[EL] ELB News and Commentary 11/28/11

[Smith, Brad]

Re Republican.Commissioners block penalty, it always interest me that if the Commission does something contrary to the GC's recommendation that reformers do not like, the Republican Commissioners are castigated for ignoring the recommendation; but if the Commission does something the reformers do not like by following theGC's advice, the Republicans get xcsstigared
________________________________________
From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] on behalf of Rick Hasen [rhasen at law.uci.edu]
Sent: Monday, November 28, 2011 11:35 AM
To: law-election at uci.edu
Subject: [EL] ELB News and Commentary 11/28/11

AP Reports Texas Has Filed Supreme Court Stay Over Texas Redistricting<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=25812>
Posted on November 28, 2011 8:32 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=25812> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Here<http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jcdIY0N81RMbSDD5HTNe-_yJnW2A?docId=e7a9f096c5b5428e90fc5967927cc231>.  My earlier coverage is here<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=25795>.

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Posted in Supreme Court<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>, Voting Rights Act<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=15> | Comments Off
Republican FEC Commissioners Block Penalty on Robocaller Engaging in Express Advocacy without Proper Disclosure<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=25809>
Posted on November 28, 2011 8:22 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=25809> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Even though the calls reached 70,000 people and all six commissioners believed it contained express advocacy, the violator does not even get a slap in the wrist because the cost of the robocalls were so cheap.  See the Democratic Commissioners’ Statement of Reasons<http://eqs.nictusa.com/eqsdocsMUR/11044304570.pdf>.

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Posted in campaign finance<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10> | Comments Off
“Election 2012: Coming Sooner Than You Think”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=25806>
Posted on November 28, 2011 8:17 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=25806> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Doug Chapin blogs<http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cspg/peea/2011/11/election_2012_coming_sooner_th.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+HHHElections+%28Program+for+Excellence+in+Election+Administration%29>.

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Posted in election administration<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18> | Comments Off
“Lee’s super PAC request hits snag”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=25803>
Posted on November 28, 2011 8:15 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=25803> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

The Salt Lake Tribune reports<http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/52980269-90/backer-candidates-commission-commissioners.html.csp>.

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Posted in campaign finance<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10> | Comments Off
“Ballot transparency a statewide debate; Issue might wind up before Colorado Legislature”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=25800>
Posted on November 28, 2011 8:11 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=25800> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

The Aspen Times reports<http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20111128/NEWS/111129881/1077&ParentProfile=1058>.

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Posted in election administration<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18> | Comments Off
“Group Suffers from Lack of Transparency”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=25797>
Posted on November 27, 2011 8:37 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=25797> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

This letter to the editor<http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/northwestvoices/2016857525_electlet26.html> about Americans Elect appears in the Seattle Times.

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Posted in third parties<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=47> | Comments Off
The Latest on Texas Redistricting Litigation and the Supreme Court<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=25795>
Posted on November 27, 2011 8:35 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=25795> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

The Texas Tribune<http://www.texastribune.org/texas-politics/2012-elections/candidates-file-while-state-challenges-court-drawn/>:

Monday’s the day candidates can begin filing for office, and after a flurry of legal activity over the holidays, they now know what districts they’re seeking to represent.

Probably.

The state has filed appeals to block court-ordered maps for the Texas House and Senate, and a similar objection to new congressional districts is in the works. Attorney General Greg Abbott also hired a noted specialist in Supreme Court appeals — former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement — to help his lawyers with the redistricting fight.

Judge Smith in his latest dissent<http://tinyurl.com/75af2qf> (this time from the denial of a motion for a stay in the Congressional redistricting case) helpfully writes what could serve as the questions presented in the state’s expected Supreme Court filings to stay implementation of the court’s maps.

More on the Supreme Court machinations from SCOTUSBlog<http://www.scotusblog.com/2011/11/texas-seeks-delay-of-election-map/> and from the Texas Redistricting Blog here<http://txredistricting.org/post/13431281803/state-files-supreme-court-appeals-on-interim-state>, here<http://txredistricting.org/post/13430658659/state-of-texas-asks-district-court-for-stay-of>, and here<http://txredistricting.org/post/13408326485/press-round-up-maps-stays-candidate-filings>.

