Re: The Jonathan Cohn article: I do not see how one District Court can
issue an injunction when two others have already upheld the
constitutionality of the law -- or why the government would feel any
coercion to obey it in light of those facts? FRANK
Prof. Frank Askin
Distinguished Professor of Law and Director
Constitutional Litigation Clinic
Rutgers Law School/Newark
(973) 353-5687>>> Rick Hasen <hasenr@gmail.com> 2/2/2011 11:40 AM >>>
February 02, 2011 Declaratory Judgments as Implicit Coercion: The Case
of Judge Vinson's Health Care Decision
I always tell my Remedies students (following Laycock's formulation)
that declaratory judgments are implicitly coercive---and that they are
just one step away from an injunction. Jonathan Cohn explains (
http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-cohn/82547/injunction-junction-whether-vinsons-decision-blocks-the-law
) how this logic is playing out in the most recent health care
decision.
Posted by Rick Hasen at 08:37 AM (
http://electionlawblog.org/archives/018675.html )
"Is it Whom You Know or What You Know? An Empirical Assessment of the
Lobbying Process"
Bertrand, Bombardini, and Tebbi have posted this draft (
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1748024 ) on SSRN.
Here is the abstract:
What do lobbyists do? Some believe that lobbyists' main role is to
provide issue-specific information and expertise to congressmen to help
guide the law-making process. Others believe that lobbyists mainly
provide the firms and other special interests they represent with access
to politicians in their "circle of influence" and that this access is
the be-all and end-all of how lobbyists affect the lawmaking process.
This paper combines a descriptive analysis with more targeted testing to
get inside the black box of the lobbying process and inform our
understanding of the relative importance of these two views of
lobbying.
We exploit multiple sources of data covering the period 1999 to 2008,
including: federal lobbying registration from the Senate Office of
Public Records, Federal Election Commission reports, committee and
subcommittee assignments for the 106th to 110th Congresses, and
background information on individual lobbyists.
A pure issue expertise view of lobbying does not fit the data well.
Instead, maintaining connections to politicians appears central to what
lobbyists do. In particular, we find that whom lobbyists are connected
to (through political campaign donations) directly affects what they
work on. More importantly, lobbyists appear to systematically switch
issues as the politicians they were previously connected to switch
committee assignments, hence following people they know rather than
sticking to issues. We also find evidence that lobbyists that have issue
expertise earn a premium, but we uncover that such a premium for
lobbyists that have connections to many politicians and Members of
Congress is considerably larger.
I plan on giving this paper a very close read. One of the issues I've
been pressed on as I have presented Lobbying, Rent Seeking, and the
Constitution (
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1734428 ) at
workshops at Loyola, Irvine, USC, and Northwestern, is whether there's
evidence that limits on lobbyist fundraising and a longer anti-revolving
door period would in fact create a lobbying system more driven by a kind
of information meritocracy than one that trades on personal
relationships and favors. So this could be an important piece to that
claim.
Posted by Rick Hasen at 08:32 AM (
http://electionlawblog.org/archives/018674.html )
"Lobby Dollars Dip for First Time in Years"
Roll Call reports ( http://www.rollcall.com/issues/56_75/-202990-1.html
): "Some of this change may be attributed to a quirk in accounting
practices under which lobbying expenditures are reported, but it is also
indicative of several major players scaling back their Washington
influence spending last year."
Posted by Rick Hasen at 08:26 AM (
http://electionlawblog.org/archives/018673.html )
"CREW Asks IRS to Drop Tax Exemption Of American Future Fund for
Political Activity"
BNA Tax Report offers this report (
http://news.bna.com/dtln/DTLNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=19461489&vname=dtrnot&fn=19461489&jd=a0c6e9q8n3&split=0
).
Posted by Rick Hasen at 08:22 AM (
http://electionlawblog.org/archives/018672.html )
"Emanuel's just one among record number of ballot challenges"
Medill reports (
http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=177547 ).
Posted by Rick Hasen at 08:19 AM (
http://electionlawblog.org/archives/018671.html )
"The Kochs Fight Back"
Politico offers this interesting report (
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0211/48624.html ).
Posted by Rick Hasen at 08:15 AM (
http://electionlawblog.org/archives/018670.html )
Congratulations to Jim Brudney....
Jim has made a lateral move (
http://leiterlawschool.typepad.com/leiter/2011/02/brudney-from-ohio-state-to-fordham.html
) to Fordham. Also, with Jim's permission I can now share the news that
he will be coming on as a co-author of the Eskridge, Frickey and Garrett
legislation casebook. That is great news for people (like me) who use
this excellent casebook. Jim's work is among the most important (yet
accessible) writing on statutory interpretation these days.
Congratulations Jim!
Posted by Rick Hasen at 08:12 AM (
http://electionlawblog.org/archives/018669.html )
"Ethics Committee Names Special Counsel to Aid in Ensign
Investigation"
See here (
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/01/ethics-committee-names-special-counsel-to-aid-in-ensign-investigation/?ref=politics
).
Posted by Rick Hasen at 08:07 AM (
http://electionlawblog.org/archives/018668.html )
"Senate Won't Allow Earmarks in Spending Bills"
This item (
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/01/senate-wont-allow-earmarks-in-spending-bills/?ref=politics
) appears in NYT's "The Caucus" blog.
Posted by Rick Hasen at 08:03 AM (
http://electionlawblog.org/archives/018667.html )
February 01, 2011 "Is a Bigger House a Better House?"
See these letters to the editor (
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/opinion/l31house.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=hastings&st=Search
) at the NYT.
Posted by Rick Hasen at 03:45 PM (
http://electionlawblog.org/archives/018666.html )
"Few Obstacles Face Voter ID in the Legislature"
Must-read (
http://www.texastribune.org/texas-politics/voter-id/few-obstacles-face-voter-id-in-the-legislature/
) from the Texas Tribune.
Posted by Rick Hasen at 11:23 AM (
http://electionlawblog.org/archives/018665.html )