The 527 Problem ... and the \u3cem\u3eBuckley\u3c/em\u3e Problem

In the world of campaign finance, 2004 was without a doubt the year of the 527 organization. No other aspect of campaign financing received as much press coverage or public attention as the rise of the 527s. Expenditures by 527s – named after the section of the Internal Revenue Code under which they are organized – active in federal elections amounted to at least $405 million, accounting for more than one-tenth of total federal election spending and perhaps twenty to twenty-five percent of spending in the presidential campaign. Federal Election Commission ( FEC ) Chairman Scott E. Thomas recently observed that [there is little doubt that 527 organizations … had a major impact on the 2004 federal elections, and Representative Mike Pence has called the 2004 election the [s]ummer of 527s.” Indeed, probably the most famous political communication of the past year was the anti-Kerry advertisement sponsored by the Swift Boat Veterans and POWs for Truth ( Swift Boat ), a 527 organization. Of course, celebrity is not the same thing as popularity. The rise of the 527s drew extensive critical commentary, with many observers contending that contributions to and expenditures by 527s were little more than evasions of the recently enacted Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 ( BCRA ) and re-creations of the soft money problem that BCRA was supposed to have eliminated. Indeed, in the aftermath of the controversy surrounding the Swift Boat ad in late August 2004, President Bush denounced 527s (although not the content of the Swift Boat ad itself) and called for their elimination

\u3ci\u3eBush v. Gore\u3c/i\u3e as an Equal Protection Case

In Bush v. Gore, the United States Supreme Court applied the Equal Protection Clause to the mechanics of state election administration. The Court invalidated the manual recount of the so-called undervote – that is, ballots that vote-counting machinery had found contained no indication of a vote for President – which the Florida Supreme Court had ordered to determine the winner of Florida\u27s vote for presidential electors in the 2000 presidential election. The United States Supreme Court reasoned that the principles it had previously articulated in applying the Equal Protection Clause to the vote were violated by the Florida court\u27s failure to assure consistency between and within Florida\u27s counties in the determination of whether particular undervote ballots constitute legally valid votes. The Court correctly determined that the Equal Protection Clause applies to the state and local procedures affecting the casting and counting of ballots but was, for the most part, wrong to find that the Florida Supreme Court\u27s order denied Florida voters equal protection. In particular, the inconsistencies in counting undervotes, which the Florida court\u27s order appeared to tolerate and which so disturbed the United States Supreme Court, did not constitute an equal protection violation. Equal protection ought to apply to the nitty-gritty of local election practices because those practices can have the effect of disenfranchising voters and discriminating among identifiable groups of voters. Such practices can negate the right to vote and the right to an equally weighted vote – rights long protected by the Equal Protection Clause. However, with virtually every local administrative decision having the potential to burden some voters relative to others, the application of the Equal Protection Clause to election rules and procedures could effectively federalize an area which has long been the domain of state and local government. Decentralization of election administration reflects important political values, including the opportunities for local participation and decisionmaking concerning contestable political issues, as well as protection from centralized political manipulation and abuse. Decentralization necessarily entails variation in election practices across the different local units charged with administering the procedures for casting and counting ballots. Subjecting all interlocal differences in election rules and procedures to close constitutional scrutiny could eliminate meaningful decentralization of election administration

Smart Growth and American Land Use Law

The smart growth movement that emerged in the late 1990\u27s seeks to change the way Americans think about growth, development, and urban planning. From a legal perspective, smart growth directly challenges several fundamental aspects of American land use law. Substantively, smart growth attacks two goals that have been hallmarks of American land use law for more than three-quarters of a century: (1) decongestion, that is, reducing population density and dispersing residents over wider areas; and (2) the separation of different land uses from each other. Both decongestion and separation of uses were enshrined in the Standard Zoning Enabling Act of 1922, which provides the legal basis for most zoning in the United States. These goals were validated by the Supreme Court as legitimate aims of state and local land use regulation in the landmark Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty decision of 1926. Decongestion of population and separation of land uses have been critical features of American land use law ever since. Smart growth, by contrast, would limit the dispersal of population in order to prevent the loss of open space and reduce the need for the installation of costly infrastructure in newly developed areas. Higher densities would also facilitate the use of mass transit and hold down the energy and environmental costs associated with high levels of automotive transportation. Smart growth also challenges the separation of uses and would instead promote the greater integration of commercial and residential uses and of different types of residential uses. This, too, would reduce transportation costs while promoting more socially and economically balanced communities

Developments in the Law: Section 1983 and Federalism

This Note will examine the enforcement of constitutional rights under section 1983 in light of the enhanced contemporary concern with state autonomy and integrity. In doing so, the goal is not only to suggest the ramifications of the concern with state interests on the 1983 action, but also to give some content to the vague contours of "Our Federalism." Part II examines the history of section 1983 against the background of events and evolving theories of federalism that shaped its development. The succeeding parts deal with product of that development. Part III focuses on the standards governing liability under section 1983 and the availability damages and injunctive relief. Parts IV, V, and VI examine judicially created doctrines which may restrict or foreclose 1983 plaintiff's access to a federal forum: the abstention, exhaustion, and Younger doctrines. Even if it were no longer true as it was when the Civil Rights Act of 1871 was passed and choice of a federal forum for 1983 actions guaranteed that state forums are generally less able or willing to enforce constitutional rights than their federal counterparts, forced resort to state remedies under one of these doctrines would burden or deprive the constitutional plaintiff of an opportunity to decide whether a particular state or federal forum is likely to prove more sympathetic to his claim. Finally, Part VII examines the application of res judicata principles to civil rights decisions in both state and federal courts