Will (can?) Blakely become a campaign issue?

The Blakely story is interesting in part because of the dynamic and distinctive political perspectives that can influence views on sentencing reform in theory and practice — e.g., consider the seemingly strange coalition of Justices in the Blakely opinions. This reality, combined with the complicated legal particulars of the Blakely rule, may explain why we have not (yet) heard any heated political rhetoric in the discussions of Blakely. Moreover, the New York Times in this Week in Review article suggests that crime, “once as much a staple of campaigns as the sight of politicians kissing babies, has become perhaps the biggest non-issue of the 2004 election.”

But followers of sentencing reform know how quickly all this might change, especially since Congress over the past two decades has a history of passing new and tough sentencing laws in sync, not coincidently, with federal election cycles. Thus, I feel comfortable promoting in this space a new website devoted to election law issues unveiled yesterday by my own Moritz College of Law. Of particular relevance to sentencing law and policy is the website’s coverage of the topic of felon disenfranchisement, to which I am contributing.

UPDATES: Will Baude, rightly renown blogger for his work at the group blog Crescat Sententia, today has this very interesting piece at The New Republic online, which links the stories of politics and judicial appointments to Blakely. And, over at the thoughtful blog All Deliberate Speed, political dynamics are discussed toward the end of this extended criticism of the Bowman proposal for a legislative reponse to Blakely (background on the Bowman proposal can be found here and here).