Celebrating Great Lawyering

Book review of "Litigating in the Shadow of Death: Defense Attorneys in Capital Cases" by Welsh S. Whit

Why Limits on Contributions to Super PACs Should Survive \u3ci\u3eCitizens United\u3c/i\u3e

Soon after the Supreme Court decided Citizens United v. FEC, the D.C. Circuit held all limits on contributions to super PACs unconstitutional. Its decision in SpeechNow.org v. FEC created a regime in which contributions to candidates are limited but in which contributions to less responsible groups urging votes for these candidates are unbounded. No legislator voted for this system of campaign financing, and the judgment that the Constitution requires it is astonishing. Forty-two years ago, Buckley v. Valeo held that Congress could limit contributions to candidates because these contributions are corrupting or create an appearance of corruption. According to the D.C. Circuit, however, Congress may not prohibit multi-million-dollar contributions to satellite campaigns because these contributions do not create even an appearance of corruption. The D.C. Circuit said that a single sentence of the Citizens United opinion compelled its result. It wrote, “In light of the Court’s holding as a matter of law that independent expenditures do not corrupt or create the appearance of corruption, contributions to groups that make only independent expenditures also cannot corrupt or create the appearance of corruption.” This Article contends that, contrary to the D.C. Circuit’s reasoning, contributions to super PACs can corrupt even when expenditures by these groups do not. Moreover, the statement that the D.C. Circuit took as its premise was dictum, and the Supreme Court did not mean this statement to be taken in the way the D.C. Circuit took it. The Supreme Court’s long-standing distinction between contribution limits and expenditure limits does not rest on the untenable proposition thatcandidates cannot be corrupted by funds paid to and spent on their behalf by others. Rather, Buckley noted five differences between contributions and expenditures. A review of these differences makes clear that contributions to super PACs cannot be distinguished from the contributions to candidates whose limitation the Court upheld. The ultimate question posed by Buckley is whether super PAC contributions create a sufficient appearance of corruption to justify their limitation. This Article reviews the statements of candidates of both parties in the 2016 presidential election, the views of Washington insiders, and public opinion polls. It shows that SpeechNow has sharpened class divisions and helped to tear America apart. The Justice Department did not seek Supreme Court review of the SpeechNow decision. In a statement that belongs on a historic list of wrong predictions, Attorney General Holder explained that the decision would “affect only a small subset of federally regulated contributions.” Although eight years have passed since SpeechNow, the Supreme Court has not decided whether the Constitution guarantees the right to give unlimited funds to super PACs. A final section of this Article describes the efforts of members of Congress and candidates for Congress to bring that question before the Court. The Federal Election Commission is opposing their efforts, offering arguments that, if accepted, would be likely to keep the Court from ever deciding the issue

Des acteurs transnationaux dans le développement latino-américain

Our aim in this article is to identify the major transnational actors and to describe how they have influenced Latin American politics and development from the 1950s to the present. Transnational actors are defined as those collective actors (here non-governmental) whose membership and activities are transnational. Specifically ex-amined are the multinationals, the Catholic Church, international labor confederations, and guerrilla movements. The historical context within which we study these actors has two periods : early import substitution (1954-65) and late import substitution and export substitution (1965 to present). In each period the state pursue s a development strategy with the support of particular class alliances. For each period we describe how the transnational actors contribute to the successes and failures of these strategies. The causal relations are also reciprocal, for the actors evolve and adapt to the changing developmental context. For example, the multinationals shift from raw material extraction to manufacturing while the Church shifts from conservatism to the theology of liberation. The general trends in the activities of transnational actors over the post war period are interpreted with respect to the twin polarities of the development process : opression - liberation, integration - autonomy

Observational constraints for Lithium depletion before the RGB

Precise Li abundances are determined for 54 giant stars mostly evolving across the Hertzsprung gap. We combine these data with rotational velocity and with information related to the deepening of the convective zone of the stars to analyse their link to Li dilution in the referred spectral region. A sudden decline in Li abundance paralleling the one already established in rotation is quite clear. Following similar results for other stellar luminosity classes and spectral regions, there is no linear relation between Li abundance and rotation, in spite of the fact that most of the fast rotators present high Li content. The effects of convection in driving the Li dilution is also quite clear. Stars with high Li content are mostly those with an undeveloped convective zone, whereas stars with a developed convective zone present clear sign of Li dilution.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures. accepted for publicatio

A comparison of the relationship between depression, perceived disability, and physical performance in persons with chronic pain

This study examined the relationships between self‐report of depressive symptoms, perceived disability, and physical performance among 267 persons with chronic pain. Prior research has reported a relationship between depression and disability using self‐report measures. However, self‐report instruments may be prone to biases associated with depression as depressed persons with pain may have an exaggerated negative view of their level of function. In addition, we examined whether the relationship between depression and functional activity was mediated by physiologic effort (as measured by heart rate). The results indicated that self‐report of depressive symptoms (using the Center for Epidemiological Studies‐Depression Scale (CES‐D)) was significantly correlated with self‐report of disability on the Quebec Back Pain Disability Scale (QBPDS) and physical performance on the Progressive Isoinertial Lifting Evaluation (PILE). Regression analyses revealed that depression assessed by the CES‐D significantly contributed to the prediction of QBPDS scores and PILE performance even when controlling for age, gender, site of pain, and pain intensity. The magnitude of the relationships between depression and self‐report and functional activity were similar, suggesting that a self‐report bias associated with depression is not responsible for an observed relationship between depression and disability. Physiologic effort partially mediated the relationship between depression and physical performance. The findings further highlight the importance of depression in the experience of chronic pain.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/90095/1/j.ejpain.2007.11.003.pd

Reply to Rob Smeets’ letter to the editor regarding the article “A comparison of the relationship between depression, perceived disability, and physical performance in persons with chronic pain” (2008)

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/90330/1/j.ejpain.2008.08.007.pd

Distributive Justice, Narcissism, and the Future of the Welfare State: A Tribute to Mario Jacoby (1925–2011)

This article combines disparate ideas from political philosophy, depth psychology, and political economy to understand better the current backlash against globalization. More specifically, this backlash includes attempts to restore the welfare state, to increase social equality, and to resist the negative influence of narcissism. After presenting these three sets of ideas, the conclusion offers a prognosis about the future of welfare state. In the conclusion, the author quotes Mario Jacoby, a Jungian analyst, whose writings bring together these three sets of ideas. In each of the three domains of inquiry there is a pair of alternatives. Equity and equality are alternative principles in the philosophy of distributive justice. Conditional love and unconditional love are alternative modes of mothering in the psychology of narcissism. The neo-liberal state and the welfare state are alternative perspectives on political economy. The author aligns the first member of each of the three pairs of alternatives; likewise with the second member. What new insight does this alignment yield about current controversies over globalization? What psychological issues arise in the choice between a welfare state and a neo-liberal state? The modern state, in psychological terms, conjures up the image of a mother figure. But, in the imagery of the modern state, what kind of mother fig. is this, a nurturing (positive) mother or a devouring (negative) mother? The public policies of the welfare state, emphasizing the principle of equality, correspond to the behavior of a nurturing mother. The neo-liberal state, on the other hand, by implementing public policies consistent with the principle of equity, corresponds to a devouring mother. The essay concludes with some comments on the future of the welfare state