The most troubling countermajoritarian difficulty in modern constitutional law is Rule Twenty-Two of the United States Senate. Forty-one Senators, who could represent less than forty-one percent of the population due to the malapportionment of the Senate, can veto most legislation and nominations by refusing to invoke “cloture.” A vote against… Read More »
Professor Rick Hasen’s important new article, The Democracy Canon, identifies an intriguing and, until now, largely unnoticed practice in many state courts: the construing of election statutes with a strong thumb-on-the-scales in favor of easing voters’ access to the polls, candidates’ access to the ballot, and ballots’ eligibility to be counted. … Read More »
In the heat of the 2008 election season—following the new tradition of the 2000 and 2004 elections—candidates, political parties, and others filed new lawsuits practically every day over election law issues. In mid-September 2008, two Ohio controversies garnered national attention. In one case, Republicans filed suit to block first-time Ohio… Read More »
Government increasingly claims the power to control its employees’ expression to protect its own speech, a trend that imperils the public’s interest in transparent government as well as the free speech rights of more than twenty million government workers. In the past, courts interpreted the First Amendment to permit governmental… Read More »
A risk governance paradigm provides the best theoretical framework for understanding both the health care system and health law. By “risk governance,” I mean a set of practices organized around principles of risk allocation, management, and distribution. Largely through the structures of managed care, the discourse of risk and insurance… Read More »