See this
Washington Post editorial, mostly criticizing the Democrats' attempts
to raise soft money post-BCRA.
Thomas Roeser offers this op-ed
in the Chicago Sun-Times.
More on Colorado redistricting See this
A.P. report.
BCRA stay opposition papers due tomorrow So
who will oppose the various requests for a stay, and what will the opposition
papers say? One clear loser under the lower court opinion were groups like
the NRA, who immediately worried about enforcement of the rewritten BCRA
issue advocacy rules against them. This is why the NRA requested a stay.
One clear winner among the plaintiffs was the California Democratic party,
now freer to raise and spend soft money. So we are expecting the California
Democratic Party to argue that a stay of the soft money provisions will deprive
it of its constitutional rights. Republicans have a difficult political
calculation to make regarding whether a stay is better than living under
the BCRA as it was written. It will be interesting to see if they file any
papers at all here. (I expect a number of parties to oppose the requests
of the NRLC and Club for Growth for an injunction preventing enforcement
of the BCRA itself.)
It seems as though the lower court will first have to make a fundamental
decision: should it consider a stay of its entire ruling or should it consider
a stay piecemeal (e.g., stay the issue advocacy ruling but not the soft money
ruling)? If this were a single judge making the decision, I would say any
stay is unlikely here. But the internal politics and overlapping and contradictory
views of the three judges on the panel make any outcome on the stay request
possible.
Reply papers are due on Wednesday.
--
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