The following is a guest post by James Martin, Senior Legal Information Analyst at the Law Library of Congress. If it can be said that necessity is the mother of invention, then it can also be said that war is quite often its midwife. This was certainly the case in the American Civil War when …
Law is a serious profession, but as anyone who has ever picked up a wacky laws book would know, law can occasionally be a source of humor. We’ve discussed unusual laws from foreign jurisdictions in the past. Today, we return to the United States to discuss the unusual case of Nickerson v. Hodges. Nickerson frequently …
This week’s interview is with Robert Brammer, a Legal Reference Librarian in the Public Services Division of the Law Library of Congress. Robert recently co-authored the post, The Electoral College – What Is It and How Does It Function? Look for more posts by Robert going forward as he joins the In Custodia Legis blog …
This is a guest post by Pamela Barnes Craig, Instruction/Reference Librarian and co-author of Being Well-Informed: Congress.gov Training. As the Library of Congress opens the exhibit The Civil War in America with 200+ unique treasures, there remain many more valuable Civil War collections available for researching and viewing. The Law Library of Congress has several of …
This week Clare and Margaret told us about elections laws around the globe, Barbara and Robert enlightened us on the electoral college, and Ruth gave us background on the upcoming national elections for Israel. To complete our election week theme, we have a photo to share today from just across the street. Crews began constructing …
This is a joint post drafted by Clare Feikert and Margaret Wood. The Global Legal Research Center has done a number of briefings and blogs, as well as too many Global Legal Monitor Articles to list, on electoral law across various jurisdictions around the world. The Russian Federation, Parliamentary Elections: Legal Issues, 2008; Elections in …
This week’s interview is with Barbara Bavis, a Legal Reference Librarian in the Public Services Division of the Law Library of Congress. Barbara was a co-author of yesterday’s post on the electoral college and is joining the In Custodia Legis blog team – we look forward to reading more of her posts! Describe your background. I consider …
The following is a guest post by Barbara Bavis and Robert Brammer, both legal reference librarians in the Public Services Division of the Law Library of Congress. The 2012 Presidential election is projected to be close, and attention has turned to whether the Electoral College may diverge from the popular vote in shaping the outcome …
Israel is facing national elections shortly after the U.S. elections. Interestingly, Israel was mentioned more than 30 times in the October 22, 2012 U.S. presidential debate . There is no doubt that the results of either election will have serious ramifications on both countries’ policies in the Middle East. On Oct. 16, 2012, the Knesset (Israel’s parliament) passed the Law for the dissolution …
We often blog about various commemorative events, and I wanted to draw attention to November as National American Indian Heritage Month. This began as a commemorative week in 1986 when Congress passed Pub.L. 99-471 designating November 23-30 as American Indian Week. As directed by Congress in this law, President Reagan issued Presidential Proclamation 5577 in which …