For the past several decades, E. Mark Braden (here) has been one of the leading redistricting lawyers in the country working on the Republican side. He has successfully argued in the redistricting area before the U.S. Supreme Court and has … Continue reading
Richard Pildes
There have always been two ways that areas could be put under the obligation to pre-clear their voting changes. The major way was through the formula set by statute, Section 4, that the Court has now struck down. The second … Continue reading
Justice Kennedy’s pathbreaking opinion mixes structural constitutional principles – federalism – with individual rights principles – equal protection/ due process – into a unique blend that leads to Section 3 of DOMA being unconstitutional. Why this mixed blend? Why not … Continue reading
The National Chamber of Black Commerce. See here. Are there other amici on opposite sides of these cases? … Continue reading
Australia established the secret ballot (initially called in the U.S. “the Australian ballot”) and was one of the first countries to enact universal suffrage. Australia also established mandatory voting nationwide in 1924. While there has been some writing on how … Continue reading
Next time someone asks you why we can’t yet have secure enough electronic voting if we can have ATM machines, send them to this story. … Continue reading
If the Supreme Court holds Section 5 of the VRA unconstitutional by the end of this Term, or cuts back substantially on Section 5’s scope, an outpouring of policy and political energy will undoubtedly burst forth to suggest what kind … Continue reading
A new Washington Post-Pew Research Center Poll, here, on the recent failure of gun legislation, casts broader light on the political polarization that began in the 1980s and has increasingly characterized American democracy ever since. In sorting out the causes … Continue reading
Early voting (EV) is a recent development in American democracy. The 2008 election was the first time EV was used extensively in presidential elections. And in the 2012 election, the courts began to confront for the first time the issue … Continue reading
A couple months ago, the SCOTUS blog ran a Symposium on the constitutional issues concerning Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. In light of today’s Supreme Court decision to address those issues in the Shelby County case, here’s an … Continue reading
The well-known federal district judge, Myron Thompson, recently finished presiding over one of the largest and most important recent trials in which the Department of Justice’s Public Integrity Section sought to convict numerous state legislators and campaign contributors of federal … Continue reading
Her enigmatic, knowing smile comes to mind each time I re-read Chief Justice Roberts’s opinion. How much of his opinion reflects his own purely internal legal analysis, how much his concern for perceptions about the institutional authority and legitimacy of … Continue reading
We will know, of course, in a couple of hours. But in all the commentary on the health-care cases, I do not recall seeing the following possibility explored (though surely someone else must have had this thought). So I wanted … Continue reading
In holding Montana’s ban on corporate electioneering unconstitutional today, the Supreme Court stuck to its guns about Citizens United and put the lie to shallow, but frequently repeated, theories about how much public opinion constrains the Court. According to these … Continue reading
Thomas E. Perez, the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, is speaking today at an academic forum for students and faculty at NYU Law School. I am the host and moderator for … Continue reading
Under the broad heading of Living in a Citizens United World, the NY Times has a longer-than-usual editorial entitled “When Other Voices Are Drowned Out.” The key sentence is this: “But when outside spending is unlimited, and political speech depends … Continue reading
The cert. petition pending before the Supreme Court concerning the criminal conviction of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman raises important issues concerning whether campaign contributions can ever be treated as bribes and, if so, under what circumstances. Rick Hasen has … Continue reading
Several months ago I wrote to argue against the constantly-repeated storyline that cast Citizens United as responsible for the explosion of SuperPacs in this election cycle. Though I have written critically about the Court’s decision, I was also skeptical of … Continue reading
Today’s Supreme Court decision in the Texas redistricting case is largely a win for the State of Texas, for reasons I explained in advance of the decision. But the Court forged a “compromise” solution that was not raised or discussed … Continue reading
1. There’s been speculation that the Court might adopt a “compromise” solution, first floated at oral argument by Justice Kagan, in the Texas cases. If so, my view is that this would be one of those “compromises” that actually gives … Continue reading
One of the historical oddities about today’s debates over corporate money and elections is that the issue maps so directly onto partisan political differences, at least among national political players. As I’ve noted before, the deeper, long-term pattern historically has … Continue reading
Yesterday, the indispensable Supreme Court blog ran a discussion on what we know at this stage about how much the Citizen's United decision is affecting campaign financing. Because I have a somewhat different view on this question than Rick Hasen … Continue reading
The 2011 Supplement to the The Law of Democracy: Legal Structure of the Political Process (3rd ed.), written by Samuel Issacharoff, Pamela Karlan, and Richard Pildes, is now available. Foundation Press has graciously made the Supplement available without charge to … Continue reading
Former Governor Blagojevich’s criminal conviction for trying to sell his power to appoint someone to fill out the rest of the term left on Barack Obama’s Senate seat after Obama had been elected President helps frame this important constitutional question: … Continue reading
Much of the initial reaction to the Edwards indictment from experts in campaign-finance law has been critical or skeptical of the government’s theory. But in my view, the reaction has not been critical enough. Some skeptics think the problem with … Continue reading