Archives for April 2014

This afternoon, the Harvard Law and Policy Review was privileged to host a panel on voting rights. The panelists (James Blacksher, Heather Smith, Rachel Schneider, and Ronnie Cho) discussed the implications of recent Supreme Court decisions and restrictive voting laws on voter registration and the franchise. Although the panelists discussed the significant setbacks that voting rights have faced in recent years (with one panelist joking that American elections would soon need to be monitored by …

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  HLPR’s Spring 2014 Symposium on Elections in America, held on Saturday, April 5, began with a panel on electoral districting.  Districting is one of the most consequential aspects of elections—often deciding outcomes, ensuring perennial incumbency, and strengthening or weakening the political influence of particular communities—yet it is also one of the least transparent processes in our democracy.  In most states, legislators are free to draw boundaries to preserve their own job …

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  This year’s keynote speaker was Congressman John Sarbanes (D-MD). Congressman Sarbanes is the author of the Government by the People Act (H.R. 20), which would create a new public campaign financing system to give candidates a way to wage campaigns without taking donations from special interests. The congressman spoke about how, because his district is close to DC, he enjoys being “one of the few members who can come back home every night” to hear from his constituents, many of whom …

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  The HLPR Elections in America Symposium, held on April 5, 2014, opened with welcoming remarks by Dean Martha Minow of Harvard Law School. Dean Minow noted the particular timeliness and relevance of the symposium, in light of the recent Supreme Court decision in McCutcheon v. FEC. Reflecting on the problems that plague the American electoral system, she asserted that the continuing viability of elections lies in the hands of this generation. Dean Minow made a call to action, declaring …

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By Tom Watts This morning, the Supreme Court decided McCutcheon v. FEC, which struck down aggregate contribution limits in campaign finance laws (laws that limit the total amount an individual can give to all campaigns put together). This decision continues the trend of striking down campaign finance laws, a trend made famous in Citizens United v. FEC; many are already comparing McCutcheon to Citizens United (such as Salon and the National Journal). Three points are immediately notable about …

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