[EL] CA Legislative Hearing (and bill?) on Voting Rights Act

[John Tanner]

In the last 10 years there have been successful Voting Rights Act cases
against the counties of San Diego, San Benito, Alameda (also sued and put
under section 3(a) in teh early 90s), Riverside, and Ventura, all of which
involved relief under section3(a), as well as a handful of successful suits
against cities within Los Angeles County.  See
http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/vot/litigation/caselist.php.  CA was,
along with TX, the major source of federal VRA enforcement actions.   And
there have been a number of successful suits under the CA VRA.     There
certainly is a need for energetic oversight of local election practices in
CA, but as written the bill in question is a waste of time


On Wed, Dec 11, 2013 at 12:27 PM, Douglas Johnson
<djohnson at ndcresearch.com>wrote:

> I strongly suspect the California legislative hearing today is designed
> (by the Legislators, not by Rick or other participants) to be laying the
> groundwork for Assembly Bill AB-280<http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201320140AB280&search_keywords=preclearance>,
> which would put, by name, the California counties of Yuba, Monterey and
> Kings under a *state* preclearance procedure. Those are the three
> California counties that were covered by Section 5 at the time of the
> *Shelby* ruling. The bill passed the State Assembly 73 to 0 (in the
> 80-member Assembly) and now awaits action in the State Senate.
>
>
>
> Those three counties were originally covered by the Federal law because of
> the impact on turnout of the big military bases used for staging troops
> to/from Vietnam (all of California had a “test or device,” but the rest of
> the state was not covered because of higher turnout rates). The bill does
> not include Los Angeles County (which was put under a 10-year preclearance
> regime for intentional discrimination in 1990s redistricting, I believe
> under Section 3 of the Federal VRA). I believe leaving out LA, among other
> factors, puts in significant doubt the bill’s claim that “The Legislature
> finds and declares that a special law is necessary and that a general law
> cannot be made applicable within the meaning of Section 16 of Article IV of
> the California Constitution because of the unique histories of
> discriminatory voting practices in the counties of Kings, Monterey, and
> Yuba.” The proposed law contains no bail-out provision. The proposed law
> contains no time limit on the state Attorney General’s review of a given
> election change, nor is there any provision for asking any court for review
> separate from the State AtG.
>
>
>
> It appears to me that this bill simply invites a near-slam-dunk
> constitutional challenge and legal fees for whichever lawyer succeeds at
> being the first into court to challenge it. But I realize the bill’s
> passage would make for great political theater for its proponents and the
> state Attorney General. Perhaps those at the hearing could make the case
> for California to serve as a test for developing a new coverage formula
> that might then become a model for a new federal formula? Seems like that
> would be a much better use of state money and legislator time.
>
>
>
> -        Doug
>
>
>
> Douglas Johnson, Fellow
>
> Rose Institute of State and Local Government
>
> at Claremont McKenna College
>
> douglas.johnson at cmc.edu
>
> 310-200-2058
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [mailto:
> law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] *On Behalf Of *Rick Hasen
> *Sent:* Wednesday, December 11, 2013 8:39 AM
> *To:* law-election at UCI.edu
> *Subject:* [EL] ELB News and Commentary 12/11/13
> Joint CA Assembly/Senate Committee Hearing on Federal Voting Rights Act
> Thursday <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=57305>
>
> Posted on December 10, 2013 7:53 pm <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=57305> by
> Rick Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
>
> The California Senate Committee on Elections and Constitutional Amendments
> and the California Assembly Committee on Elections and Redistricting are
> having a joint informational hearing on the “Status of the Federal Voting
> Rights Act” on Thursday at 9:30 am in Sacramento.
>
> Audio of this event will be broadcast<http://aelc.assembly.ca.gov/hearings>
> .
>
> View the agenda<http://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/VRA-Jt-Hearing-Agenda-12-12-13-FINAL.pdf>
> .
>
> I will be the first speaker to the joint panel.
>
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