"McCain Violates McCain-Feingold?"

Adam Bonin blogs at Daily Kos.

"Dems Want FEC Slam on Linda McMahon"

Let's count how many bad wrestling puns headline writers will get out of this story.

"How Much Does Law Matter? Theory and Evidence from Single Subject Adjudication"

Michael Gilbert has posted this draft on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

Scholars debate whether law or politics motivates judges' decisions. Jurisprudential philosophies and political ideologies correlate, making it difficult to isolate these factors. Using a novel survey technique, I identify the correct legal outcome - under plain language and purposive methods of interpretation - in a large number of cases involving the single subject rule. The rule limits ballot propositions to one "subject," a malleable standard that may invite ideological decision-making. Direct measures of law correlate strongly with judges' votes, suggesting that judges behave objectively in these disputes. Controlling for law, measures of ideology also correlate with judges' votes, suggesting that ideology matters too. The magnitude of the effect of law appears to exceed that of politics. I also find that ideology has the strongest association with judges' votes when propositions are politically salient, when reviewing judges have extreme political views, and when the law is indeterminate.

I read an earlier version of this piece and recommend it highly. John Matsusaka and I discuss it in our forthcoming Election Law Journal piece on the single subject rule. We've also debated Gilbert and Bob Cooter on the rule in relation to their Columbia article on the topic. See also their reply.

"Institutional Causes of California's Budget Problem"

Bruce Cain and Roger Noll have written this article for the California Journal of Politics and Policy (part of a special issue on California's budget quagmire). Here is the abstract:

Since the early 1990s, California has experienced a recurring budget crisis. This article examines the combined budgets of state and local government and the institutions for creating these budgets to ascertain the source of the problem. The state collects more taxes and fees as a percent of income than most other states, but local government has lower revenues in California. Total revenues to all governments as a percentage of income are very near the national average. The state spends less than the average for other states, but local governments spend much more. High local expenditures are financed by revenue transfers from the state that account for about 40 percent of the state's budget. The cause of California's unusual fiscal relationship is decades of initiatives that more severely constrain local revenues than state revenues. The state has responded by creating a system of state-local transfers that allow local governments to face a form of soft budget constraint, leading to excess local spending and lack of clear accountability for the state's recurring fiscal crisis. Because the cause is the cumulative effect of numerous state-wide initiatives, the only plausible cure is initiative reform and revision of numerous initiatives, which most likely can be accomplished only through a state constitutional convention. All other pending reforms are at best palliatives, and many would make the fiscal situation worse.

"More Voting by Mail? First, Consider the Hidden Costs"

Charles Stewart has written this Moritz comment.

"Playing 'Whac-A-Mole' With Campaign Finance Disclosure. But, where's the mallet?"

This item appears at the blog of the Columbia Journalism Review.

"Hidden Money in the 2010 Elections: A Pre-election Primer on Recent and Recently Exploited Avenues for Secretly Funding Elections"

The Sunlight Foundation offers this primer. See also Citizens United: Before, After, What's Next?

"Dark money: Super PACs fueled by $97.5 million that can't be traced to donors"

The Sunlight Foundation blogs.

"Did FEC get too much info. on 'I Want Your Money?'"

Allison Hayward blogs.

"The Revenge of the Moderates"

Mike McDonald and Seth McKee have written this Politico oped.