I had an enjoyable and productive trip to Australia, New Zealand, and Hawaii. I spoke about campaign finance issues in the U.S. elections at the University of New South Wales and at Griffith University (Brisbane). Radio National Breakfast (the equivalent of NPR’s “Morning Edition”) also interviewed me on the topic, and you can hear the interview at this link. I also met New Zealand’s leading election law person, Andrew Geddis, in Queenstown.
Most of the work part of my trip, however, was devoted to a study of Australia’s system of nonpartisan election administration. I’ll be writing about the extent to which the Australian model is transferable to the U.S. later this year. I was fortunate to meet with most of the top experts on Australian election law.
While I was away, there were of course many developments in American election law. The most important developments have to do with the most recent 527 explosion involving an anti-Kerry group. If you peruse the archives of the election law listserv for August here, you can find a lively debate over President Bush’s response to the ads of the “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.” (One of President Bush’s election lawyers, Ben Ginsberg, left the campaign after advising the group.) In the meantime, the Washington Post reports this morning that “Bush Sues to Stop ‘527’ Groups Backing Kerry.”
There were two other significant campaign finance developments in the month of August. First, a three-judge court turned back (at the preliminary injunction stage) an as-applied challenge to BCRA’s electioneering communications provisions. The court’s memorandum reads McConnell in the same way I do as all but excluding the chance of “as applied” challenges. Further appeal in this case is possible. For more coverage, see Marty Lederman’s SCOTUSBlog posts beginning here.
The second important campaign finance case is the Second Circuit’s decision in Landell v. Vermont Public Interest Research Group. In this case, the Court of Appeals held that expenditure limits can be constitutional under the right circumstances. Assuming this case is not reversed en banc, it is hard to imagine the Supreme Court not reviewing this decision, which is in sharp tension with Buckley v. Valeo, though less so, as I’ve explained elsewhere, with the Supreme Court’s more recent McConnell decision.
There were also other election law developments in August, including a great deal of litigation over Ralph Nader’s ballot access efforts. (Richard Winger collects most of the litigation news at his valuable website.)
The California Supreme Court agreed to hear the separate vote challenge to Proposition 60, a measure put on the legislature in an attempt to defeat Proposition 62, which would establish a voter choice open primary in California. (I am a lawyer for the Proposition 62 proponents.)
I’ll try to fill in some details on other election law issues in coming days, and as the election season hits full steam after Labor Day.