[EL] more news 7/12/13

Fri Jul 12 14:49:57 PDT 2013

    "Federal judge hears case on Ohio ballot, ID rules"
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=52905>

Posted on July 12, 2013 2:49 pm <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=52905> by 
Rick Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

AP 
<http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/news/federal-judge-hears-case-on-ohio-ballot-id-rules/nYpKn/>: 
"Voter advocates asked a federal judge Friday to extend a court order 
that they say ensures that broad definitions of voter identification 
requirements would remain in place in the perennial presidential 
battleground of Ohio."

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Posted in election administration <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>, 
The Voting Wars <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>, voter id 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=9> | Comments Off

    "A Day of Friction Notable Even for a Fractious Congress"
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=52902>

Posted on July 12, 2013 2:46 pm <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=52902> by 
Rick Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT: 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/13/us/politics/a-day-of-friction-notable-even-for-a-fractious-congress.html?ref=politics&_r=0>

    Even in a Congress where bipartisanship and comity are now
    officially the exceptions to the regular order, the near implosion
    on Capitol Hill on Thursday was notable, as both chambers erupted in
    a furor that went on for much of the day.

    In the Senate, leaders fought bitterly over proposed changes to
    Senate rules that would limit the filibuster
    <http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/12/us/politics/showdown-nears-in-senate-over-filibusters-change.html>,
    with Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, trading
    barbs with Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican
    leader, several times on the Senate floor.

    "These are dark days in the history of the Senate," Mr. McConnell
    said ominously, adding that the rule change suggested by Mr. Reid
    would lead to the Democrat's being remembered as "the worst leader
    of the Senate ever." The two men, both crafty lawmakers and once
    seemingly friends, seem now barely able to countenance each other's
    presence.

    Over in the House, Republicans --- without the help of a single
    Democrat --- passed perhaps the most partisan farm bill
    <http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/12/us/politics/house-bill-would-split-farm-and-food-stamp-programs.html>
    in recent history, stripping out the food stamp program to attract
    enough support from conservatives. Just passing the bill, which was
    prepared in the House Rules Committee in the dark of night
    Wednesday, proved an unusual chore as furious Democrats pulled one
    procedural move after another to delay the inevitable, taking turns
    to disparage the bill from the floor.

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Posted in legislation and legislatures 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=27>, political parties 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=25>, political polarization 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=68> | Comments Off

    "Clinton Supporter Suspected of Illegal Donations"
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=52900>

Posted on July 12, 2013 2:43 pm <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=52900> by 
Rick Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

CPI reports. 
<http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/07/12/12943/clinton-supporter-suspected-illegal-donations>

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Posted in campaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, 
chicanery <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12> | Comments Off

    "Carl Levin Can Save the Filibuster"
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=52897>

Posted on July 12, 2013 2:27 pm <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=52897> by 
Rick Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Jonathan Bernstein writes. 
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2013/07/12/carl-levin-can-save-the-filibuster/>

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Posted in legislation and legislatures 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=27>, political parties 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=25>, political polarization 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=68> | Comments Off

    "Democrats offer new evidence that IRS targeted progressive groups"
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=52894>

Posted on July 12, 2013 2:23 pm <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=52894> by 
Rick Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WaPo reports 
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/07/12/democrats-offer-new-evidence-that-irs-targeted-progressive-groups/>.

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Posted in campaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, tax law 
and election law <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=22> | Comments Off

    "President Obama's advocacy arm collects $8.2 million"
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=52891>

Posted on July 12, 2013 1:48 pm <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=52891> by 
Rick Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

USA Today reports 
<http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/07/12/organization-for-action-donors--president-obama-fundraising/2511993/>.

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Posted in campaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10> | 
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    Redistricting Versus Access to the Ballot Box: A Republican View on
    Potential Bipartisan VRA Reform <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=52882>

Posted on July 12, 2013 10:53 am <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=52882> 
by Richard Pildes <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=7>

As mentioned in aprior post <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=52780>, a lot 
of good discussion came out of the recent Brookings conference on the 
aftermath of the Court's //decision on the Voting Rights Act.  With 
respect to the prospects of any kind of legislation that might be able 
to attract bipartisan support in Congress, I thought it worth quoting 
the perspective of Mark Braden, whose credentials as a redistricting and 
election-law expert for the Republican Party I described earlier.

Mark suggested that focusing Sections 4/5 on access to the ballot box, 
by taking redistricting out of the pre-clearance regime and leaving that 
to be handled by ordinary Section 2 litigation, would open up greater 
opportunity for Republican support of post-/Shelby County /VRA reform.  
I don't know how much Mark speaks for Republicans in Congress, or 
whether Democrats would be willing to accept any compromise along these 
lines.  But I thought Mark's comments were worth reporting (without 
endorsing) in full:

    MR. BRADEN:  . . . I don't see any difficulty whatsoever in drawing
    a trigger standard that would be Constitutional.  I do see a huge
    problem with drawing one that would be Constitutional and would, in
    fact, pass Congress.  I think the question here is what can pass
    Congress.  The starting point, I would suggest to you, is going back
    --- my own view of the world, obviously --- going back and
    bifurcating what we're talking about here that Section 5 deals with.

