"Deal in lawsuit reveals donors"

The Sacramento Bee offers this report, which begins: "A legal settlement forced disclosure Wednesday of major contributors to Ward Connerly's 2003 failed ballot initiative to ban state and local government from collecting race-based data. Proposition 54, rejected by voters, was bankrolled largely by six wealthy financiers through donations to Connerly's nonprofit group, the American Civil Rights Coalition (ACRC), records show."

"GOP Targets Spending Limit"

The Washington Post offers this report, which begins: "House Republicans are gearing up to push campaign finance legislation that would scrap post-Watergate restrictions on the total amount of money individuals can donate and parties can spend on candidates." See also this Roll Call report (paid subscription required).

Elmendorf on Electoral Advisory Commissions

Chris Elmendorf has posted Representation Reinforcement through Advisory Commissions: The Case of Election Law on SSRN (forthcoming, NYU Law Review). Here is the abstract:

Abstract:
An increasingly prominent strain of legal commentary warns that the democratic good of robust political competition is endangered by legislators' penchant for enacting, and preserving, statutes that entrench incumbent officials and dominant political parties against challengers. This political entrenchment dynamic is thought to warrant external regulation of the content of election law by a politically insulated constitutional court or regulatory commission. Drawing on recent institutional innovations in Australia, Canada, and England, this Article suggests a different institutional remedy for the entrenchment problem: a permanent advisory commission, authorized to draft bills for the legislature to consider under a closed-rule procedure, or for the citizenry to address by referendum. The approach suggested here provides an answer to the two main criticisms that have been lodged against external regulation in the interest of fair political competition: that such regulation is democratically illegitimate, and that the regulator itself is likely to be captured by political insiders. The standing advisory commission can be expected to do a better job of identifying and pursuing normatively appropriate reforms than would an otherwise similar external regulator. The very tenuousness of the advisory commission's de facto power to reform the law (depending as it does on public opinion) should make the body a more reliable agent of the citizenry's interests and concerns. And in the event that the body falls under the sway of political insiders, it stands to do much less damage than a captured external regulator, thanks to the voters' freedom to ignore it.

I read this piece in draft and recommend it to anyone interested in thinking creatively about election administration reform.

-- 
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