Category Archives: Supreme Court

“Unlimited Donations to Candidates, Coming Soon? Former Solicitor General Paul Clement may get the Supreme Court closer to killing what’s left of campaign-finance limits.”

July 26, 2019, 6:17 amcampaign finance, Supreme CourtRick Hasen

I have written this piece for The Atlantic. It begins: During the George W. Bush administration, then–Solicitor General Paul Clement successfully defended the constitutionality of the 2002 McCain-Feingold law, which tightened electioneering and fundraising regulations. Can Clement now get traction… Continue reading

New volume of the Harvard Law & Policy Review is out

July 15, 2019, 11:00 amcampaign finance, ethics investigations, political equality, political parties, redistricting, Supreme CourtJustin Levitt

Chock full of election-law goodies. Among other pieces: Elizabeth Warren, Foreword (on corruption and faith in government)Jeffrey Clements, “But It Will Happen”: A Constitutional Amendment to Secure Political Equality in Election Spending and RepresentationViki Harrison,… Continue reading

The Trump (Second) Cave on the Citizenship Question is a Double Victory for the Rule of Law

July 11, 2019, 3:08 pmcensus litigation, Supreme CourtRick Hasen

President Trump’s Speech this afternoon in which he said that the Administration would give up on efforts to add a citizenship question to the census is a victory for the rule of law. Many people were predicting that Trump would… Continue reading

President Trump Planning Some Kind of “Executive Action” on the Census: What Comes Next? Not Necessarily a Constitutional Crisis

July 11, 2019, 8:37 amcensus litigation, Supreme CourtRick Hasen

I’m seeing a lot of hyperventilating on Twitter and elsewhere about how President Trump is about to start a constitutional crisis through an executive order that would mandate inclusion of the citizenship question on the census. If Trump actually ordered… Continue reading

Derek Muller on Rucho and Partisan Gerrymandering

July 7, 2019, 5:17 pmredistricting, Supreme CourtRick Hasen

Here, at the Public Discourse.

The Evenwel Gambit

July 6, 2019, 10:14 amcensus litigation, Supreme CourtRick Hasen

Joey Fishkin: So that leaves what I’d call the Evenwel Gambit: fess up, selectively, to Real Reason 2. Claim that you want to add the citizenship question to the Census in order to enable the CVAP-based drawing of district… Continue reading

Gaming Out the Census Citizenship Question Endgame: What Comes Next, and How Will Things End?

July 5, 2019, 7:47 amcensus litigation, Supreme CourtRick Hasen

I thought I’d pull together some thoughts on the issue of whether the Trump Administration will try again to add a citizenship question to the census, after sharing some earlier thoughts across this blog, to NPR, and at Slate… Continue reading

Rebecca Green: A Spade is a Spade (Rucho Symposium)

July 5, 2019, 7:00 amredistricting, Supreme CourtRick Hasen

The following is a guest post from Rebecca Green, part of the symposium on Partisan Gerrymandering after Rucho: The Rucho decision is hard to get your head around. Plaintiffs presented two clean cases with clear “smoking guns”: partisan… Continue reading

Moon Duchin: How to Reason from the Universe of Maps (The Normative Logic of Map Sampling) (Rucho symposium)

July 5, 2019, 6:56 amredistricting, Supreme CourtRick Hasen

The following is a guest post from Moon Duchin, part of the symposium on Partisan Gerrymandering after Rucho: Justice Kagan’s dissent in Rucho states in its opening paragraphs: “The majority’s abdication comes just when courts across the country,… Continue reading

Guy Charles and Luis Fuentes-Rohwer: Rucho: Democracy and Banality (Rucho symposium)

July 5, 2019, 6:00 amredistricting, Supreme CourtRick Hasen

The following is a guest post from Guy Charles and Luis Fuentes-Rohwer, part of the symposium on Partisan Gerrymandering after Rucho: One would be hard-pressed to find a more hackneyed Supreme Court opinion than Chief Justice Roberts’s majority… Continue reading

Since Trump Tweet, Justice Department Lawyers Trying to Come Up with New Pretext for Including Citizenship Question on Census; Federalist Society’s Leonard Leo Pushing Trump To Do This Despite Supreme Court Ruling

July 4, 2019, 8:40 pmcensus litigation, Supreme CourtRick Hasen

Washington Post: Trump was furious and thought the Commerce Department and the Justice Department — which has been arguing the case — had given up the fight too easily. He complained about Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.,who he said… Continue reading

Michael Morley: Rucho, Legal Fictions, and the Judicial Models of Voters (Rucho Symposium)

July 4, 2019, 1:00 pmredistricting, Supreme CourtRick Hasen

The following is a guest post from Michael Morley, part of the symposium on Partisan Gerrymandering after Rucho: The Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Rucho v. Common Causepresents competing judicial conceptions of American voters. Justice Kagan’s… Continue reading

Mike Parsons: Rucho’s Antidemocratic Instinct: “This is not law.” (Rucho Symposium)

July 4, 2019, 7:00 amredistricting, Supreme CourtRick Hasen

The following is a guest post from Mike Parsons, part of the symposium on Partisan Gerrymandering after Rucho: In holding that partisan gerrymandering claims are not “resolvable according to legal principles” and are “therefore beyond [federal] courts’ jurisdiction,”… Continue reading

Justin Levitt: The Soft Bigotry of Low Legislative Expectations (Rucho Symposium)

July 4, 2019, 6:00 amredistricting, Supreme CourtRick Hasen

The following is a guest post from Justin Levitt, part of the symposium on Partisan Gerrymandering after Rucho: Last Thursday’s Rucho majority opinion brought many indignities. The shadowboxing with strawmen, in the form of proportionality claims no litigant… Continue reading

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