Today, D.C. District Court Judge John Bates dismissed a facial challenge to the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. The 15th amendment obliges Congress to effectuate its promise that no citizen be denied the right to vote on the basis of race. Section 5 of the
Many fear that lobbyists corrupt our government. For those concerned, a new study by LegiStorm will prove alarming. According to the study, nearly 3,000 registered lobbyists have recent experience on Capitol Hill. As reported by the Washington Post, “Twenty-five powerhouse firms and organizations employ 10
According to the Roberts Court, the only form of “corruption” that the Government has a legitimate interest in seeking to prevent through campaign finance regulation is quid pro quo corruption, i.e. the trading of cash for votes. By limiting the “corruption” interest in this
This morning the Supreme Court decided two campaign finance cases consolidated under Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett. Writing for a narrow but familiar 5-4 majority—which included Justices Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito—Chief Justice John Roberts overruled the Ninth Circuit and struck
In a Guest Commentary piece in the Detroit Free Press, former Supreme Court Justice O'Connor argued against processes in which state judges participate in competitive elections in order to secure spots on the state bench. In her own words: "Proponents of judicial elections argue that this
The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division came under fire during the Bush Administration for stacking attorney positions with conservative lawyers with little civil rights experience. Now, the Civil Rights Division is coming under fire for doing just the opposite – hiring lawyers with civil rights
The National Institute on Money in State Politics published a report this week that breaks down over a quarter-million dollars in campaign contributions received by Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller from the finance, insurance, and real estate industries. The large sum is striking because Miller
Dean of the law school at the University of California, Irvine, Erwin Cherminsky, and associate professor of law at Hofstra, James J. Sample, published an Op Ed piece in the New York Times yesterday arguing that the Supreme Court should limit campaign contributions in judicial
Just weeks after Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin pushed through his plan to cut off the collective bargaining rights of state employees, Wisconsin voters went to the polls to elect a replacement for Governor Walker as the Milwaukee County Executive and a state Supreme Court
The Supreme Court recently heard a pair of challenges to an Arizona law that provides public financing for candidates who agree to forgo private contributions. In a recent NY Times editorial, Harvard Law School Professor Fried argues that while it might appear that the court,