Yale Professor Heather Gerken Delivers Barrett Lecture

Heather Gerken, the J. Skelly Wright Professor of Law at Yale Law School, delivered the 2016 Edward L. Barrett, Jr. Lecture on Constitutional Law. Gerken, one of the nation's leading experts in election law and constitutional law, spoke on "Dark Money and Shadow Parties: The Real Problem with Citizens United" to a packed Kalmanovitz Courtroom on February 4.

Following a brief introduction by Dean Kevin R. Johnson, Gerken spoke on the ways in which the campaign-finance landscape has evolved in response to Citizens United, the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision that deregulated independent spending.  Many observers have criticized Citizens United for ushering in a new era of unprecedented corporate spending, but Gerken suggested that the "real problem" may be the shift in power away from traditional political parties to "shadow parties"--affiliations of powerful elites that operate outside the formal party structure.

"My worry is less about money and politics and more about power and politics," Gerken said. "My worry isn't about dark money.  It's about shadow parties."

Gerken said that one potential consequence of this shift is a decrease in influence for the "party faithful," the everyday people who are passionate enough about politics to attend rallies, canvas their neighborhoods on behalf of candidates, and volunteer for campaigns.  Such people are vital to the operation of the traditional parties, which must in turn make an effort to represent their various interests, but much less important to the elites who run shadow parties, Gerken said. 

In the wake of Citizens United, "we're separating the party elites from the party faithful," Gerken stated. "We're ensuring that the party elites talk to the moneyed interests, and the party faithful talk to the rest of us. The informal social network that once provided a bridge between those two worlds is slowly being dismantled.  I have faith in the party faithful and hope very much they continue to wield the power they do.  And it's hard to see how that will be true if the power of the shadow parties exceeds that of the real ones."

A graduate of Princeton University and the University of Michigan Law School, Professor Gerken clerked for Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Justice David Souter of the U.S. Supreme Court. She joined the Harvard faculty in September 2000 and moved on to Yale in 2006.  Among many other activities, she has testified three times before Senate Committee on Rules and Administration and served as a senior legal adviser for the Obama campaign in 2008 and 2012. 

Established in 1986 to mark the retirement of Edward L. Barrett, Jr., founding Dean of UC Davis School of Law and a nationally renowned Constitutional Law and Criminal Procedure scholar, the Barrett lecture is an annual event that brings renowned legal scholars to King Hall for lectures on topical issues in constitutional law.