The Voting Rights Act and the New and Improved Intent Test: Old Wine in New Bottles

Since the Supreme Court injected the issue of intent into the voting rights arena in Mobile v. Bolden,1 there has been a long and persistent struggle to reverse that decision. In 1982, Congress thought it had put the question of the quantum and quality of proof required to establish a violation of section 2 of the Voting Rights Act to rest when Congress amended that section. However, the courts quickly began a rear guard action to undermine congressional efforts to eliminate the intent requirement as an element of a plaintiff\u27s claim. Both the Supreme Court and the circuit courts have played various roles in the effort to re-assert the intent test in, albeit, a “new and improved” form. Despite Congress\u27 best efforts, the intent test is back. The role of scholars and practitioners is to understand the new test and determine how to satisfy this most stringent requirement. In this article, the contours of the new test will be examined and the question of what proof is required to satisfy the test will be explored. Part II will discuss the Mobile decision and congressional efforts to eliminate the intent test from section 2. Part III will explore the several opinions in Thornburg where the question of the intent of Congress when it amended section 2 was discussed. Finally, in Part IV, the circuit court decisions, essentially adopting Justice O\u27Connor\u27s opinion, will be analyzed to determine the contours of the new intent test and the elements of proof required to meet it. This article concludes that the courts “got it wrong” when they reintroduced the intent standard, and that Congress intended to banish intent as a requirement of a plaintiff\u27s case. However, recognizing that practitioners must live with what is, and not what ought to be, the article theorizes that the new test is not as difficult to prove as the old intent test

The voter initiative and the power of the governor: Evidence from campaign expenditures

Accepted ManuscriptAlthough a great deal of research examines the impact of the voter initiative process on the state legislature, the consequences for the state executive branch have been largely ignored. The voter initiative process provides the governor with a method to circumvent the legislature, which may increase the power of the governor in theory. However, it also provides citizens with a means to bypass the traditional lawmaking process and avoid the governor’s veto. This may reduce the power of the governor and lead to policies farther from the preferences of the governor. This study examines the impact of the voter initiative process on the power of the state governor by estimating total election cycle spending. Campaign expenditures are expected to reflect any sustained gain or loss in power due to the availability of the voter initiative process. The results indicate that gubernatorial campaign expenditures are significantly lower in states in which the voter initiative process is available. This finding suggests that state governors sustain a loss in political power when the voter initiative is available. Additionally, the findings imply that individuals may employ the voter initiative process as a substitute for gubernatorial support.Randolph, G.M. (2011). The voter initiative and the power of the governor: Evidence from campaign expenditures. Constitutional Political Economy, 22(3), 265-286

Chisom v. Roemer: Where Do We Go from Here?

In Chisom and Houston Lawyers\u27 Association, the Court declined to address two substantive issues critical for pending and future litigation challenging the at-large election of state judges. The Court expressly stated that it would not decide the elements that must be proved to establish a violation of section 2 or the remedy that would be appropriate for a violation proven in the context of a judicial election. Part II will discuss the Chisom and Houston Lawyers\u27 Association decisions. Analysis of these decisions, combined with a review of the legislative history, supports the Court\u27s view of the amended section 2. In fact, there was no direct or indirect suggestion at any point in the extensive legislative history that Congress intended to exclude judicial elections from the coverage of section 2. Part III will address the liability issue left unanswered by the court. To determine whether the at-large election of judges violates section 2, the courts should apply the standards developed in Thornburg v. Gingles. The Gingles Court concluded that three threshold questions were critical to a challenge of an at-large election system. In order to prevail in a vote dilution case, plaintiffs were required to demonstrate that the minority population was geographically concentrated, politically cohesive, and that racial bloc voting existed in the jurisdiction. Additionally, the courts should utilize the factors identified in the Senate Judiciary Committee\u27s report that accompanied the amendments to section 2. In Part IV, alternatives to at-large election systems will be examined to determine the appropriate remedy where a state\u27s judicial election system violates section 2. Traditionally, the courts have remedied at-large election violations by creating smaller subdistricts where minority group members constitute a majority of the district. The article concludes that the courts should review at-large judicial systems utilizing the same criteria that have been developed in vote dilution challenges to other at-large election systems. Similarly, the remedial measures that have been employed to correct violations of section 2 in challenges to other at-large election systems should be equally applicable in the judicial context

