| Subject: news of the day 4/27/05 |
| From: Rick Hasen |
| Date: 4/27/2005, 7:43 AM |
| To: election-law |
Roll Call offers Loophole
in 527s Shields Donors
(paid subscripton required), which begins: "As Congress debates what to
do about 527 groups, the independent political organizations that spent
almost a half-billion dollars to influence the 2004 elections, an
underlying assumption has been that while the groups raised unregulated
soft money, at least their donor lists were public. But a review of
disclosure forms required by the Internal Revenue Service reveals that
contributors to 527s are able to withhold their names through a
virtually unnoticed loophole. By simply writing “withheld” in the space
where the donor’s name was supposed to go, 527s appear to have an
IRS-sanctioned way around the disclosure requirements. The loophole has
a price, however: a 35 percent penalty that the group must pay for not
following the rules. But for wealthy donors who want to play the
political-influence game anonymously, 35 percent may be a small price
to pay for privacy."
This Sacramento
Bee column discusses redistricting reform and the question of
who benefits from a special election in California.
Don't miss this
post by Dan Tokaji on the "Equal Vote" blog.
Responding to the oped mentioned here, Ned Wigglesworth
writes:
Check out our blog on that supreme court ruling (link to a story) or our blog on the spending by outside groups in the Karmeier/Maag race.
In my Roll Call oped yesterday, I began by noting that "Democrats in the Senate have used the power of the filibuster to block from office the 10 most ideologically extreme of President Bush’s nominees for federal judgeships, while approving a vast majority of his nominees." Juan Non-Volokh rightly points out here that some of the judicial nominations being held up by Democrats are being blocked not because of the particularly ideology of the judges. In the Sixth Circuit, some nominees are being blocked by Democrats because Republicans blocked Clinton nominations to the Circuit.
In addition, some readers have written to me, pointing out that as a percentage of appellate court nominees, it is not fair to say that Democrats have approved a "vast majority of nominees." (UPDATE: See also here.) I believe that looking at just this category (I haven't confirmed this), Democrats have blocked 20% and approved 80% of Bush appellate court nominations.
I don't think either argument changes one bit my main point: "[T]he very usefulness of the Senate is that it is a non-majority institution. If we like the current structure of the Senate for this reason, we should also like the filibuster. The filibuster allows an intense minority to block the will of the majority. Of course, too much blocking has political costs, which is why Democrats have approved the vast majority of Bush’s judicial nominees. And it will be politically hard for Democrats to filibuster a Supreme Court nominee the next time a vacancy arises, unless that nominee is truly outside the mainstream of judicial thinking. But the broader point is that there is a political solution to the filibuster problem. With Republicans keeping the political pressure on, Democrats will have to choose their battles wisely, blocking only the most extreme of nominees. The stronger the Republicans are in the Senate, the fewer nominees that will be blocked."-- Rick Hasen William H. Hannon Distinguished Professor of Law Loyola Law School 919 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