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Fifth Annual Election Law Symposium at William & Mary

Election Law Society · March 23, 2012 ·

The Election Law Society and the Election Law Program at William & Mary Law School announce the Fifth Annual Election Law Symposium to take place on Thursday, March 29. Featuring prominent state supreme court judges, political consultants, and scholars, the symposium centers on the topic “Money in Judicial Elections,” and evaluates the changing dynamics of state judicial elections in the post-Citizens United landscape. The event, which is free and open to the public, begins at 3:15PM and will be held in Room 124.

Panelists scheduled to participate include the Hon. Brent Benjamin, Justice on the West Virginia Supreme Court since 2005; James Bopp, Jr., General Counsel for the James Madison Center for Free Speech, former speech writer for presidential candidate Mitt Romney, and chief architect of the controversial Supreme Court case Citizens United, as well as more than 60 election-related cases; the Hon. Thomas Phillips, retired Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Texas, current partner of the law firm Baker Botts, past President of the Conference of Chief Justices, and a member of the Carter-Baker Commission on Federal Election Reform; Bradley Smith, former Chairman of the Federal Election Commission, the Josiah H. Blackmore/Shirley M. Nault Professor of Law at Capital University Law School, and the Chairman of the Center for Competitive Politics; the Hon. Marsha Ternus, retired Chief Justice of the Iowa Supreme Court whose term expired after seventeen years of service after voters failed to retain her in the controversial 2010 retention election; and the Hon. Penny White, retired Tennessee Supreme Court Justice, and current Director of the Center for Advocacy and Dispute Resolution at the University of Tennessee College of Law. Lyle Denniston, renowned legal journalist and blogger who has reported on the Supreme Court of the United States for more than fifty years, will serve as moderator. He currently writes for the SCOTUSblog, which provides coverage and analysis of the Supreme Court. Denniston has also written for the Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and The American Lawyer.

“In the last decade, the massive influx of contributions by large donors, especially special interest groups, has changed the face of state judicial elections,” explained Election Law Society Co-President Anisa Somani ’13. “Our symposium draws together a panel of experts to discuss whether this radical evolution in judicial election expenditures should be regulated and whether money actually corrupts judicial independence,” noted Election Law Society Co-President Vladislava Soshkina ’13.

This annual event is possible with generous assistance from the William & Mary Institute of Bill of Rights Law and the National Center for State Courts.

Created in 2005 as a joint venture of the National Center for State Courts and the Law School, the Election Law Program seeks to provide practical assistance to state court judges in the United States who are called upon to resolve difficult election law disputes (see Program materials available at www.electionlawissues.org). The Election Law Society is the student organization created to generate interest in and educate students about this rapidly expanding and extremely important area of practice.

by Christina Sumpio

Montana Supreme Court leading the charge against Citizens United

Election Law Society · March 21, 2012 ·

by Patrick Genova

Last month the Supreme Court issued a stay on Montana’s Supreme Court decision upholding corporate spending limits in state elections. It seems that the Court may be ready to reexamine Citizens United. What they’ll find is what many states have been saying all along: Citizens United is out of sync with the values of many states.

Montana was the first of many states to express disdain for unlimited corporate funding. Early last week 55 towns in Vermont passed resolutions proposing a constitutional amendment that would limit the rights of corporations. The Alabama legislature has also been seeking to stop PAC-to-PAC fund transfers that mask donors. Even some members of the Court seem eager to reexamine the effects of Citizens United. In response to the Montana decision, Justice Ginsburg referred to Justice Kennedy’s language in Citizens United decision saying, “Montana’s experience, and experience elsewhere since this court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission make it exceedingly difficult to maintain that independent expenditures by corporations ‘do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.’” Meanwhile some panelists at the Federal Election Commission’s hearing last week urged the FEC not to wait for the Supreme Court to reverse Citizens United and to take regulatory action into their own hands. [Read more…] about Montana Supreme Court leading the charge against Citizens United

Two Wisconsin Voter ID Cases Demonstrate the Need for the Right to Vote in the U.S. Constitution

Election Law Society · March 19, 2012 ·

by Guest Contributor Elise Helgesen of FairVote

On March 6th, the Wisconsin Circuit Court in Milwaukee Branch of the NAACP v. Walker, granted a temporary injunction preventing the state from enforcing a voter ID law in the upcoming primary election. Then, on March 13, a second Circuit Court judge struck down the same voter ID law in League of Women Voters v. Walker. The courts proceeded with similar, yet differentiated, analyses of the law in finding that Act 23, Wisconsin’s 2011 voter ID law, was unconstitutional based on the Wisconsin Constitution’s affirmative right to vote – a right unfortunately not found in the U.S. Constitution.

