political order; for stimulating the development of democratic politics; …

Seeing The State: Transparency As Metaphor, Mark Fenster

UF Law Faculty Publications

When applied as a public administrative norm, the term and concept “transparency” has two intertwined meanings. First, it refers to those constitutional and legislative tools that require the government to disclose information in order to inform the public and create a more accountable, responsive state. Second, it operates as a metaphor that identifies and decries the distance between the public and the state, and that drives and shapes the desire for a more perfect democratic order. Viewed together, these two meanings both demand efforts to impose legal obligations on the state to be “open” and suggest that such efforts are …

Seeking Civilian Control: Rule Of Law, Democracy, And Civil-Military Relations In Zimbabwe, Jeremiah I. Williamson

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Rule of law and democratic reform projects often concern lofty questions of constitutional law. But in many countries desperate for reform, deeply entrenched social and political problems present preconditions to any discussion of constitutional reforms aimed at democracy and the rule of law. Zimbabwe is one such nation, which like many others faces the problem of military intervention into domestic politics. This Note examines structural and historical aspects of Zimbabwe's military problem and utilizes the theory of objective civilian control to demonstrate the plausibility of meaningful reforms. In so doing, this Note provides a demonstrative model for reforming civilmilitary relations …

The Empty Tomb: Post-Critical Legal Hermeneutics, Peter Goodrich

Articles

The article argues that the decline of critical legal studies (CLS) stems not only from external challenges like tenure wars but also from internal weaknesses, particularly an affective incapacity and failure of collective desire. To revitalize CLS, the article proposes a return to its original mission of social transformation, emphasizing the spiritual and ethical dimensions of legal understanding. It draws on hermeneutics and art history to explore how legal symbols and images shape power dynamics, advocating for a deeper engagement with the invisible, non-law forces that guide legal administration.

The Political Dynamics Of Mandatory State Constitutional Convention Referendums: Lessons From The 2000s Regarding Obstacles And Pathways To Their Passage, John J. Dinan

Montana Law Review

State Constitutional Convention Referendums

A Turbulent Debate In The Ocean State, Dylan D. Lynch

Senior Honors Projects

Rhode Island has in many ways become the last battleground in a national state-by-state battle over the legalization of gay marriage. It is the last state in the country to not have a definitive stance on whether or not same-sex marriages should be legal and can be performed within the state’s borders, or should be banned and marriage defined solely as the union of a man and a woman. The state is currently undergoing a substantial swing in public support on gay marriage, moving from just 34% in 2004, to 60% in 2009. This rise in support for legalizing gay …

Improving Federal Judicial Selection, Carl Tobias

University of Richmond Law Review

Part I descriptively analyzes the volume. Part II evaluates the many insights Wittes contributes to readers' appreciation of contemporary federal judicial selection. Part III details numerous recommendations.

The Architecture Of Accountability: A Case Study Of The Warrantless Surveillance Program, Kathleen Clark

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Caution, Bruce Ledewitz

Ledewitz Papers

Published scholarship collected from academic journals, law reviews, newspaper publications & online periodicals

The Fallacy Of Neutrality From Beginning To End: The Battle Between Religious Liberties And Rights Based On Homosexual Conduct, Rena M. Lindevaldsen

Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Bible plainly states that everyone must either "bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ" or continue as "enemies in your mind." Un-Biblical thinking, like un-Bibical actions, leads one on a path away from God. Part II of this Article will briefly introduce a Biblical approach to thinking about contemporary issues and discuss how Christians can unwittingly abandon distinctively Biblical thinking under the guise of neutrality. Part III will present a number of cases that highlight the fallacy of neutrality in the battle between religious liberties and rights based on homosexual conduct. Part IV will contend that …

Eliminating Earmarks: Why The Congressional Line Item Vote Can Succeed Where The Presidential Line Item Veto Failed, Jason Iuliano

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.