Finally, a reader of the blog sends along the following response to my pos<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=25774>t on this dispute from yesterday:

The “dig” at Texas from the two judges on the three judge panel in San Antonio makes no sense. The implication is that a formal Section 5 pre-clearance rejection letter from DOJ setting out DOJ’s complaints is distinguishable from DOJ’s filings with the DC panel setting out those same objections. That’s a distinction without a difference. Had Texas gone to DOJ first instead of a DC panel, they would still appeal the DOJ’s ruling on the House and Congressional maps to a DC panel and thus, they are undoubtedly further along in the legal proceedings by having gone straight to court. If the court is implying that a formal rejection letter from DOJ would permit them to leave unopposed districts unchanged in their interim House and Congressional maps, then they are merely rationalizing a decision to modify unopposed districts that they apparently made for other reasons. The point of Judge Smith’s dissent is that the court already has the power to leave those districts alone because DOJ’s filing with the DC court sets out no objections to them. The unopposed districts may not be legally pre-cleared, but for the purposes of an interim map, there is a strong argument that they should be left alone. For example, since DOJ did not oppose the Senate map in the DC filings, the San Antonio court should have considered that as weighing heavily in favor of the state, permitting them to adopt as an interim map the Senate map created by the Legislature.

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Posted in redistricting<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>, Supreme Court<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>, Voting Rights Act<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=15> | Comments Off
“Legal questions on Perry’s use of SuperPAC video”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=25792>
Posted on November 27, 2011 8:24 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=25792> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Ben Smith<http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1111/Legal_questions_on_Perrys_use_of_SuperPAC_video.html?showall>: “The Perry campaign’s borrowing<http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1111/Perry_ad_features_SuprPAC_footage.html?showall> of three clips from a SuperPAC ad for use in a campaign video was a novel foray into the gray area of campaign finance law, and so I asked the experts on Rick Hasen’s excellent and disputatious election law listserv<http://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election> for their views on it. They were not unanimous on the question, but Perry is clearly treading in some uncharted legal waters.”

Disputatious?

And for the record, I co-manage the list with Dan Lowenstein of UCLA, one of the pioneers of the field.

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Posted in campaign finance<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10> | Comments Off
“TV Attack Ads Aim at Obama Early and Often”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=25790>
Posted on November 27, 2011 8:21 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=25790> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

This NYT article<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/us/politics/television-attack-ads-aim-at-obama-early-and-often.html?ref=politics> focuses on negative outside money.

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Posted in campaign finance<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10> | Comments Off
“Virginia’s Parody of Democracy”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=25787>
Posted on November 27, 2011 8:13 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=25787> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

This WaPo editorial<http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/virginias-parody-of-democracy/2011/11/23/gIQA4y85wN_story.html?sub=AR> begins: “STATE LEGISLATIVE elections in Virginia have come to bear a certain resemblance to what passed for voting in the old Soviet Union. There, candidates, unopposed and endorsed by the Communist Party, routinely ran up victories with 99 percent of the vote, although voters had the theoretical right to cast a ‘no’ ballot. In Virginia’s elections this month, the competition wasn’t much tougher.”

On the same topic, Rob Richie has written Render Gerrymandering Obsolete<http://hamptonroads.com/2011/11/render-gerrymandering-obsolete> in the Virginian-Pilot.

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Posted in redistricting<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6> | Comments Off
WaPo Editorializes on Fixing the Hatch Act<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=25784>
Posted on November 27, 2011 7:59 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=25784> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Here<http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-no-brainer-for-good-government/2011/11/16/gIQAx93v2N_story.html>.

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Posted in conflict of interest laws<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=20>, ethics investigations<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=42> | Comments Off
“Democrats post big fundraising numbers for 2012 House races”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=25781>
Posted on November 27, 2011 7:57 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=25781> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WaPo reports<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/democrats-post-big-fundraising-numbers-for-2012-house-races/2011/11/22/gIQAxIcczN_story.html>.

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Posted in campaign finance<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10> | Comments Off
“The Buzz: Republican interests launch latest attack on California’s congressional maps”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=25779>
Posted on November 27, 2011 7:55 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=25779> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

SacBee reports<http://www.sacbee.com/2011/11/26/4080575/the-buzz-republican-interests.html>: “Radanovich’s federal suit contends that the panel violated federal voting rights law and the U.S. Constitution by seeking to protect three African American incumbents in the drawing of three Los Angeles congressional districts.”

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Posted in citizen commissions<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=7>, redistricting<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>, Voting Rights Act<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=15> | Comments Off
--
Rick Hasen
Professor of Law and Political Science
UC Irvine School of Law
401 E. Peltason Dr., Suite 1000
Irvine, CA 92697-8000
949.824.3072 - office
949.824.0495 - fax
rhasen at law.uci.edu<mailto:rhasen at law.uci.edu>
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