| Subject: [EL] Electionlawblog news and commentary 5/12/11 |
| From: Rick Hasen |
| Date: 5/12/2011, 7:43 AM |
| To: Election Law |
Lloyd
Mayer was voted tenure by Notre Dame Law.
Anthony
Johnstone will start in a tenure track teaching position
at the University of Montana Law School.
And Derek
Muller will start a tenure-track position at Pepperdine.
Congratulations all!
Colbert and Trevor Potters go
at it again. Hilarious! (Scroll to the bottom to watch the
clip.) The dogged Ken
Vogel is looking for the docs at the FEC website, so far
with no luck.
Politico offers this
report on today's
scheduled oral argument in Bluman v. FEC.
Whatever happened to the Austin City Limits?
Timm Herdt has written this
column for the Ventura County Star.
Recount
Commission to Appeal Sec. of State's Ruling.
The Southern Fried Scientist says a
new Florida statute
aimed against bestiality actually bans sexual activity between
humans. The statute bans certain unapproved sex acts involving
"animals," and the scientist notes that humans are animals, ergo
the statute bans unapproved sex acts involving humans. The
assertion is getting
some attention.
The problem with this interpretation is that the statute itself
explicitly distinguishes between "persons" and "animals,"
prohibiting sex acts between the two groups. A court facing a
question of interpreting the statute would almost certainly read
the statute's use of the term "animals" as "non-human animals,"
both to avoid absurdity and to conform with (1) the intent of
the drafters; (2) the purpose of the statute; and (3) a commonly
used (if scientifically inaccurate) understanding of the term
'animal" to exclude humans.
The Florida legislature has done some
stupid things recently, but this is not one of them.
Shades of Bird
v. Holbrook. I hope there was no glass surrounding the
garage.
Public Citizen offers this
report.
See this
Call for Papers for what looks like a very interesting
symposium.
Roll Call offers this
interesting report, which begins: "Over the past decade,
many corporations, unions and other groups spent more money on
in-house teams of lobbyists, shifting away from hiring outside
firms to do their advocacy. As a result, K Street firms’ share
of total lobbying spending has fallen from nearly 60 percent at
the end of 2005 to just more than 42 percent last quarter,
according to a CQ MoneyLine study of lobbying reports."
See the statements of Chair
Bauerly and Vice
Chair Hunter submitted to a House committee.