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Jan 18, 2008 -- Legal Center Weekly Report: January 18, 2008
Meredith McGehee, Campaign Legal Center's Media Policy Director addressed the Women's National Democratic Club (WNDC) on Wednesday afternoon to discuss the status of state and federal election reforms and their importance in regard to the November elections.
McGehee and other panelists addressed the WNDC's Election Reform Task Force concerning the current efforts being undertaken by the reform community. The meeting's agenda touched on issues such as creating a paper trail for state voting machines, voter caging and voter ID laws. A primary focus was the increasingly important role of money in the upcoming presidential election. Other panelists present were Sean Greene from ElectionLine.org, Michelle Mulder, Assistant to Representative Rush Holt, and Ed Davis of Common Cause.
Coalition Commends Rep. Eshoo for Sponsoring H.R. 4882
The Campaign Legal Center, and a coalition of reform groups, sent a letter to Rep. Eshoo (D-CA) this week thanking her for introducing The Broadcast Licensing in the Public Interest Act, which seeks to redefine broadcasters' public interest obligations.
The letter praised Eshoo for recognizing that broadcasters do not fulfill their most basic pledge to serve the American viewers with adequate public service programming, particularly as it relates to civic and electoral affairs. The Federal Communications Commission has also failed American television viewers by not holding broadcasters accountable for their commitment to fulfill these basic obligations. The coalition commends Representative Eshoo for believing that Congress needs to step up and play a larger role in ensuring that American viewers are well served by broadcast licensees and that our nation receives fair compensation for allowing broadcasters free use of the publicly owned airwaves.
A similar letter was also sent to Representative Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) thanking her for co-sponsorship of the bill.
This Wednesday, the Supreme Court decided New York State Board of Elections v. Lopez Torres, upholding New York's statutorily-mandated system of nominating candidates for the elective office of trial court justice by party convention. The opinion reversed the decision of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, which had found that this system violated the constitutional rights of party members and judicial candidates because it was designed to ensure that political party leaders - not the voters - controlled the outcome of judicial nominations.
The Supreme Court held that the First Amendment does not require the state to establish a party primary system wherein individual party members or insurgent candidates have a "fair chance of prevailing in their parties' candidate-selection process" or a "realistic chance to secure their party's nomination." It further stated that the question of what would constitute a "fair shot" at a party nomination, in any event, would not be not a "manageable constitutional question" for the Court.
The Legal Center, along with law professor Dan Ortiz, filed an amici brief on behalf of itself, political scientists Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein, and the Reform Institute, supporting the respondents in Lopez Torres and urging the Court to affirm the decision of the Second Circuit.
Legal Center Blog Highlights
Each week, the Campaign Legal Center staff posts blog entries on its site, www.clcblog.org. Click to read this week's entries: "Bad-Mouthing Aside, Ethics Law Is a Step Forward," and "Making Sense of Lopez Torres" or to sign up for the blog, click here.
To read a variety of this week's editorials and articles on a variety of Campaign Legal Center issues, please click here. |
