| Subject: news of the day 7/5/05 |
| From: Rick Hasen |
| Date: 7/5/2005, 7:44 AM |
| To: election-law |
Responding to my
recent commentary for the New Republic Online, "Rock the
Vote: O'Connor and Election Law," Bob Bauer writes:
"For those who are troubled by the Court’s power, and even more by the
manner in which, in recent years, it has been willing to exercise it,
an 'inscrutable opinion' is hardly more than a judicial decree. The
acceptability of decision-by-decree will depend entirely on whether we
are happy with the outcome of the particular case—with where the
Justice’s sense of Justice happened to take her."
Tony Mauro offers this
analysis at the First Amendment Center.
The Dallas Morning News offers this
report, which begins: "Amid recent polls showing Arnold
Schwarzenegger's star power dropping from the top of California's
political marquee, the governor's push to redraw congressional and
legislative district lines mid-decade isn't looking like this summer's
Republican blockbuster."
See this
report from Arizona, which begins: "Gov. Janet Napolitano could
block efforts by two top state officials to finally implement the voter
identification provisions of Proposition 200."
Ann Althouse reviews
Richard Davis, "ELECTING JUSTICE: Fixing the Supreme Court Nomination
Process," in the NY Times Book Review. The review begins: "WHEN
a president announces a new Supreme Court nominee, he may say he has
selected the best person for the job, but nobody really believes him.
The nominees present themselves as sober, worthy expositors of legal
principle, but their supporters resort to press-friendly life stories
of struggles through poverty and oppression, and opponents and
proponents alike grandstand on the same kind of hot-button issues --
notably abortion -- that they use to grab the public's attention in
political campaigns. In his new book, ''Electing Justice,'' Richard
Davis, a professor of political science at Brigham Young University,
argues that the process of selecting Supreme Court justices, originally
intended as an elite interplay between the president and the Senate,
has become so politicized that we ought to cast off the remnants of
elitism and simply hold elections for justices. "
The Washington Post offers this
report, which begins: "The effort to fill the Supreme Court seat
being vacated by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has already become a
fundraising magnet for both left and right that promises to rival the
2004 presidential campaign for the rate of cash flow, if not total
dollars raised."
The San Diego Union-Tribune offers this
report, which begins: "Rep. Randy 'Duke' Cunningham made roughly a
$400,000 profit by selling the boat he lived aboard in the nation's
capital from 1997 to 2002 to a businessman convicted in a bid-rigging
scheme. The man said he subsequently got advice from Cunningham about
how to pursue a presidential pardon from the Bush administration."
-- 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