"Senate passes controversial elections bill"

The latest from Florida.

"Citizens United Decision Profoundly Affects Political Landscape"

A must-read report from the Center for Responsive Politics.

Partisanship, Majority-Minority Districts, and the South

Pretty dramatic if correct (slight correction already here).

Quote of the Day

"The Common Cause argument [for recusal of Justices Scalia and Thomas in CU] was thin on its facts, and the Supreme Court denied that either justice had ever participated in any such corporate strategy sessions. Common Cause did, however, succeed in getting its name into a few headlines, from which it had been absent for some years."

Linda Greenhouse, Opinionator Blog (NYT), 'Recuse Me"

"Decision on White's eligibility to be made by June 30"

The latest from Indiana.

"Voting Rights Act: A Fee Generator for Lawyers"

Capitol Weekly reports.

Richie's Rant on Runoffs

Here (not really a rant but I love alliteration).

Videos of the Accountability after CU Event at Brennan Center Now Available

See here.

"Africans get 'warts and all' look at Florida, US elections"

This news story describes the Trans-Saharan Elections Project at the University of Florida.

"The Anti-Messiness Principle of Statutory Interpretation"

Anita Krishnakumar has posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming, Notre Dame Law Review). Here is the abstract:

Many of the Supreme Court's statutory interpretation opinions reflect a jurisprudential aversion to construing statutes in a manner that will prove "messy" for implementing courts to administer. Yet the practice of construing statutes to avoid "messiness" has gone largely unnoticed and unanalyzed in the statutory interpretation literature. This Article seeks to illuminate the Court's use of "anti-messiness" arguments to interpret statutes and to bring theoretical attention to this interpretive principle. The Article begins by defining the concept of anti-messiness and providing a typology of common anti-messiness arguments used by the Supreme Court. It then considers some dangers associated with the Court's use of anti-messiness arguments to reject otherwise plausible statutory constructions. Last, the Article explores how the anti-messiness principle fits within existing theories of jurisprudence and statutory interpretation and discusses how attentiveness to anti-messiness might add greater texture to prominent theories of statutory interpretation.