Public – Page 578 – Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

New Law School Poll Results: Romney Rebounds, Governor’s Race Is Tight

Post author:Alan J. Borsuk
Post published:March 27, 2012
Post category:Marquette Law School Political Processes & Rhetoric Public Speakers at Marquette

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has rebounded strongly from a month ago among people expecting to vote in Wisconsin’s Republican presidential primary April 3, according to new results for the Marquette Law School Poll. In February, Romney trailed former Sen. Rick Santorum by 16 points in Wisconsin, but he now leads Santorum by eight points, 39% to 31%, the poll found.

Romney has also narrowed the gap between himself and Democratic President Barack Obama, if the presidential election were to be held today and they were the two major candidates. But Romney continues to trail Obama in Wisconsin – by five percentage points in the new poll, compared to 15 points a month ago – and Obama is ahead of other Republican candidates by 10 points or more.

The results of the third monthly round of the Law School’s year-long polling project show the looming recall election for governor remains very close. When all poll respondents were asked their preference in possible matchups, Republican Gov. Scott Walker led Democratic Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett by two percentage points, while Walker led Democratic candidate Kathleen Falk by four points.

Barrett has not announced yet if he will run. If he does, the poll indicated he would have more support than Falk among people intending to vote in a Democratic primary. If he does not, Falk would have a large lead over candidates such as State Rep. Kathleen Vinehout and Secretary of State Doug La Follette. The primary election for governor is expected to be held on May 8, with a final election on June 5.

The results of the polling, which was conducted from March 22 to 25, were released Tuesday at an “On the Issues with Mike Gousha” session at the Law School featuring Professor Charles Franklin, visiting professor of law and public policy and director of the poll. The video of that session can be viewed by clicking here. The full poll results can be viewed by clicking here. And a five minute video of Franklin being interviewed by Mike Gousha, the Law School’s distinguished fellow in law and public policy, can be viewed by clicking here.

Affordable Care Act Issues at the Supreme Court, in Tweet Style

Post author:Alison Barnes
Post published:March 26, 2012
Post category:Health Care Public U.S. Supreme Court

The Tweets:

Monday/The Anti-Injunction Act – Pay taxes now, sue later, delays the decision. Decide about penalties now.

Tuesday/Individual Mandate for Minimum Coverage – The mandate is too much or too little for the Commerce Clause.

Wednesday – Severability and Medicaid Expansion – Strike down the ACA if the mandate is unconstitutional because it’s all part of one plan or save as much as possible. Strike down the Medicaid expansion because the states foresee it will cost and confuse them as have past expansions.

Collaborative Divorce: An Alternative to the Traditional Adversarial Divorce

Post author:Marissa Iancu
Post published:March 26, 2012
Post category:Family Law Public

Those of you who know me know that I am particularly interested in family law. Through my experiences learning about and observing the practice of family law, I have become convinced that our adversarial system is, more often than not, a poor way to resolve divorce. This is especially true where children are in the picture.

So what’s the alternative? I don’t know, but I did learn about a relatively new process that was created to avoid litigation in these cases called Collaborative Divorce (CD). The CD process involves both parties to the divorce voluntarily signing a contract called a “Participation Agreement”. The participation agreement states that each party agrees to work toward a negotiated resolution and will not litigate the case. To me, it sounded like a good possible solution for people who don’t want to be dragged into litigation. But, the more I looked into CD, the more I realized it couldn’t be for everyone (or even most individuals) who are going through a divorce.