The holdings of these two cases are important in looking to other states’ voter ID laws. For courts to hold that the right to vote is fundamental, the right to vote must be stated unequivocally in each states’ constitution, and it must be explicitly protected from legislation trying to abridge that right. FairVote supports an amendment creating an affirmative right to vote in the U.S. Constitution. If the right to vote were incorporated not only into every state constitution, but also into the U.S. Constitution, governments would have to prove that such forms of voter ID laws are necessary to a compelling state interest. To justify restrictive voter ID laws that unduly burden qualified voters’ constitutional right to take cast their ballots the legislature would need to put forth a more narrowly tailored regulation – one which did not effectively disenfranchise eligible voters.

Both courts were clear that Act 23 was unlawful; however, both were also clear that voter ID laws could be upheld under different circumstances. The court in League of Women Voters v. Walker stated that, “this court does not hold that photo ID requirements under all circumstances and in all forms are unconstitutional per se. Rather, the holding is simply that the disqualification of qualified electors from casting votes in any election where they do not timely produce photo ID’s satisfying Act 23’s requirements violates Article III, Sections 1 and 2 the Wisconsin Constitution.” Likewise, NAACP v. Walker distinguished Act 23 from other voter ID laws because Act 23 was overly restrictive and did not allow for alternative means of proving identification or of casting a provisional ballot. [Read more…] about Two Wisconsin Voter ID Cases Demonstrate the Need for the Right to Vote in the U.S. Constitution

Update: Nordstrom out, ELEC in, Lyon still unelected (for now)

Election Law Society · March 14, 2012 ·

by Kevin Elliker

Charles Dudley Warner wrote, “Politics make strange bedfellows.” When a candidate who violated campaign finance laws is joined in a lawsuit by the agency in charge of enforcing against such violations, politics must be involved.

In November, I wrote about the debacle in the Republican primary election for freeholder in Morris County, New Jersey. At that time, a Superior Court judge overturned 23-year-old Hank Lyon’s 6-vote victory over incumbent Margaret Nordstrom in the June primary election. Judge Weisenbeck found that Lyon violated New Jersey campaign finance laws when he failed to submit certain donations and expenditures to the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC), and voided the primary election in favor of a party convention to choose the nominee. The convention selected Nordstrom, who went on to victory in the November general election before Lyon’s appeal could be heard.

Just prior to the election, the Appellate Division granted ELEC permission to intervene as a respondent to the lawsuit. (Non-lawyers: this means the court allowed ELEC to join the pre-existing lawsuit as a party that can claim an interest in the case which will not undermine the original suit). ELEC argued that Judge Weisenbeck overstepped his jurisdiction and that the agency should resolve election disputes such as this. [Read more…] about Update: Nordstrom out, ELEC in, Lyon still unelected (for now)

How city and county councils are handling redistricting in the first state

Election Law Society · March 8, 2012 ·

by Colleen Nichols

Hurricane Irene was not the only thing to shake up Delaware this year. The 2010 Census has sent County and City Councils scrambling to create redistricting plans that reflect the changes in their districts’ populations and comply with regulations. According to Antonio Prado, Staff Writer for the Dover Post, the Dover Election Board sent a redistricting plan to the Dover City Council that complies with a 1988 consent decree that requires “a minority district with at least 65 percent black voters 18 years old and older.”

This consent decree settled a lawsuit between the NAACP and the city of Dover, in which “the NAACP successfully argued that Dover’s at-large system of council elections was detrimental to the equal representation of the city’s minority voters.” [Read more…] about How city and county councils are handling redistricting in the first state