Landmark Voting Cases

Election law and the story of who has the legal right to vote in the United States has been marked by a key group of landmark court cases. These cases, brought together and summarized by the American Bar Association on its web site, are a good starting point for both law students and the general public. For a brief historian's overview of the cultural and political background behind the legal landmarks, check out "Winning the Vote: A History of Voting Rights," in History Now, a free online journal published by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.


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Following the Money

With the campaign season now in full swing, we will all want to find a way to track the financial claims of both candidates and their campaigns. A great resource to do just that is the Sunlight Foundation - with its associated sites OpenSecrets.org and FedSpending.org.

According to their site, the Sunlight Foundation was founded to "to make information about Congress and the federal government more meaningfully accessible to citizens" and to serve "as a catalyst for greater political transparency and to foster more openness and accountability in government."

OpenSecrets.org focuses on "money’s influence on U.S. elections and public policy."

FedSpending.org provides spending data for federal contracts t and federal assistance data.



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Google U.S. Government Search

According to its Web site, “Google U.S. Government Search offers a single location for searching across U.S. government information, and for keeping up to date on government news. You can choose to search for content located on either U.S. federal, state and local government websites or the entire Web -- from the same search box. Below the search box, the homepage includes government-specific news content from both government agencies and press outlets”.

You can also personalize the page by adding content feeds about government or any other topic that interests you.

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Library Audio Tour

If you missed the Law Library walking tours it is not too late! Take a self-guided tour of the Law Library by downloading our seven part Library Audio Tour to your MP3 player and listen at your leisure.

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Educate'08

Are you taking advantage of the Educate'08 activities on campus? Hofstra University is to host the third and final Presidential debate on October 15, 2008, and the University has taken this as an educational opportunity to engage in a year-long series of conferences, events and lectures. Plus, there are student only receptions designed to give Hofstra students one-on-one time with the distinguished guests. This is an extraordinary year on campus so extend your educational experience and participate.



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Laptops in Class

Law students may or may not be aware of this, but the distraction that many law professors think is created by allowing students to take notes on laptops in class is an ongoing topic of discussion. One recent development in this discussion is noted here, with Eugene Volokh experimenting with a one-laptop policy, where one student in the class takes notes on a laptop and shares them with the other students.



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