See MoveOn Goes Mainstream, which begins: “Once regarded warily by much of the Democratic establishment, the liberal grass-roots group MoveOn.org is being increasingly courted by Democratic officeholders for its 3 million members

Dan Tokaji offers this insightful post at the Ohio State election law website. A snippet: In their present form, the ID bills presently on the table are likely unconstitutional. The Supreme Court has long held that election practices discriminating against… Continue reading

Following up on this post, Bob Bauer reacts here to that portion of CFI’s report recommending contribution limits for 527s. I saw that recommendation in the summary and it struck me as curious in a report on public financing… Continue reading

Pardon this test.

The Eleventh Circuit, sitting en banc, has decided Johnson v. Governor of Florida. The en banc court held that Florida’s felon disenfranchisement law violated neither the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment nor Section 2 of the Voting… Continue reading

The Campaign Finance Institute has issued this report. From the press release: With George W. Bush, John Kerry and Howard Dean rejecting public financing for their 2004 presidential primary campaigns, any serious candidate in 2008 will have to… Continue reading

Just posted on SSRN: Aghion, Philippe, Alesina, Alberto F. and Trebbi, Francesco, “Choosing Electoral Rules: Theory and Evidence from US Cities” (March 2005). Harvard Institute of Economic Research Discussion Paper No. 2065. Here is the abstract: This paper studies the… Continue reading

Is legislative compromise still possible? See here.

A.P. offers this report from New Jersey.… Continue reading

Brett G. Kappel offers this analysis, which begins: “The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB) has proposed amendments to Rule G-37 that would effectively require financial services companies to isolate their municipal securities operations from all company political activities. The… Continue reading

The Los Angeles Times offers this very interesting news analysis, with the subhead: “Measures often implode, and the governor is learning hard lessons on how to control them.”

Bob Bauer disagrees with my position, as set forth in this Findlaw article. I must admit to being disappointed by Bob’s position, because I’ve always thought that those who strongly oppose contribution and expenditure limits in campaigns should be… Continue reading

Additional dissenting opinions issued today in the Vermont expenditure limits case, Landell. The opinions are interesting in their own right. See for example, this tidbit from Judge Jacobs’ dissenting opinion: One arresting irony of this case is that the present… Continue reading

See here (scroll to Friday, April 8, 2005). On Kaus’s second point, what makes the burden too great? If you know you are a paid campaign consultant, then make sure that appears on your website each time you blog about… Continue reading