| Subject: news of the day 5/24/04 |
| From: Rick Hasen |
| Date: 5/24/2004, 7:49 AM |
| To: election-law |
The San Francisco Chronicle offers this
report.
Legal Times offers this report.
Thanks to Steven Sholk for the pointer.
The Boston Globe offers this
report.
The Kerry campaign floated this trial balloon on Friday afternoon.
Given how the reaction is decidedly mixed (does it make Kerry look like
someone who is out to bend the rules even if there is no "controlling
legal authority" on the question? will it affect network coverage of
what is in essence a four-day-long infomercial for the Democratic
Party?), would it not be in Kerry's interest to instead borrow from the
George Bush playbook for "super rangers?" Kerry need not borrow Bush's
bundling strategy, but can simply allow the Democratic Party to push
donors (especially those donors with somewhat larger incomes) to give
to the Democratic Party (in larger amounts than they may give to Kerry
directly by the way). Though Kerry would not have the same direct
control over the money for the five week period after his primary
season ends but Bush's does, the Democrats can (like the unconnected
527s) follow Kerry's lead in advertising. Surely the Democrats can
figure out how to spend their money in ways that help Kerry.
At
the 2003 American Political Science Association annual meeting, Robert
Mutch presented a very interesting paper, Corporations and Elections: A
Century of Debate. The paper for some reason is no longer accessible on
APSA's website, so with Bob's permission I am posting a copy 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