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

Thu Dec 12 20:50:43 PST 2013

At today's hearing, I did not get the sense that this was necessarily a 
precursor to trying to pass AB 280. In fact, Lowell Finley from the 
Secretary of State's office talked about how difficult setting up a 
state preclearance regime could be, I discussed the difficulties in the 
courts with new race-based remedies, and election officials from Yuba 
and Kings counties made what seemed to me to be pretty strong cases as 
to why they did not deserve to be subject to preclearance again.
I had to leave the hearing early, and so perhaps there were more 
positive comments made about AB280 after I left. But it was not my sense 
that the leaders of these committees were interested in moving in that 
direction.

On 12/11/13, 11:35 AM, Rick Hasen wrote:
> FWIW, I'm the lead-off person testifying at the hearing tomorrow and 
> this is the first I've heard of AB 280.  It certainly won't be the 
> focus of my testimony, which is all about the federal VRA.
>
> On 12/11/2013 11:14 AM, Douglas Johnson wrote:
>>
>> Clarification: it's been brought to my attention that the Assembly's 
>> 73-0 vote was on a prior version of AB 280 (which I believe was the 
>> firearms language now shown with strike-through font). The language 
>> now in AB 280 has not been vetted or voted on by the Assembly. To 
>> pass, the Senate will have to adopt the bill and then send it back to 
>> the Assembly for adoption before it can go to the Governor.
>>
>> (And my thanks for the off-list heads up on that.)
>>
>> -Doug
>>
>> Douglas Johnson, Fellow
>>
>> Rose Institute of State and Local Government
>>
>> at Claremont McKenna College
>>
>> douglas.johnson at cmc.edu <mailto:douglas.johnson at cmc.edu>
>>
>> 310-200-2058
>>
>> *From:*Douglas Johnson [mailto:djohnson at ndcresearch.com]
>> *Sent:* Wednesday, December 11, 2013 9:27 AM
>> *To:* 'Rick Hasen'; 'law-election at UCI.edu'
>> *Subject:* RE: [EL] CA Legislative Hearing (and bill?) on Voting 
>> Rights Act
>>
>> 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 <mailto: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> 
>> [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 <mailto: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.
>>
>
> -- 
> Rick Hasen
> Chancellor's 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
> hhttp://www.law.uci.edu/faculty/full-time/hasen/
> http://electionlawblog.org
>
>
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-- 
Rick Hasen
Chancellor's 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
http://www.law.uci.edu/faculty/full-time/hasen/
http://electionlawblog.org

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