    There's a big piece which is reapportionment, redistricting, and
    then just let me call it the election administration piece.  If you
    fill the need to not bifurcate and have to come up with a system
    that would get through Congress that would deal with both those
    pieces, good luck. I don't see how that's going to happen, but if
    you were to bifurcate it, I think there's a possibility that you
    could. You have to deal with Abigail.  You have to realize that if
    you don't break out redistricting, then if you break out
    redistricting, suddenly you've freed up a huge portion of the
    Republican caucus who is opposed to what they would view as racial
    quotas and redistricting based upon race, even though, of course,
    redistricting based upon race has been vital to the creation of the
    Republican party itself.  I mean, there's no question about that
    throughout the '80s, '90s.  People that were working with me was the
    minority community in the South, and that's what permitted the
    Republican party to become the majority party in those states at the
    local and legislative level.

    Okay, but the whole notion of creating those majority minority
    districts is very difficult with most of the Republican caucus in
    the House of Representatives.  So, if you want to break that piece
    off and say, okay, we're not going to have any effort to replace
    Section 5 is going to deal with redistricting.  We'll depend upon
    Section 2 or something else to deal with redistricting litigation. 
    But we're going to deal with --- what I heard in a variety of
    discussions here --- things that are really important going
    forward.  First of all, with the exception of a few odds and ends,
    everything in redistricting is a long way from now, 2012.

    So, if you want to deal with what you perceive to be problems in the
    near, near term, which are election administration problems, you
    break those out, you've suddenly freed up a lot of Republicans who
    wouldn't consider this because they say this is based upon
    racial-based redistricting.  If you take that piece out, then all
    we're talking about is election administration practices, whether or
    not they're discriminatory.

    No matter what, we have different views about early voting and voter
    ID or whatever, but at least intellectually the caucus is going to
    vote rhetorically, and I would suggest intellectually, want to take
    the position that they're not in favor of anything that
    discriminates, any type of election procedure that discriminates
    against a minority community.  Now, we're going to have lots of
    arguments as to what that means, but at least rhetorically they will
    take that position, and I believe actually take that position.

    So, if you're talking about creating a system that might permit some
    type of pre-approval or easier access to challenging election
    administration pieces, that's doable. If you're doing the whole
    thing, that's not politically doable, period.

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Posted in Uncategorized <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1> | Comments Off

    "A Decade After McCain-Feingold, Election Spending Spikes"
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=52883>

Posted on July 12, 2013 10:49 am <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=52883> 
by Rick Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Must-Reid 
<http://www.nationaljournal.com/columns/on-the-trail/a-decade-after-mccain-feingold-election-spending-spikes-20130711> 
(Wilson) piece. And for those who don't think the Supreme Court's 
deregulation of outside money matters, check out this chart from the piece:

outside-nj <http://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/outside-nj.png>

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Posted in campaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10> | 
Comments Off

    "Watchdog Groups Challenge Illegitimate Attempt by Republican FEC
    Commissioners to Sabotage Campaign Finance"
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=52879>

Posted on July 12, 2013 10:24 am <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=52879> 
by Rick Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

See this press release 
<http://www.democracy21.org/money-in-politics/letters-to-the-fec/watchdog-groups-challenge-illegitimate-attempt-by-republican-fec-commissioners-to-sabotage-campaign-finance/>.

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Posted in campaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10> | 
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    "Voter ID Trial Gets Underway In Pennsylvania"
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=52876>

Posted on July 12, 2013 10:17 am <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=52876> 
by Rick Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

HuffPo reports 
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/12/voter-id-trial-pennsylvania_n_3586546.html?utm_hp_ref=tw>.

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Posted in The Voting Wars <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>, voter id 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=9> | Comments Off

    "A Not-So-Bright 'Fix' for the IRS | Commentary"
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=52873>

Posted on July 12, 2013 8:24 am <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=52873> by 
Rick Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Eric Wang 
<http://www.rollcall.com/news/a_not_so_bright_fix_for_the_irs_commentary-226245-1.html?pg=1> 
Roll Call oped. More from CCP. 
<http://www.campaignfreedom.org/2013/07/12/bright-lines-project-fails-to-live-up-to-its-name/>

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Posted in campaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, tax law 
and election law <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=22> | Comments Off

    "Blame Voting Rights Act for Dem Troubles"
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=52871>

Posted on July 12, 2013 8:22 am <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=52871> by 
Rick Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Jonathan Tobin 
<http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2013/07/11/blame-voting-rights-act-for-democrat-troubles-south/> 
replies to Tom Edsall. 
<http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/10/the-decline-of-black-power-in-the-south/?ref=opinion>

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Posted in Supreme Court <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>, Voting 
Rights Act <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=15> | Comments Off

-- 
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://law.uci.edu/faculty/page1_r_hasen.html
http://electionlawblog.org

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