This morning I went to the Reagan library to look at some files I had identified on the finding aid as potentially relevant to Judge Roberts views on election law issues. (As readers of this blog know, there is a great deal of information on Judge Roberts’ views of the Voting Rights Act, from Roberts’ earlier time in the Reagan administration’s attorney general’s office, working on legislation to amend the Act in 1982.)
As with the recently released file on “Texas redistricting,” I did not find anything of interest in files on “campaign finance reform (G. Ferarro)” “D.C. (nonpartisan elections)” or “fundraising.” The campaign finance reform files contained a transcript of an ABC news show in which Sen. Ferraro was questioned about her finances and related FEC reports [Correction: I meant to write House committee reports, and Ferraro was a member of Congress, not a Senator], along with a transcript from a House hearing at which Sen. Ferraro testified. The D.C. file contained Roberts’ response to a suggestion to move D.C. municipal elections to a nonpartisan basis, so as to aid Republicans getting elected in the District. Roberts wrote a memo finding such elections contrary to home rule for D.C., and unlikely to be approved by Congress or the D.C. municipality. The fundraising file concerned various attempts to get President Reagan to donate or participate in fundraisers.
Judge Roberts views on the Voting Rights Act are already on the agenda for civil rights groups to discuss. Without any paper trail on campaign finance, the issue might not be brought up at the hearings. But that would be a mistake. As I have explained, Justice O’Connor was the swing vote upholding most of the McCain-Feingold law, and I would be quite surprised if a Justice Roberts were as willing as Justice O’Connor to vote to uphold as many of the kinds of regulations as she voted to uphold. A Washington Post editorial mentioned this issue early on (see here), but I have read little about it in the press since then.