Penn symposium and webcast begins at 10:30 am EDT
Don't forget about the fabulous Penn Law School symposium beginning at 10:30
am and webcast here. Apparently
the archived version of the symposium will be available at the same link.
Web watchers may send questions to panelists via e-mail here. For more details on the
panels and panelists, see my earlier post here.
New paper on minorities and ballot measures
Zoltan Hanjal, Liz Gerber, and Hugh Louch have posted a Journal of Politics
paper on SSRN entitled: "Minorities and Direct Legislation: Evidence from
California Ballot Proposition Elections." Here is the abstract:
Critics argue that direct legislation (initiatives and referendums) allows
an electoral majority to undermine the interests and rights of racial and
ethnic minorities. We assess this claim by examining outcomes of direct democracy
in California since 1978. Our analysis indicates that critics have overstated
the detrimental effects of direct democracy. Confirming earlier critiques,
we find that racial and ethnic minorities - and in particular Latinos - lose
regularly on a small number of racially targeted propositions. However, these
racially targeted propositions represent less than 5% of all ballot propositions.
When we consider outcomes across all propositions, we find that the majority
of Latino, Asian American, and African American voters were on the winning
side of the vote. This remains true if we confine our analysis to propositions
on which racial and ethnic minorities vote cohesively or to propositions
on issues that racial and ethnic minorities say they care most about.
You can download the paper at
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=30923
Campaign finance ruling limiting labor union contributions See this report
in the Seattle Post Intelligencer. (Thanks to Ed Feigenbaum for the
pointer.)
New articles in The Forum
Berkeley Electronic Press has just published its latest issue of The Forum, an electronic political
science journal. This issue is dedicated to issues surrounding the 2004 elections.
Some form of registration is required to get to the papers.
Texas campaign finance disclosure case One of the arguments that opponents
of campaign finance regulation have been running in the lower courts is that
McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Com'n, 514 U.S. 334, 347 (1995) prohibits most
campaign finance disclosure regulations. In that case, the court held that
an individual could not be compelled to disclose her identity on a flyer opposing
a local ballot measure that she handed out in the course of face to face
communications. I have argued, most explicitly in an article in the UCLA
Law Review, that McIntyre does not prevent the state from requiring
disclosure in mass political speech; in after-filed campaign finance reports;
and in candidate campaigns. Indeed, Buckley v. Valeo upheld disclosure
under precisely those circumstances and the McIntyre court distinguished
Buckley. Nonetheless, some lower courts still hold McIntyre
bars ordinary campaign finance regulations. The latest example is today's
opinion
in Doe v. State of Texas, striking down a Texas requirement requiring
disclosure of the identity of a person sending a mass mailer opposing a candidate
for city council. (The concurring opinion is here and
a dissent is here--link
via How Appealing.) Eventually,
I hope the Supreme Court will take up another one of theses cases to make
clear the scope of McIntyre.
Oral argument in September? The Center for
Responsive Politics posted this report about
the current status of the BCRA litigation. There was one important piece of
new information here, which I had not seen elsewhere: "The parties to the
case are reportedly discussing a proposal that the court hold a special session
in September. However, summer sessions of the court are extremely rare."
--
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