The University of Chicago Law School Faculty Blog

Adam Cox on the NAMUDNO Argument

A brief heads-up: over on the Election Law Blog, Adam Cox has posted a piece on the NAMUDNO argument (you can get some background on the case on the SCOTUS Wiki).

Student Blogger - The President and Immigration Law

Both sides of the immigration debate agree our current system is dysfunctional, but they disagree over why and about the proper remedy. Some are disappointed by the marginalization of a significant population who only exist in the shadows of society, believing a combination of human rights and economic policy require offering this population full membership in our society. Others are equally disappointed that our society tolerates a significant population who only exist in the shadows, believing it erodes respect for the rule of law; full exclusion, not full inclusion, is the proper response under this view. Given these divergent views, it is perhaps unsurprising that we have arrived at a middle ground arrangement that is satisfactory to none.

Institutional design may bear some of the blame as well, however. For example, immigration policy would more closely reflect the “full membership” view if former President Bush had possessed unilateral authority to create a guest worker program. At the Law & Politics Workshop on Tuesday, Professor Cristina Rodríguez presented a paper she co-authored with Professor Adam Cox examining the division of authority between Congress and the President in immigration law and how it contributes to the dysfunction of our immigration system.

Empirical Scholarship and the Future of the Voting Rights Act

Over on Rick Hasen's Election Law Blog I've written a post about empirical legal scholarship and the future of the Voting Rights Act.  I thought I'd cross-post the discussion here, but first I should provide a bit of background:

In 2006, Congress reauthorized Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act -- a core provision of the Act that singles out some jurisdictions' voting laws (mostly in the deep South) for intensive federal oversight.  Section 5, which was initially a enacted as a temporary provision, was designed to provide a powerful institutional mechanism to prevent discrimination against minority voters.  But unsurprisingly, the jurisdictions subject to Section 5 were extremely unhappy to be singled out.  They challenged Section 5 when it was first enacted, and they've done so each time the temporary provision has been reauthorized.  Shortly after Section 5 was reauthorized in 2006, its constitutionality was challenged in Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One v. Mukasey ("NAMUDNO").

Adam Cox and Thomas Miles: "Judging the Voting Rights Act"

Over on the Columbia Law Review's online Sidebar, Chicago professors Adam Cox and Thomas Miles are involved in a debate about their January 2008 CLR article "Judging The Voting Rights Act." In that piece, Thomas and Adam write that they provided "the first systematic evidence that judicial ideology and race are closely related to findings of liability in voting rights cases." In so doing, they called into question the core findings of Ellen D. Katz & Anna Baldwin's report, "Documenting Discrimination in Voting:  Judicial Findings Under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act Since 1982;" Katz and Baldwin responded to Cox and Miles with a reply in Sidebar, and Cox and Miles have responded to that reply with one of their own.