As we head into the fall election cycle, one of the most important consequences of state legislative and gubernatorial races will be the impact on redistricting in 2011.
Current doctrine requires that legislative districts be equal in size and racial gerrymanders are subject to constitutional and statutory challenge. But partisan gerrymanders are almost impossible to challenge. In a case called Vieth v. Jubelirer, a four justice plurality held that allegations of a partisan gerrymander are nonjusticiable. Justice Kennedy was unwilling to say so, but conceded that he could not yet conceive of a judicially manageable standard. (Perhaps, one day, one will emerge.) While I think that Article IV, sec. 4 of the state constitution may provide a bit more room for a challenge to partisan gerrymanders of the state legislature, I wouldn’t bet the 401(k) on it.
As James Troupis, a Madison lawyer and national expert on redistricting, recently told my Election Law class, partisans can work gerrymandering wonder by “cracking,” “stacking” and “packing” voters. I shared with the class this example of a gerrymander that would create seven majority Democratic districts ... Read more..
Archive for February, 2010
As readers of this blog know, I lost my grandmother last fall. It was sad, but not tragic. After all, she was 99 and lived a long, productive, happy life. Last week, I (and my siblings) received a very formal letter from a lawyer with an enclosure — under Pennsylvania law, where my grandmother lived, beneficiaries of her estate are required to receive notice of her death. So, the lawyer duly enclosed the official Pennsylvania state language letting me know of my rights (to contest probate, etc.). The cover letter was equally formulaic:
Ladies & Gentlemen:
You will find enclosed with regard to the trust . . . the notice required under Pennsylvania Uniform Trust Act of your grandmother’s death on November 3rd, 2009.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Here’s the thing — this lawyer was at my wedding, invited to my son’s Bar Mitzvah, and has known me since I was 10. I get the same cover letter as someone he has never met — really? And, even if we didn’t know each other, the letter should be better.
How about ... Read more..
I’ve just received my new copy of the Marquette Law Review, which includes a fascinating collection of papers on the role of the media in international conflict resolution. This symposium issue emerged from the Law School’s conference on this topic last spring, which was organized by Professors Andrea Schneider and Natalie Fleury. In her introductory essay to the symposium, Andrea explains the genesis of the conference this way:
For conflict resolution scholars, the idea of focusing on the media is a logical one. After all, the media is the primary method through which the public and political leadership perceive and understand conflicts at home and abroad. If we are working to better handle these conflicts, the way that these conflicts are explained and understood is a crucial part of that process. Do the media have a responsibility to report all sides, even if one side is “wrong”? Do the media share in responsibility for escalation of a conflict if the reporting is incendiary? (The conviction of certain media figures involved in the Rwandan genocide and the use of “Tokyo Rose” during ... Read more..
Hat tip to CCH Technical Answer group for an update on the status of the Milwaukee Sick Pay Ordinance that was passed by referendum in November 2008, only to be invalidated by a state trial court judge. According to the posting, the Milwaukee paid sick leave case has now been referred to the state supreme court:
On February 18, 2010, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals asked the Wisconsin Supreme Court to take up the constitutionality of Milwaukee’s paid sick leave mandate.
In June 2009, Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Thomas Cooper ruled that the city’s paid sick leave ordinance, which provided up to nine paid sick days per year based on the number of hours worked and the size of the business, was “invalidly enacted and unconstitutional.” (Metropolitan Milwaukee Assoc. of Comm. v. City of Milwaukee, Milwaukee County Circuit Court, No. 08cv018220, June 12, 2009). 9to5, the National Association of Working Women, appealed Cooper’s ruling. The supreme court has been asked to decide whether the ballot question put before the voters of the City of Milwaukee complied with the statutory requirement that ... Read more..
Students of civil procedure—which should mean just about everybody interested in using the formal processes of the law to vindicate rights—will be interested in a decision today by the United States Supreme Court. The opinion concerned the provision in the statutory grant of diversity jurisdiction that deems a corporation “to be a citizen of any State by which it has been incorporated and of the State where it has its principal place of business.” 28 U. S. C. §1332(c)(1) (emphasis added). There has been a longstanding imprecision—a lack of unanimity—within the lower federal courts as to whether a corporation’s “principal place of business” is its “nerve center,” “locus of operations,” “center of corporate activities,” “muscle center” (none of these latter four terms being statutory), or some otherwise determined place. In Hertz Corp. v. Friend, the Court resolved the matter.
In a unanimous opinion by Justice Breyer, the Court held that “the phrase ‘principal place of business’ refers to the place where the corporation’s high level officers direct, control, and coordinate the corporation’s activities.” That is, the Court authoritatively and explicitly ... Read more..