Essays on the effects of the voter initiative in U.S. states

This dissertation is a collection of papers that examines the effects of the voter initiative in U.S. states. Chapter 1 provides a brief introduction to the voter initiative process and outlines the research agenda for this dissertation. Chapter 2 explores the history of the voter initiative in U.S. states and examines the differences in the voter initiative process between states in the U.S. Additionally, this chapter provides a general survey of the literature regarding the effects of the voter initiative on political and economic outcomes. Chapter 3 examines the interest group orientation of total state spending in U.S. states. A measure for the publicness of state spending is calculated in order to examine the interest group influence on state spending in both voter initiative and non-initiative states. The results show that the voter initiative process does not decrease the interest group orientation of state expenditures. Chapter 4 investigates the impact of the voter initiative on total per capita state election cycle spending in state gubernatorial and state legislative elections. The results indicate that the availability of the voter initiative decreases the value of both state legislative and state gubernatorial offices. The impact of the voter initiative appears to have a larger negative effect on the value of state legislative offices in comparison to state gubernatorial offices. Chapter 5 empirically analyzes the impact of the voter initiative on the production of legislation in U.S. states. The amount of legislation enacted by state legislators is estimated in order to examine the effects of the voter initiative. This chapter also explores the impact of the voter initiative on the number of special sessions called in U.S. states. Finally, the effect of the voter initiative on the usage of the governor\u27s veto in U.S. states is examined. The results indicate that voter initiative states enact more legislation, call a greater number of special sessions, and have less gubernatorial vetoes than non-initiative states. Chapter 6 summarizes the major findings in the dissertation, discusses the policy implications, and suggests future areas of research regarding the voter initiative

Final Journals

Poe

My Mom’s Letter

A longtime poet explains how a letter from his mother reminds him that regardless of our language skills and backgrounds, our writing can still bear witness to the values and ethics that guide our lives

The Influence of Short-Term Events on the Hydrographic and Biological Structure of the Southwestern Ross Sea

Relative to the rest of the Southern Ocean, the Ross Sea continental shelf experiences very high productivity and phytoplankton biomass, which supports an extensive food web including high concentrations of upper trophic level biomass. Conventional observational methods, including ship-based sampling, instrumented moorings, satellite imagery, and computer-based modelling, have illustrated the seasonal progression of the phytoplankton bloom over the past four decades. While we have been sampling phytoplankton variability in the Ross Sea on a variety of relatively large scales, with observations at specific locations or times, over spans of time, or at specific depths, our understanding of smaller scales of variability (on the order of a few hours or several kilometers) is still poor. Utilizing two seasons (2010-2011 and 2012-2013) of high-resolution autonomous glider deployments in the southwestern Ross Sea, I examined the mechanisms driving both the transitions between stages of the phytoplankton bloom and the short-term perturbations in average 0-50 m chlorophyll. By including the available raw fluorescence data from both glider seasons and three mooring seasons, I determined that the 2012-2013 season had greater than average variability, with greater levels of variability observed in only two other seasons. Differences in the timing of bloom transitions were relatively constrained; the transition from bloom to post-bloom levels occurred within a temporal span of 6 d. These findings were likely the result of the location of the 2012-2013 glider adjacent to Ross Island and the Ross Ice Shelf, where complex bathymetry, turbulent flows, and the presence of an ice field contributed to the greater observed variability. To investigate the mechanisms driving the short-term perturbations in chlorophyll, I examined the relationships between average chlorophyll, average temperature, and mixed layer depth measured by the gliders and wind speed measured by two automatic weather stations atop the Ross Ice Shelf. Over the course of the 2012-2013 season, perturbations or responses in chlorophyll were heavily influenced by the degree of temporal coupling between wind events and the depth of mixing. Longer delays of 12-24 h observed prior to the biomass maximum shortened following the transition to biomass dissipation to 2-12 h. Furthermore, by causing aggregate formation and rapid vertical flux, physical forcing factors contributed to the observed short-term perturbations through reductions in biomass in surface layers and the appearance of chlorophyll in deeper layers. These results suggest that the small-scale observing capabilities of autonomous gliders allow for an improved understanding of the mechanisms that drive variability and short-term perturbations in shallow chlorophyll in the southwestern Ross Sea

An evolutionary perspective on senescence

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/142776/1/Nesse-EvolSenescence-1987.pd