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Scott Lemieux

Scott Lemieux is an assistant professor of political science at the College of Saint Rose. He contributes to the blogs Lawyers, Guns, and Money and Vox Pop.

Recent Articles

Roberts Court: Government Must Be By, and For, the Wealthy

Scott LemieuxApr 02, 2014
AP Images/Dana Verkouteren
Everyone who thinks that the rich don't have enough influence on American politics can rest easier. In an expected but still depressing decision today, the Supreme Court struck down aggregate limits on how much an individual can donate to politicians and political parties within a 2-year window as a violation of the First Amendment. Having already made it impossible for Congress to place significant restrictions on campaign spending, a bare majority of the Court is now chipping away at the ability of Congress to place limits on donations as well. It must be said that Chief Justice Roberts's plurality opinion in McCutcheon v. FEC has a certain logic if one accepts the key underlying premise. Relying on the Court's 1976 opinion Buckley v. Valeo , Roberts argues that the only legitimate reason for limiting campaign donations or spending is to address corruption. (Under this logic, Buckley gave Congress and state governments very little leeway to restrict campaign spending, but left them...

Federal Court Upholds Texas's War On Roe v. Wade

Scott LemieuxMar 31, 2014
AP Images/RON T. ENNIS/Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Last year, as much of the nation is aware thanks to Wendy Davis , Texas passed a particularly draconian abortion law. Predictably, the law has already caused abortion clinics to close, and by the end of the year there are expected to be only 6 clinics remaining to serve the nation's second-largest state. Despite the huge burdens that the statute will undeniably place on the women of Texas and despite the fact that the laws aren't designed to accomplish anything but to make abortion less accessible, a 3-judge panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the law . And, depressingly, the court's decision could well survive review by a Supreme Court that is almost as hostile to the reproductive rights of women. Under the Supreme Court's 1992 decision Planned Parenthood v. Casey , which at least formally upheld Roe v. Wade , pre-viability regulations of abortion are constitutional if they do not impose an "undue burden" on a woman's right to choose. One might think it obvious that...

Yet Another Legal Attack on Obamacare

Scott LemieuxMar 27, 2014
AP Images/Pablo Martinez Monsivais
On Tuesday, federal courts heard two of the seemingly endless ad hoc legal challenges generated by Republicans opposed to the Affordable Care Act. Most of the attention was captured, for good reason, by the arguments at the Supreme Court , which concerned the claims by Hobby Lobby and other corporations that they should be exempt from the Affordable Care Act's requirements that insurance cover contraceptives. But a lawsuit with the potential to do far greater damage to the Affordable Care Act went before the D.C. Circuit as well. In a more rational universe, these arguments would be laughed out of court—but the oral arguments suggest that there are still numerous Republican judges willing to damage the Affordable Care Act by any means necessary , even if it means accepting arguments virtually nobody would have taken seriously five years ago. This challenge to the ACA is based on a drafting error in the law. In addition to a major expansion of Medicaid (which the Supreme Court severely...

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Retirement, and the Value of Term Limits

Scott LemieuxMar 20, 2014
AP Images/J. Scott Applewhite
T here is a debate among liberal intellectuals about whether it's appropriate to urge Ruth Bader Ginsburg to step down with the Democrats still in control of the Senate and White House. It's a discussion that brings up a lot of fascinating questions of public obligation and the respect due to individuals. But the key takeaway should be this: The decision about whether to retire should be taken out of the hands of individual justices. The argument for Ginsburg stepping down now, made most recentl y by the eminent legal scholar and dean of the law school at the University of California-Irvine, Erwin Chemerinsky, is straightforward and compelling on its own terms. If Ginsburg remains on the Court and leaves the Court with a Republican occupying the White House, the most likely result would be Antonin Scalia or John Roberts being the median vote on the Supreme Court. This would be a disaster for the country and, more to the point, for the values that Justice Ginsburg has spent her life...

Did the Right Set Obama's Agenda?

Scott LemieuxMar 17, 2014
AP Images/Pablo Martinez Monsivais
Adolph Reed Jr.'s powerful March Harper 's cover story has generated a valuable discussion about the relationship between the left and the Democratic Party. This discussion has been joined at the Prospect, with Harold Meyerson responding to the original essay and Reed countering. While we may be reaching the saturation point for discussion, however, I did want elaborate on a point made by Meyerson about where the Democratic Party is now. A core question posed by Reed's essay is whether the Democrats have continued to shift to right since their retrenchment in the Reagan era, or whether the left's influence is on the increase. Like Meyerson, I'm not persuaded by Reed's argument that the Obama era represents a continuation or worsening of the left's marginalization during the Clinton administration. In his initial essay, Reed argued that progressives had to face up to the "absolute impotence" of the left in American politics and the extent to which Democratic Party elites had limited...

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