| Subject: news of the day 9/20/04 |
| From: Rick Hasen |
| Date: 9/20/2004, 9:28 AM |
| To: election-law@majordomo.lls.edu |
Roll Call offers this
report.
See this
report.
Is this a form of illegal vote buying? The issue is currently being
litigated in California. Relying in part on my article, Vote Buying 88
California Law Review 1323 (2000), the ACLU is arguing before the
district court that the reasons we generally think about for making
vote buying illegal---that it is inegalitiarian, inefficient, or
violates an inalienability norm---do not apply to vote trading between
voters in different states. The ACLU further argues that vote trading
on these websites is unenforceable, and therefore speech activity
protected by the First Amendment under Brown v. Hartledge.
Professor Jamie Raskin, quoted in the linked article, has been
advocating such vote trading since 2000.
See this
report, which initially appeared in the New York Times.
In an opinion dated Saturday but more widely reported today, a federal district court struck down a number of Federal Election Commission rules implementing the McCain-Feingold (Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act/BCRA) law passed by Congress in 2002. I have not had a chance to review the lengthy opinion; Bob Bauer has posted some initial commentary here.
What impact will this ruling have on the rules for the upcoming election? It is not clear that it will have any impact. The judge remanded the case for additional proceedings at the FEC consistent with the opinion. I am not sure when the opinion becomes final, and whether there might be any stay sought of the ruling should the FEC decide to appeal the case to the D.C. Circuit.
I certainly hope that the rules that were in effect at the FEC will continue to be in effect for this election cycle. With just six weeks before the election, it would be chaos for some of the basic fundraising rules to be changed now.
UPDATE: See this A.P. report.-- Professor Rick Hasen Loyola Law School 919 South Albany Street Los Angeles, CA 90015-0019 (213)736-1466 - voice (213)380-3769 - fax rick.hasen@lls.edu http://www.lls.edu/academics/faculty/hasen.html http://electionlawblog.org