Federalizing the Voting Rights Act
Travis Crum | 74 Vand. L. Rev. En Banc 323 (2021) |
In Presidential Control of Elections, Professor Lisa Marshall Manheim masterfully canvasses how “a president can affect the rules of elections that purport to hold him accountable” and thereby “undermine the democratic will and delegitimize the executive branch.” Bringing together insights from administrative law and election law, she categorizes how presidents exercise control over elections: priority setting through executive agencies, encouraging gridlock in independent agencies, and idiosyncratic exercise of their narrow grants of unilateral authority.
In this Response, I agree with Manheim’s superb descriptive account of the problem and her powerful normative critique from an administrative law perspective. I therefore highlight Manheim’s contributions and expand on them in two ways.
AUTHOR:
Travis Crum