Maybe it is because I just finished writing a history of Buckley v. Valeo, or maybe it is because I want to have mercy on confused law students taking election law, but I am adamantly opposed to some locution used by Jim Bopp today in the Doe v. Reed oral argument. Bopp was making a legitimate point about the Supreme Court’s 1999 case, Buckley v. American Constitutional Law Foundation:

JUSTICE SCALIA: Mr. Bopp, do you have any case in which we have held that the First Amendment applies to activity that consists of the process of legislation, of legislating or of adopting legislation?
MR. BOPP: Yes, Buckley II.
JUSTICE SCALIA: What is that?
MR. BOPP: Buckley II, you struck down the requirement that the person who is soliciting signatures self-identify.

Through the rest of the argument, the Justices and lawyers referred to the ACLF case as “Buckley II.” But the use of II or III etc. is reserved in every other instance I can think of for situations in which the same case has come before the Court. (Think WRTL I and II, Colorado Republican I and II.) The two Buckley cases are unrelated. It is not the same Buckley party (one was a Senator (now judge); the other a Colorado secretary of state.) The cases do not even involve the same legal issues.
Jim Bopp and I disagree about many things. But on this point, I hope I can persuade him to use ACLF, the locution we use in our election law casebook for the case.