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Author: Nathaniel Persily Citation: [No abstract on file]

Author: Nathaniel Persily Citation: This study tests the empirical assumptions about American public opinionfound in the Supreme Courts opinions concerning campaign finance reform. Thearea of campaign finance is a unique one in First Amendment law because theCourt has allowed the mere appearance of a problem (in this case, corruption) tojustify the curtailment of recognized First Amendment rights of speech andassociation.Since Buckley v. Valeo, defendants in campaign finance cases have profferedvarious types of evidence to support the notion that the public perceives agreat deal of corruption produced by the campaign finance system. Most recently,in McConnell v. FEC, in which the Court upheld the McCain-Feingold campaignfinance law, both the Department of Justice and the plaintiffs conductedand submitted into evidence public opinion polls measuring the publics perceptionof corruption. This article examines the data presented in that case, but alsoexaminesforty years of survey data of public attitudes toward corruption in government.We argue that trends in public perception of corruption may have little todo with the campaign finance system. The share of the population describing governmentas corrupt went down even as soft money contributions skyrocketed.Moreover, the survey data suggest that an individuals perception of corruptionderives to some extent from that persons (1) position in society (race, income,educationlevel); (2) opinion of the incumbent President and performance of the economyover the previous year; (3) attitudes concerning taxation and big government;and (4) propensity to trust other people, in general. Although we conclude that,indeed, a large majority of Americans believe that the campaign finance systemcontributes to corruption in government, the data do not suggest that campaignfinance reform will have an effect on these attitudes.

Author: Nathaniel Persily Citation: The study examines a wealth of election law reforms -- term limits (for governorand state legislators), campaign finance reform (contribution limits and publicfunding), redistricting (pre-Baker v. Carr and creation of commissions), creationand regulation of primaries, and women's suffrage -- to figure out whetherdifferences exist between the election law regimes in initiative andnon-initiative states and whether these differences (if any) might be attributedto the use of the initiative process. We find that in very few cases -- legislative term limits and perhaps redistricting commissions -- do initiativestates differ noticeably from non-initiative states, and in most initiative stateselection reforms pass through normal legislative means. However, in some cases,such as with contribution limits, laws passed through the initiative processdiffer in character from those passed through the legislature.

Author: Gideon Parchomovsky Citation: [No abstract on file]

Author: Michael Knoll Citation: [No abstract on file]

Author: Jason Johnston Citation: [No abstract on file]