"O'Connor and Election Law: Rock the Vote"

I have written this commentary for the New Republic Online (free pass-through link, but registration required). It begins:

No doubt the coming Senate hearings to confirm Sandra Day O'Connor's successor will focus on hot-button issues like affirmative action and abortion. This is understandable, of course, since O'Connor's replacement with a more conservative justice could mark a change in direction for the Court on these topics--two years ago, for instance, she granted a twenty-five year reprieve to affirmative action programs, and a few years before that she was the decisive vote in striking down state bans on partial birth abortion.

But while these issues will grab the headlines, O'Connor's departure from the Court could have equally startling consequences in an area of the law that may not even come up during the Senate hearings: election law. It is possible, even likely, that her resignation will lead to both the deregulation of campaign financing and a serious challenge to major parts of the Voting Rights Act. Such changes would, in turn, mean radical shifts in the way elections are conducted in the United States.

And while O'Connor has sometimes frustrated voting rights activists, she has, more often than not, in recent years been a crucial vote to allow Congress leeway to promote political equality. True, she has sometimes left those of us who study the field scratching our heads as we try to make sense of her inscrutable opinions--and as of now, we will no longer have to wonder whether U.S. election law depends on what Sandra Day O'Connor had for breakfast. But the benefits of certainty could come at a serious price.

-- 
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