Proposition 8 and the Mormon Church: A Case Study in Donor Disclosure
Monica Youn · December 2013 81 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 2108 (2013) Disclosure of campaign contributions and other political activities will always involve a tradeoff in which the benefits of disclosure are weighed against its costs to contributors and campaigns. Numerous recent papers have attempted to establish the extent and significance of the costs of... Read More
Separation of Campaign and State
Bradley A. Smith · December 2013 81 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 2038 (2013) In a pair of recent decisions, Davis v. FEC and Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett, the Supreme Court has struck down on First Amendment grounds laws that would have arguably created more, not less speech. The federal statute... Read More
Election Law Pleading
Joshua A. Douglas · December 2013 81 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 1966 (2013) This Article provides the first comprehensive look at pleadings in election law cases after the Supreme Court’s jurisprudential shift for pleading in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly and Ashcroft v. Iqbal. In those cases, the Supreme Court declared that plaintiffs must meet... Read More
Unfinished Business: Protecting Voting Rights in the Twenty-First Century
Gilda R. Daniels · December 2013 81 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 1928 (2013) While minorities have experienced great progress because of the Voting Rights Act, particularly section 5 of the Act, the work to achieve an electoral process free of discrimination remains unfinished. In Shelby County v. Holder, the Supreme Court struck down section 4... Read More
The Year of the Super PAC
Michael S. Kang · December 2013 81 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 1902 (2013) 2012 was the year of the Super PAC. In the first presidential election cycle since their development, Super PACs raised almost one billion dollars and enabled the very wealthy to channel money into campaigning like never before during the post-Watergate era. However,... Read More
The 2012 Voting Wars, Judicial Backstops, and the Resurrection of Bush v. Gore
Richard L. Hasen · December 2013 81 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 1865 (2013) Fights over election administration have become the “new normal” in the United States since the disputed presidential election of 2000, which culminated in the Supreme Court’s controversial decision in Bush v Gore. During the 2012 elections, the “voting wars” which had ensued... Read More
Voting Rules and Constitutional Law
Edward B. Foley · December 2013 81 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 1836 (2013) Anyone concerned that Bush v. Gore may have been unprincipled or at least insufficiently precise in its reasoning should have the same concern about the leading voting law case emanating from the 2012 presidential election, Obama for America v. Husted. That case is just as... Read More
Gender Unbound?
Kareem Crayton · December 2013 81 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 1799 (2013) This Essay engages current research on gender norms and biases and the way they interact in the political sphere with female candidates. Since Hillary Clinton’s campaign for U.S. President in 2008, many scholarly retrospectives have presented various reasons that her candidacy faltered. As... Read More
Political Law
Spencer Overton · December 2013 81 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 1783 (2013) Traditional “election law” or “the law of democracy” concentrated largely on constitutional analysis by judicial actors. That narrow focus, however, distorted scholars’ understanding of the problems confronting democracy and possible solutions. This Foreword proposes that the field should be understood more properly as... Read More
Exclusion Is Not Automatic: Improving the Enforcement of ITC Exclusion Orders Through Notice, a Test for Close Cases, and Civil Penalties
Timothy Q. Li · September 2013 81 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 1755 (2013) The U.S. International Trade Commission (“ITC”) has become increasingly important in the enforcement of intellectual property (“IP”) rights in recent years. Despite the increase in ITC filings, however, very little literature discusses the effectiveness of ITC exclusion orders. This Essay analyzes seventy-... Read More