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Monthly Archives:
Tuesday, September 29th, 2009
The Morning Journal, September 29, 2009. Lorain, Ohio — Ohio needs to come up with a better system for drawing up the legislative districts used in electing lawmakers. Currently, the majority political party determines the boundaries, skewing the map to favor their candidates rather than to provide equal representation for all.
Republican State Sen. Jon Husted is proposing a constitutional amendment to completely change how Ohio now draws up its congressional and state House and Senate districts. Read More
Tuesday, September 29th, 2009
The Boston Globe, September 22, 2009. Boston — If a hearing in a campaign-finance case earlier this month is any indication, Chief Justice John Roberts’s Supreme Court is ready to give corporations far more power to influence the political system. That corporate interests already have too much muscle has rarely been clearer: Even under current finance restrictions, health care industry groups are pouring millions of dollars into congressional campaigns, in the hope of thwarting reforms that might constrain their members.
If the high court rules now that corporations have the same political speech rights as individuals, average citizens will have that much more trouble being heard.
Last year, the court entertained arguments on whether the Federal Election Commission was wrong in blocking the distribution of a film critical of Hillary Clinton over a video-on-demand service. Citizens United, the nonprofit corporation that produced “Hillary: The Movie,’’ calls the film a documentary; the election commission disagreed, deeming it the equivalent of an ad and a violation of the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law. And many free-speech advocates shuddered at an interpretation of federal law that allowed a movie by an advocacy group to be subject to campaign-finance restrictions.
But instead of deciding just that issue, the court called for further arguments on a broader one: the distinction between the political rights of corporations and those of actual people. Three conservative justices have long been gunning to overturn a 1990 Supreme Court decision that allowed the government to impose restraints on how corporations can spend money during campaigns. At last week’s hearing, Roberts sounded similar notes of skepticism.
Striking down that precedent would be a mistake. Corporations, which are authorized by the government, can’t vote or serve on juries; a corporation, as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg put it, “is not endowed by its creator with inalienable rights.’’
Justices from all sides of the political spectrum are properly concerned about protecting free speech, and even reasonable-seeming restrictions can sometimes erode the core principle. But in this case, the distinction between corporate speech and individual speech is clear enough, and the importance of limiting the undue influence of money in politics is significant enough, that the court, in all its wisdom, should leave well enough alone.
Tuesday, September 29th, 2009
Bernie Becker, The New York Times, September 26, 2009. WASHINGTON — A recent stream of deadlocked decisions at the Federal Election Commission has caused some people who follow its work to say that they cannot remember seeing less common ground between the three Republican members and the three Democrats.
While tie votes at the six-member commission are not a new phenomenon, advocates of tighter campaign finance rules and others say that this crop of commissioners, divided on party lines, seem to have vastly different ideas about how campaign finance laws should be enforced. Read More
Tuesday, September 29th, 2009
OhioBar.org, September 8, 2009. COLUMBUS — Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor will join Ohio leaders for a forum to discuss the process for selecting Justices of the Supreme Court of Ohio.
“A Forum on Judicial Selection: A Time for Action” will be held Nov. 19 and 20 at the Ohio Judicial Center and the Center of Science and Industry (COSI) in Columbus. The conveners of the event are Ohio Chief Justice Thomas J. Moyer, the Ohio State Bar Association, and the League of Women Voters of Ohio Education Fund. The forum is made possible by a grant from the Joyce Foundation.
“The time has come to do something to address the widespread perception that campaign contributions influence judicial decision making,” said Chief Justice Moyer. “Our goal is to determine whether to pursue a new selection method for Supreme Court Justices and to explore the various reforms that other states have implemented.”
“If the public believes that judges are not fair and impartial, then the integrity of the third branch is compromised, and this undermines the strength of our entire democratic system,” said Meg Flack, president of the League of Women Voters of Ohio Education Fund.
“The Ohio State Bar Association is concerned about the public’s perception that campaign contributions influence judicial decision-making,” said OSBA President Barbara J. Howard. “The OSBA has long supported alternatives to electing justices to the Supreme Court of Ohio and sees this forum as an opportunity for interested parties to examine viable options and develop a course of action to improve the manner in which Ohio selects justices for its highest court.”
Participants in the forum will include leaders of the judicial branch, the business community, organized labor, state elected officials, civic leaders and members of the legal community. A detailed program schedule and Web site are scheduled for release in October.
Among the leaders who have indicated that they will participate either in person or through a representative are Gov. Ted Strickland, Ohio Senate President Bill Harris, Ohio House Speaker Armond Budish, Ohio Senate Minority Leader Capri Cafaro, and Ohio House Minority Leader Bill Batchelder.
Discussions will be facilitated by Ohio State University Moritz College of Law Professor and Former Attorney General Nancy Rogers and Franklin County Court of Common Pleas Judge Yvette McGee-Brown.
The cost of judicial campaigns has been increasing for years, forcing judges to raise money like politicians, which has led to the corrosive public perception that justice is for sale. From 1999 to 2008, $200.4 million was raised by candidates for state supreme courts. In that time period, candidates for the Ohio Supreme Court raised $21.2 million, placing Ohio second in the nation in the amount raised by Supreme Court candidates.
The Forum on Judicial Selection was formed because members of the judicial, legal and good-government communities recognize that a genuine opportunity for change exists. National attention on the problem has increased since the U.S. Supreme Court decided Caperton v. Massey on June 8, a case involving a Justice on the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals who cast the deciding vote in a decision benefiting a campaign supporter who had contributed more than $3 million to his election effort.
Tuesday, September 29th, 2009
Mark Niquette, The Columbus Dispatch, September 28, 2009. COLUMBUS — It’s time for Ohio to consider creating a bipartisan state board of elections to work with an elected secretary of state as a way to help improve voter confidence in how elections are run.
That’s the conclusion of Jennifer Brunner, Ohio’s current chief elections officer, in a new report that advocates starting a discussion about restructuring the job of secretary of state.
The idea is to keep an elected secretary to oversee day-to-day administration of elections but shift some of the major election decisions to an appointed, bipartisan state board similar to the bipartisan county boards of elections.
The motivation stems from a spate of lawsuits in recent elections and accusations that high-profile decisions by the secretary were driven by political considerations — regardless of which party’s official held the office. Read More
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