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Judges in Contemporary Democracy: An International Conversation

The inherent premise underlying Judges in Contemporary Democracy: An International Conversation may be stated simply: When judges talk, people listen. The attention is entirely deserved; the power of the judge in modern constitutional democracies, particularly those with provisions for judicial review, is extensive. Concordantly, the authority of the constitutional judge long has been in tension with democratic structure, where the will of the people, expressed through legislative act, otherwise would be considered supreme. What power does the judge have to determine the contours of constitutional imperatives, especially if judicial interpretation represents a divergence from popular sentiment and legislative decree? How can she purport to have an exclusive interpretative license on what otherwise might be thought of as common province, i.e., the securing terms of a shared constitution? The questions of legitimacy surrounding the countermajoritarian potential of judges exercising (or merely asserting) the power of judicial review have become particularly pressing following the contemporary incorporation of forms of judicial review throughout Western European countries in the latter half of the past century. No longer a vestige of American exceptionalism, judicial review-and the accordant power of the judge-has become an integral feature of the modern democratic state.

Review of The People Themselves: Popular Constitutionalism and Judicial Review

Almost a century ago, Charles Beard’s study of the American Founding, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution, set the terms of debate about constitutional history for the Progressive era and informed the way lawyers viewed the Constitution for even longer. In The People Themselves, Larry Kramer has quite possibly done the same for a new generation of lawyers. Beard took an irreverent, tough-minded approach to the American Founding; Kramer is deeply skeptical of the conventional way that the Constitution is defined and offers an alternative that puts ordinary people, rather than judges, at the center of constitutional interpretation. If there is another Progressive era, it now has one of its foundational texts.

Coalitional Districts, Party Primaries and Manageable Vote Dilution Claims

In the past two decades, minority plaintiffs claiming unlawful vote dilution under section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act have been required to pass the three-pronged test elaborated by the Supreme Court in Thornburg v. Gingles. In light of a recent Supreme Court case extolling coalitional districts, the future of the first prong requiring the minority bloc to demonstrate it is sufficiently large and compact to comprise a majority of a single-member district is uncertain. These districts, eluding easy classification but understood to possess significant minority voting power without the minority bloc comprising a majority of the district, have been identified as shields against section 2 and section 5 suits challenging redistricting maps that reduced the number of majority-minority districts. In this Note, Luke McLoughlin addresses how courts should approach section 2 claims by minority blocs claiming dilution of a coalitional district itself. Arguing that Gingles‘s framework of bright lines must be respected in any reconsideration of the first prong, McLoughlin identifies the ability of the minority bloc to comprise a numerical majority of a party primary as a potential criterion for defining coalitional districts and a potential benchmark for considering section 2 claims. As McLoughlin shows, however, such a criterionwould be difficult to apply in practice,as internal party rules and state ballot access laws may thwart the creation of a viable coalition. Accuracy requires a fact-based inquiry into the coalition, while Gingles urges a bright-line approach. Eschewing a wholesale renovation of the Gingles framework, McLoughlin concludes that the two countervailing concerns are best reconciled by relying on Gingles‘s latter two prongs and examining population within the primary, while remaining skeptical at the totality-of-the-circumstances stage of whether a true coalition has been formed. If courts alter the first Gingles prong to permit claims by minority blocs unable to comprise a majority in a district, McLoughlin concludes that courts must retain a corresponding alertness to the interstitial role of parties, which are capable of both facilitating and obstructing coalition politics.

There seems to be a public perception that the members of the current, often divided, Supreme Court vote for partisan rather than principled reasons. As recent confirmation hearings have become more heated and polarized, this belief has only crystallized. In Active Liberty: Interpreting Our Democratic Constitution, Justice Stephen Breyer challenges this perception through a thoughtful discussion of the constitutional commitments that inform his decisions. This book does not provide a comprehensive theory of constitutional and statutory interpretation; rather, Active Liberty is important because in it, Justice Breyer gives the American public insight into the constitutional themes and values that he draws on when deciding cases. In particular, Justice Breyer focuses on one constitutional value that he believes has been underappreciated: a commitment to democratic participation and self-government which he calls “active liberty.” Although Justice Breyer recognizes that other constitutional values are important, he believes that active liberty should play a more prominent role in constitutional adjudication.

The 2004 federal elections witnessed an unprecedented rise in activity by independent political organizations called “527s.” The current campaign finance regime limits how much individuals and groups may contribute to candidates, parties, and political committees, but leaves 527s virtually unregulated. As a result, wealthy donors were able to circumvent federal contribution limits by giving large amounts to 527 groups. In 2004, these groups raised millions of dollars, which they spent on highly influential advertisements and voter mobilization campaigns. The groups were so successful that they are expected to play a significant role in the 2006 and 2008 elections, and both Congress and the Federal Election Commission (FEC) have considered regulating the groups more closely.

