Political actors route around legal bans through substitute channels, not direct violation.
Evidence
Even the Constitution’s core rights-granting provisions are subject to workarounds. For example, although abortion cannot be banned directly, the procedure can be put out of reach through the imposition of multiple confining regulations known as TRAPs (targeted regulation of abortion providers). More generally, notwithstanding the unconstitutional conditions doctrine, governments are often permitted to accomplish indirectly what they are forbidden from doing directly by using the incentive of conditional funding. In the statutory context, campaign finance law’s susceptibility to workarounds is well known and well captured by the metaphor of “hydraulics.” When the law closes one channel for political spending, political actors simply open up substitute channels. — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 530
Categorization
- XREF: Directly pays off the earlier ‘hydraulic’ substitution claim from chapter 8 — when formal entrenchment is blocked, actors switch to functional substitutes. — connects to: When one entrenchment form is blocked, actors switch to the other — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 160; Seemingly substantive policy domains conceal underlying partisan self-entrenchment battles. — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 536; Public law mostly channels the means of politics rather than dictating its ends. — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 530 (+3 more)
- recurring: this claim recurs 2 times within its source
Broader Connections
- Functional political entrenchment works without changing formal legal rules
#qualifies(0.75) — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 173