Election Law and the Roberts Court

September 29-30, 2006

In September of 2006, the Ohio State Law Journal (OSLJ) and Election Law @ Moritz (EL@M) co-sponsored a symposium on “Election Law and the Roberts Court.” The topics addressed at the symposium and recorded in the participants’ contributions included the future of Bush v. Gore, campaign finance, redistricting, and many other important election law issues.  The focus was on the potential changes in the Court’s philosophical approach to the “law of democracy” with the recent additions of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito to the bench.

Contributors also discussed the application of jurisprudential themes—like potential tensions between “original intent” and “stare decisis”—as they apply to particular topics of election law, including the future of Bush v. Gore and “Equal Protection” constraints on the vote-counting process. Symposium participants have written articles, some of which are published in Volume 68, Issues 3 (found here) and the others are available in Volume 68, Issue 4 of the Ohio State Law Journal (found here).

The following contributions to the Election Law Symposium have been published and are available in Issue 3 of Volume 68.

  • Edward Foley, The Ohio State University, Election Law and the Roberts Court: An Introduction
  • Pam Karlan, Stanford University, New Beginnings and Dead Ends in the Law of Democracy
  • Michael Solimine, University of Cincinnati, Institutional Process, Agenda Setting, and the Development of Election Law on the Supreme Court
  • Richard Briffault, Columbia University, WRTL and Randall: The Roberts Court and the Unsettling of Campaign Finance Law
  • Rick Hasen, Loyola Law School of Los Angeles, The Newer Incoherence: Competition, Social Science, and Balancing in Campaign Finance Law After Randall v. Sorrell
  • Brad Smith, Capital University, The John Roberts Salvage Company: After McConnell, a New Court Looks to Repair the Constitution

Contributions from the following authors have been published and are available in Issue 4 of Volume 68.

  • Edward Foley, The Ohio State University, The Future of Bush v. Gore
  • Dan Lowenstein, University of California at Los Angeles, The Meaning of Bush v. Gore
  • Edward Foley, The Ohio State University, Refining the Bush v. Gore Taxonomy
  • John Fortier, American Enterprise Institute, Foley on the Future of Bush v. Gore
  • Daniel Tokaji, The Ohio State University, Leave It to the Lower Courts: On Judicial Intervention in Election Administration
  • Michael Kang, Emory University, When Courts Won’t Make Law: Partisan Gerrymandering and a Structural Approach to the Law of Democracy
  • Samuel Issacharoff and Jonathan Nagler, New York University, Protected from Politics: Diminishing Margins of Electoral Competition in U.S. Congressional Elections
  • Richard Pildes, New York University, The Decline of Legally Mandated Minority Representation
  • Ellen Katz, University of Michigan, Reviving the Right to Vote
  • Guy-Uriel Charles, University of Minnesota, Race, Redistricting, and Representation
  • Heather Gerken, Yale University, Rashomon and the Roberts Court