"Political Portents: Latest Supreme Court rulings on election law may foreshadow a far more conservative approach."

I have written this commentary for Legal Times (free access). It begins:

Amid the flurry of end-of-the-term activity at the Supreme Court came decisions in two major election-law cases, Randall v. Sorell, addressing the constitutionality of Vermont's campaign financing law, and LULAC v. Perry, considering the legality of the controversial Texas redistricting plan.

The nine justices issued a staggering 12 opinions in the two cases, leaving even seasoned election-law scholars scratching their heads over the intricacies of the opinions.

My aim here is to make some sense of the rulings and to consider what they portend for the future of political regulation in the United States. In short, these opinions show a Supreme Court in transition, and there are warning signs that the new Roberts Court could take a much more conservative approach to the law of politics than the Rehnquist Court did.

Posted by Rick Hasen at July 10, 2006 08:43 AM