Most people who had opinions about traffic on the list sent private messages
(probably not to compound the problem of too much traffic on the list!).
By a large margin (though without unanimity), list members very much liked
the idea that I send a single message of the day with non-urgent news items
(leaving breaking news items and substantive posts to come through immediately).
There was strong sentiment for more substantive discussion on the list (Dan
and I strongly encourage that), and strong sentiment for fewer list posts
about nitty-gritty not particularly substantive election law issues.
If you do post a news item to the list, the strong preference is to send
a link and BRIEF description, rather than sending the entire article.
If you have a comment that is best addressed privately to the poster, send
a private message, not a group message.
As an aside, I hope that list members will feel free to let others know about
new scholarship; I think people are shy to do so (often prefacing the comment
about new scholarship with something like "from the shameless self promotion
department"). If you don't want to do it yourself, send the message to me
and I'll include it in the news of the day.
Of course, anyone who wants to keep up with recent developments as I post
them can log on at any time to my election law blog at:
http://electionlaw.blogspot.com
or at Ed Still's blog at
http://votelaw.blogspot.com
I have lots of things on my blog that aren't particularly germane to the
list (such as debates on judicial confirmations) that I won't be including
in the news of the day. But the posts are there if you want them.
I expect that there will be lots of substantive posts as the BCRA opinion
comes out. As well there should be. This is a moment for discussion, and
no one should take this message as a reason to hold back on substantive discussion.
News of the Day 10/30/03
Besides the BCRA news, here are a few items of interest:
Two interesting articles on The Hill
See FEC may
audit common cause head for breaches and Frost staffer implicated
in 'theft' of map, on the Texas redistricting controversy.
More reports on oral arguments in Georgia v.
Ashcroft A very informative and detailed report on oral argument
appears here on law.com.
The article makes clear the context in which Justice Scalia made his remark
about the future of section 5 (see my earlier
post). See also this
report in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
--
Rick Hasen
Professor of Law and William M. Rains Fellow
Loyola Law School
919 South Albany Street
Los Angeles, CA 90015-1211
(213)736-1466
(213)380-3769 - fax
rick.hasen@lls.edu
http://www.lls.edu/academics/faculty/hasen.html