This Note examines the role of 527 organizations in the 2004 election and proposes ways to prevent future circumvention of the campaign finance regime. It argues that Congress should address the 527 problem by passing legislation regulating coordination between outside groups and political campaigns. A statute regulating coordination presents several benefits over current proposals for 527 reform. First, it is more likely to satisfy the constitutional limits on campaign finance regulation. Second, it provides a long-term solution that is not dependent on how a group is classified under tax or campaign finance law. Third, it will encourage donors seeking to buy influence over candidates to give smaller, “hard money” contributions. Finally, congressional legislation will avoid the delay and confusion seen in recent FEC efforts to regulate coordination.

A great gulf divides insiders and outsiders in the criminal justice system. The insiders who run the criminal justice system—judges, police, and especially prosecutors—have information, power, and self-interests that greatly influence the criminal justice system’s process and outcomes. Outsiders—crime victims, bystanders, and most of the general public— find the system frustratingly opaque, insular, and unconcerned with proper retribution. As a result of this gulf, a spiral ensues: Insiders twist rules as they see fit, outsiders try to constrain them through new rules, and insiders find ways to evade or manipulate the new rules. The gulf between insiders and outsiders undercuts the instrumental, moral, and expressive efficacy of criminal procedure in serving the criminal law’s substantive goals. The gulf clouds the law’s deterrent and expressive messages, as well as its efficacy in healing victims; it impairs trust in and the legitimacy of the law; it provokes increasingly draconian reactions by outsiders; and it hinders public monitoring of agency costs. The most promising solutions are to inform crime victims and other affected locals better and to give them larger roles in criminal justice. It also might be possible to do a better job monitoring and checking insiders, but the prospects for empowering and educating the general public are dim.

Elected judges often run “tough on crime” campaigns, which raises concerns that they will be biased against criminal defendants once on the bench. Indeed, studies show that elected judges give harsher punishments to criminal defendants as elections near. Nevertheless, in Republican Party of Minnesota v. White, the Supreme Court found that an elected judge can still be considered impartial even if he knows that his decisions throughout a case might affect his job security. This Note argues that the Supreme Court’s decision in White failed to account for a key factor complicating the election of unbiased judges: media coverage of crime and elections. The media dynamics at work in elections and the particular way judges respond to them may lead to criminal cases being heard by judges who are biased against defendants. To correct this problem, states must affirmatively act to protect criminal defendants’ right to a fair trial by adopting broad recusal requirements. States must change their codes of judicial conduct to allow for mandatory recusal of judges who run tough-on-crime election campaigns.

Since the presidential election of 2000, a host of new claims has arisen alleging unlawful denial of the right to vote. Litigants have challenged the use of error-prone voting machines, misleading registration forms, and the highly controversial photo identification requirements for in-person voting. The law protecting the right to vote, however, is in disarray, leaving courts confused and unsure of how to proceed with these challenges. In particular, courts have disagreed sharply over the content of the relevant constitutional standard and how to apply it. Some courts have adopted the standard articulated by the Supreme Court in its 1992 decision, Burdick v. Takushi, while others have applied strict scrutiny. This Note criticizes the Burdick standard for being incapable of producing consistent results and advocates for a modified version of strict scrutiny motivated by structural concerns inherent in the democratic process.

Federal judges are expected to conduct themselves differently than their counterparts in the political branches. This Note considers the policy and historical reasons used to justify this different standard of conduct and concludes that these justifications are largely unsupported or overstated. These erroneous justifications obfuscate the debate over extrajudicial conduct and may result in a suboptimal level of extrajudicial activity.

This Note seeks to show that the state has an interest not only in preventing voting fraud, but also in preventing the appearance of voting fraud. Drawing an analogy to campaign finance law, this Note argues that if the state has an interest in preventing the appearance of corruption in election financing, then courts should also recognize such an interest in preventing the appearance of voting fraud in elections. The state has this interest in elections for the same reason it does in campaign finance law: Voters who perceive fraud may lose faith in the democratic process and consequently drop out of that process. Borrowing from the standard of proof courts have used in the campaign finance context, this Note analyzes popular opinion, media reports, and legislators’ statements to determine that the appearance of voting fraud exists—and thus concludes that the state should be permitted to act on its interest in combating that appearance. Photo identification requirements have attracted particular controversy as a method of combating voting fraud. This Note analyzes photo identification requirements as an example of antifraud laws which might not be constitutional if the state’s only interest were in preventing the actual fraud, but might be constitutionally permissible if the appearance-of-corruption interest is considered.