Yesterday, Janai S. Nelson, Professor, Associate Dean for Faculty Scholarship, and Associate Director of the Ronald H. Brown Center for Civil Rights and Economic Development was quoted in La Presse on the United States Supreme Court’s decision in McCutcheon v. FEC, which struck down the aggregate limits on campaign contributions. The article, La cour supreme ouvre les vannes du financement électoral (The Supreme Court Opens the Campaign Finance Floodgates), describes the decision as political win for conservatives and a blow to the Obama administration. The McCutcheon decision is one in a line of Supreme Court cases that have invalidated campaign finance restrictions, including the controversial Citizens United decision in 2010. Here’s an excerpt from the article:
For Janai Nelson, law professor at St. John’s University, “the Court seems to be on a steady path toward eliminating decades of campaign finance protections aimed to prevent our government from operating as a real life House of Cards“, the popular television series that displays influence peddling in Washington. (Pour Janai Nelson, professeur de droit à l’Université St. John, «la Cour semble invariablement chercher à éliminer des décennies de protection du financement électoral visant à empêcher le gouvernement à agir dans la vraie vie comme House of Cards», la série télévisée à succès qui met en scène les trafics d’influence à Washington.)
Professor Nelson was also quoted in The Citizen and Yahoo news: For Janai Nelson, a professor at St. John’s University School of Law, the ruling “reinforced the notion that American democracy is for sale.”
St. John's University Law Faculty Blog 