ACS is pleased to distribute an issue brief by Carrie Apfel, Associate at Jenner & Block, entitled "The Pitfalls of Voter Identification Laws in a Post-Crawford World." In this issue brief, Apfel analyzes the Supreme Court’s fractured decision in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, which upheld Indiana’s voter photo identification law against a facial challenge, and the merits of such laws in the case’s aftermath. Apfel notes that the decision does not insulate voter photo identification laws from legal challenge; indeed, “Crawford practically invites voter to attack these laws as they are applied in upcoming elections.” Apfel cautions that these laws continue to disenfranchise many people, and disproportionately those who are poor or elderly or have disabilities. Apfel also notes that these restrictions do not address the most common types of electoral fraud nor do they improve voter confidence. Moreover, she asserts there are alternatives that “would prove less burdensome and equally effective at combating potential vote fraud,” as the majority of states without such laws seem to recognize. Apfel concludes, “Voter identification laws are still a solution in search of a problem—restrictions that will not ameliorate the real or perceived issues with our electoral system, but rather will further undermine voting rights and voter confidence.”

In The Seventh Amendment: The Key to Reversing Buckley v. Valeo, University of South Carolina – Columbia, Department of Political Science Distinguished Professor Emeritus William P. Kreml, argues that the jurisprudence invalidating campaign finance legislation is inconsistent with the purpose of the Bill of Rights and, in particular, the Seventh Amendment. Professor Kreml discusses the tension between the two sets of Founders, the federalists and the anti-federalists, and likewise between the original seven articles of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Professor Kreml notes that the Constitution not only reflects differing views on the proper interaction between government and citizens, but also the relationship between debtors and creditors—a concern that underlies the Seventh Amendment, which protected debtor-friendly judgments by juries from court review. Professor Kreml argues that our campaign finance system today implicates these same concerns, as large campaign contributions are similar to unencumbered contracts of the eighteenth century and undermine the democracy that the Bill of Rights was enacted to protect, and therefore the regulation of such contributions is constitutional.