Republic, Lost_ How Money Corrupts Congress--And a Plan to Stop It - Lawrence Lessig [178]
As Hasen notes, Senator Lee Metcalf proposed a voucher plan in 1967. Hasen, “Clipping Coupons for Democracy,” 20.
7. Brooks, Corruption in American Politics and Life, 263.
8. See Randall v. Sorrell, 548 U.S. 230 (2006), which invalidated Vermont’s limit of $400 to candidates.
9. Spencer Overton, “The Participation Interest,” Georgetown Law Journal (Forthcoming: 2012): 3–4.
10. See Cato Handbook for Policymakers, chap. 26.
11. Nathaniel Persily and Kelli Lammie, “Perceptions of Corruption and Campaign Finance: When Public Opinion Determines Constitutional Law,” University of Pennsylvania Law Review 153 (2004): 119, available at link #226.
12. This is strong insight in Issacharoff and Karlan, “The Hydraulics of Campaign Finance Reform,” Texas Law Review 77 (1998): 1705. For the best mapping of the complexities, see the work of Anthony Corrado, especially The New Campaign Finance Sourcebook (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2005) (with Thomas E. Mann, Daniel R. Ortiz, and Trevor Potter).
13. Brooks, Corruption in American Politics and Life, 99.
Chapter 18. Strategy 2
1. This idea was suggested to me by Matt Gonzalez, Ralph Nader’s vice-presidential candidate.
Chapter 19. Strategy 3
1. Jake Tapper and Sunlen Miller, “President Obama’s $8 Billion Earmark Rerun: Lesson Not Learned?” ABCNews, Political Punch (Dec. 15, 2010), available at link #227.
2. Speech of Governor Buddy Roemer, Harvard University, March 24, 2011.
3. See Paolo E. Coletta, William Jennings Bryan: Political Evangelist, 1860–1908 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1864), 272.
Chapter 20. Strategy 4
1. Teachout, “The Anti-Corruption Principle,” 341, 348 (citing Notes of James Madison [Aug. 14, 1787] The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, vol. 2, pp. 282, 288).
2. Ibid., 349 (citing Patrick Henry, “Speech on the Expediency of Adopting the Federal Constitution” [June 7, 1788], in Eloquence of the United States, ed. E. B. Williston, vol. 1 [1827], 178, 223).
3. Ibid., 348 (citing Notes of Robert Yates [June 23, 1787], in The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, vol. 1, pp. 391, 392).
4. The Federalist No. 40 (James Madison), 240–41 (quoting the Congress’s charge to the Constitutional Convention).
5. Lash, “Rejecting Conventional Wisdom,” 197, 221–22.
6. Ibid., 197, 212.
7. Paul J. Weber and Barbara A. Perry, Unfounded Fears (Santa Barbara, Calif.: Praeger, 1989), 56–60.
8. Congressional Research Service, CRS 95-589 A, “Amending the U.S. Constitution: By Congress or by Constitutional Convention” (May 10, 1995), 11, available at link #228; Cyril F. Brickfield, “Problems Relating to a Federal Constitutional Convention,” Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives (July 1, 1957), 7.
There are some who question whether the threat of a convention really did cause the Senate to act. See James Kenneth Rogers, “The Other Way to Amend the Constitution,” Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy 30 (2007): 1005, 1008 (citing Russell L. Caplan, Constitutional Brinksmanship: Amending the Constitution by National Convention (1988), 65: [T]here remains no evidence that the convention threat by itself forced the Senate to approve the [Seventeenth A]mendment. At least as influential was the growing quota of senators chosen by popular vote”); Kris W. Kobach, “Rethinking Article V: Term Limits and the Seventeenth and Nineteenth Amendments,” Yale Law Journal 103 (1994): 1971, 1976–80 (arguing that the growing proportion of senators elected by popular vote was the “most influential [factor] in finally winning a formal amendment to the U.S. Constitution”).
This wasn’t the only time a convention threat forced a constitutional amendment. Indeed, the threat of a second constitutional convention “was a key factor in Congress proposing the Bill of Rights.” James Kenneth Rogers, “The Other Way to Amend the Constitution,” Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy 30 (2007): 1005, 1008.