| Subject: news of the day 1/27/04 |
| From: Rick Hasen |
| Date: 1/27/2004, 5:54 AM |
| To: election-law |
Roll Call offers Let Each
State Decide How to Fill Vacancies, Address Incapacitation by Sen.
John Cornyn. (Paid subscription required.)
George Skelton offers this
Los Angeles Times column.
See this
campaign finance disclosure news from Florida.
I have posted A
Critical Guide to Bush v. Gore Scholarship (forthcoming in
the Annual Review of Political Science) on SSRN. Here is the
abstract:
I have also posted the abstract for The
Surprisingly Easy Case for Disclosure of Contributions and Expenditures
Funding Sham Issue Advocacy (forthcoming in the Election Law Journal's
special symposium issue on McConnell v. Federal Election Commission).
Here is the abstract:
McConnell unfortunately left open many other important questions concerning conflicts between two earlier key Supreme Court cases discussing disclosure, Buckley v. Valeo and McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission. Even after McConnell, the constitutionality of disclosure rules in three important areas remains unclear: (1) To what extent may the government compel disclosure of a speaker's identity in face-to-face election-related communications or compel disclosure of the funder of communications on the face of election-related advertisements? (2) To what extent may the government compel disclosure of expenditures by those using modest resources? (3) To what extent may the government compel disclosure of contributions and expenditures in ballot measure campaigns? Answers to these questions will await cases post-McConnell.
See No Match: Super Bowl Meets BCRA; NRSC Hits $26 Million in '03; 527s Snub Ney, Threat of Subpoenas; and Problems Plague New Election Commissioners.
Paid registration required to view the articles.
Roll Call offers this report (paid registration required), which begins: "Long-awaited Internal Revenue Service guidance intended to define the boundaries of political activity by nonprofit groups in an election year may open a new loophole that would allow millions of dollars in unregulated money to fund television and print ads in heavily contested battleground electoral contests, several well-respected tax attorneys are warning."
The ruling itself is here.-- 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 http://electionlawblog.org