| Center for Democracy and Election Management files brief in Supreme Court
The difference between life or death on the campaign trail often comes down to a matter of dollars. So the issue of campaign expenditures has long been a hotly debated one. Do limits on expenditures enhance competition and free speech? Or do they impose an unconstitutional restraint? That debate has made its way to the Supreme Court before. Now it’s coming in front of the high court again. This time, as the Supreme Court weighs the arguments, the court will have, among the many documents it examines during the decision-making process, an amicus brief from AU’s Center for Democracy and Election Management (CDEM). In 1976, the Supreme Court struck down expenditure limits as unconstitutional. But the Supreme Court recently decided to revisit the case in Randall v. Sorrell, a case challenging Vermont’s campaign finance law. The amicus, or “friend of the court,” brief delves into the experiences of other democracies that have regulated campaign expenditures. It focuses on countries with similar institutions and traditions to the United States, including Canada, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand. The evidence demonstrates, according to the brief, that limits on campaign spending do not reduce electoral competition and free speech, but may even enhance it, in addition to reducing the influence of money on elections. “We were honored to be asked to contribute to the case,” said Robert Pastor, vice president of international affairs and director of the CDEM. “The Center for Democracy and Election Management has studied the experiences of countries all over the world, and these cases permitted us to draw some conclusions that we hope will be of use to the court.” The brief was coauthored by Pastor, Jamin Raskin, Washington College of Law, and John Henderson, junior fellow at CDEM. A link to the full brief can be found at www.nvri.org/campaignspending/docs/Final%20CDEM%20Brief.pdf. Egyptian delegates meet U.S. counterparts for dialogue
A delegation of Egyptian scholars met on the AU campus last weekend with U.S.-based counterparts for a dialogue on current issues ranging from the high-profile Danish cartoon controversy to the less high-profile but potentially volatile issues of political reform in Egypt, the treatment of Arabs in the United States, and U.S. attitudes and policies in the Arab world. The central focus of the dialogue was on how to forge relationships and working partnerships with each other in these adversary times, in order to work for peace and better understanding between the two nations, according to School of International Service (SIS) graduate student Anne Marie Marsa of Hands Along the Nile, the nonprofit that organized the dialogue. The delegates included Sheikh Mahmoud Ashour of Al-Azhar, a prestigious institution for Islamic religious studies, who Marsa described as “something of a celebrity” in Egypt. She was startled to find that even their cab driver recognized him and had questions to ask him. Ashour is a moderate who stresses tolerance and “emphasizes that people who commit acts of terror in the name of Islam, are not Muslims,” Marsa said. Also at the dialogue were political scientist Emad Gad; columnist Amina Shafik; demographer Fathy Abou-Ayana; and Samira Louka and Nabil Abadir of the Coptic Evangelical Organization for Social Services. American participants included SIS graduate student Marianne Elias. The organization, she said, “seeks to involve influential and accessible persons from the spheres of media, civil society, religion, and academics to come together to speak about their differences and commonalities” to encourage better understanding in Egyptian and American societies as a whole. Human Resources to relocate
On the weekend of March 11, about 40 staff members from Human Resources and the Payroll Office will relocate from their offices in the Sports Center Annex to new quarters in 3201 New Mexico Avenue, suite 350. Parking tickets from the lot behind the building will be validated. The new location off main campus aligns HR and payroll with other administrative units that have located off campus in order to free more main campus space for academic programs. The third floor New Mexico suite offers staff and faculty increased confidentiality when conducting human resources business, places HR offices near the offices of budget and auxiliary services, and will present a professional face for the university to individuals seeking employment at AU. |
