"Daniel Weintraub: How Prop. 77 would boost political
competition"
See this
Sacramento Bee column.
"Louisiana Political Storm Brewing"
Roll Call offers this
fascinating report (paid subscription required). So far I have seen
very little talk about how expected shifts in population could make
Louisiana a more solid Republican state, with national implications for
Congress.
The New York Times, Chief Justice Roberts,
and the Vermont Campaign Finance Limits Case
The position of the New York Times editorial board on the
two campaign finance cases the Supreme Court will hear is unsurprising;
the board has been a big supporter of the constitutionality of campaign
finance regulation. But I was struck by this passage in today's
editorial:
[The Vermont case] may be one of the first indications of what kind of
chief justice John Roberts will be. At his confirmation hearings, he
expressed his commitment to "judicial modesty" and his respect for
established precedent. If he is true to those principles, deference to
Vermont's Legislature and respect for Buckley should lead him to resist
any entreaties by Justices Scalia and Thomas to dismantle the campaign
finance law.
The point about deference to the legislature is fine (though I have my
own views on when such deference is appropriate that I've written about
in detail
elsewhere).
But to say that respect for
Buckley v. Valeo should lead the
new Chief to uphold spending limits applied to candidates is
ludicrious. If the judge wishes to respect precedent, he should vote to
strike down the spending limits.
Buckley held that candidate
spending limits are unconstitutional, and it would take a
change in
the law to uphold the Vermont limits. We can debate whether such a
change is warranted; but it is incorrect to view
Buckley the
way the
Times editorial does.
The real argument for respecting established precedent, and the real
test of the new Chief Justice, as I have
written,
will come in the Wisconsin case. Suppose (as I think is a reasonable
assumption) the new Chief believes limits on spending by corporations
and unions in elections violate the First Amendment. Does he vote then
to overrule the 1990
Austin case and the 2003
McConnell
(McCain-Feingold) case to reach this result?
Andrew Young on Carter-Baker
See this
letter to the editor in the New York Times. Meanwhile,
Spencer Overton's Roll Call oped on Carter-Baker is available
without a subscription here.
"Court to revisit campaign-finance debate"
Tony Mauro offers this
analysis for the First Amendment Center.
Interesting Articles in Public Choice on the
Electoral College, Voting Technology and the Elderly, and Problems of
Voting
You can find the table of contents here.
John Bonifaz is Wildly Over-optimistic (at least in
Public) About His Chances of Getting the Supreme Court to Accept the
Constitutionality of Spending Limits
See here.
Justice Kennedy? No chance.
Fuentes-Rohwer on the VRA
Luis Fuentes-Rohwer has posted Staring
Down the Revolution: On Federalism, Congressional Powers, and the
Upcoming Extension of the Voting Rights Act on SSRN. Here is the
abstract:
In enacting the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Congress sought to overcome
decades of neglect and outright refusal to enforce the Fifteenth
Amendment. Well aware of the severe nature of the means chosen to
accomplish this worthy end, Congress put a five year termination date
to its coverage formula under the Act. Yet extensions soon followed, to
the point that these temporary provisions have become for all intents
and purposes permanent features of the American political landscape.
This is a significant development, for these intrusive federal
requirements were initially justified as, inter alia, temporary
measures. We can pretend no longer. And as a result, the Supreme Court
will face what promises to be the stiffest challenge to its federalism
revolution of late. If the federalism revolution means anything, the
Court must strike down a new extension of the Act. But, as this Essay
concludes, the Court will not have the will to overturn one of the
crown jewels of the civil rights movement. This will be a momentous
occasion, for it will offer further proof that the Court knows when to
pick a fight and when to back off.