| Subject: [EL] more news 10/19/10 |
| From: Rick Hasen |
| Date: 10/19/2010, 10:52 AM |
| To: Election Law |
In my Slate column on the foreign spending
ban, I predicted that the Supreme Court, if faced with the
issue, would blink and hold the campaign finance law barring
foreign spending on U.S. elections to be constitutional even
though such a ruling would be inconsistent
in important ways from the majority opinion in Citizens
United.
Now the answer may come sooner rather than later. Check out the
complaint
in Bluman v. FEC. And the best part from the point of
view of plaintiffs' challenge: they've asked for a three-judge
court, and if they get it, that means direct appeal to
the Supreme Court (not a petition for cert). As I've explained
in the past, decisions on appeals to the Supreme Court are
decisions on the merits, so this means that a Supreme Court
decision not to hear the case has precedential value. This makes
it more likely that the Court would actually hear the case on
appeal should it be appealed.
USA Today offers this
extensive report and, because it is USA Today, a great
accompanying graphic.
Meredith McGehee has written this
Roll Call oped.
You can now find it here.
One to watch.
Joe Conason has written The
Public Shaming of Anthony Kennedy for Salon, with
the subhead: "He claimed that online technology would make
corporate donations instantly transparent. Now we see how wrong
he was."
I am
no
fan
of Justice Kennedy's opinion in Citizens United. But
Justice Kennedy has opened the door to transparency in campaign
spending. The fault for the lack of disclosure falls to (in this
order): (1) the Republican Commissioners on the FEC, led by Don
McGahn, who have read current disclosure rules in the
least-disclosure-friendly way possible; (2) Republican Senate
moderates, especially Sens. Brown, Collins, and Snowe, who
failed to buck their party and to support a disclosure-only law
that could have at least lessened the transparency problems in
this election, and (3) Senate Democrats, who larded up
the DISCLOSE Act with controversial limits on corporate money in
election in addition to the disclosure rules.
For more views of CU see the half-full
and half-empty
versions.
Sauce for the goose dept: Mark Thiessen's WaPo
oped.
-- 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