November 10, 2015

POS 282 INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN LAW
In class today, Tuesday 11/10, I distributed one handout, an article from the Brennan Center about the role of money in state judicial elections. We went through the Caperton case. looking at the lineup of the Justices, the formulation of the proper constitutional test, and the application of that new test to the facts of the case. We also talked about Maine judicial elections, the perception of bias versus the probability of bias, and judicial versus legislative elections and roles. I then discussed this year's Supreme Court case of Williams-Yulee v. Florida Bar, which dealt with the First Amendment implications of forbidding judicial candidates from directly soliciting funds for their elections. We compared the line-up of the Justices, the role of perception of bias, and the role of the judicial versus legislative candidates. The assignment for Thursday 11/12 is to review NFIB v. Sebelius (previously assigned) and to read in addition through p. 106 of the text (Butler).



POS 384 CIVIL LIBERTIES
In class today, Tuesday 11/10, I distributed one handout, an article by Linda Greenhouse about the RFRA cases in which the Supreme Court just granted cert. We went over a few questions about the Bible Believers assignment (no repeat of questions needed; no explanation of the definition of strict scrutiny needed; short paragraph for each of the textbook cases in part three). We then went over both the Scalia and White opinions in R.A.V. As time permits on Thursday, I plan to clarify White's concurrence in R.A.V., and to also talk about the later case of Virginia v. Black. The assignment for Thursday 11/12 is to finish work on the Bible Believers assignment, due at the beginning of Thursday's class.