[EL] Most influential lawyers

Mon Mar 25 08:35:44 PDT 2013

I think they are spot on with the election lawyers in that list.

Congratulations to all four of you!

Bill Maurer

From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Rick Hasen
Sent: Monday, March 25, 2013 7:34 AM
To: law-election at uci.edu
Subject: [EL] ELB News and Commentary 3/25/13

"As Obama signs sequestration cuts, his economic goals are at risk"<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=48705>
Posted on March 25, 2013 7:30 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=48705> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WaPo<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/as-obama-signs-sequestration-cuts-his-economic-goals-are-at-risk/2013/03/24/110f7104-9096-11e2-9cfd-36d6c9b5d7ad_story.html?hpid=z2>: "Obama is in this predicament after failing to persuade congressional Republicans to agree to a plan of tax hikes and more targeted spending cuts to replace the sequester. The president misjudged his GOP opponents, who have held firm in opposing more tax increases and, so far, have decided to stomach the sequester cuts."
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Posted in political parties<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=25>, political polarization<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=68> | Comments Off
"Campaign Finance: Raise Spending Limits, Increase Transparency"<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=48702>
Posted on March 25, 2013 7:26 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=48702> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Jonathan Rauch writes<http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/04/pacs-americana/309248/> for The Atlantic.
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Posted in campaign finance<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10> | Comments Off
Election Lawyers Among National Law Journal's 100 Most Influential Lawyers<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=48699>
Posted on March 25, 2013 7:24 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=48699> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Bob Bauer, Jim Bopp, Ben Ginsberg and I are included in National Law Journal's list<http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1202593197565&The__Most_Influential_Lawyers&slreturn=20130225102221#influential_lawyers-header> of the 100 Most Influential Lawyers in America.  I'm honored to be included.
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Posted in election law biz<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=51> | Comments Off
Coates and Adams Oped Against Tom Perez Describes Conversations with Perez<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=48697>
Posted on March 25, 2013 7:21 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=48697> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Washington Examiner OpEd<http://washingtonexaminer.com/op-ed-christopher-coates-and-j.-christian-adams/article/2525249> by former DOJ lawyers Christopher Coates and J. Christian Adams:

Senators of both parties should be reluctant to confirm nominee Thomas E. Perez as Labor secretary because he has provided inaccurate testimony under oath.

The explosive report by Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz details the existence of an open and toxic hostility inside the DOJ toward bringing voting rights cases to protect white victims of discrimination. When Perez testified before the Civil Rights Commission in May 2010, he denied he had ever heard of any such hostility. His testimony was false.

We should know. We detailed this problem to Perez in his office the day before his testimony. We described the long and detailed history of hostility by many DOJ employees toward race-neutral enforcement of the voting rights laws if the victims of discrimination were white.

Yet when Perez was pressed by Civil Rights Commission member Todd Gaziano on whether he was aware of such rancid attitudes toward protecting white victims, he replied: "We don't have people of that ilk, sir." Perez knew that wasn't true. The inspector general's report documents people "of that ilk," stacked from top to bottom at the Civil Rights Division, most still working there.
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Posted in Department of Justice<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=26>, Voting Rights Act<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=15> | Comments Off
"California Officials Turn Up The Heat On Secretive 'Dark Money' Groups"<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=48694>
Posted on March 24, 2013 4:58 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=48694> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

HuffPo reports.<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/24/california-dark-money_n_2943688.html?utm_hp_ref=san-francisco>
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Posted in campaign finance<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10> | Comments Off
"Fairfax elections report doesn't answer whether GOP hoped to discourage voting"<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=48691>
Posted on March 24, 2013 4:56 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=48691> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Robert McCartney WaPo column<http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/fairfax-elections-report-doesnt-answer-whether-gop-hoped-to-discourage-voting/2013/03/23/f123efce-934b-11e2-8ea1-956c94b6b5b9_story.html>: "The most provocative question raised by the severe poll delays<http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/long-voting-lines-blamed-on-high-turnout-too-few-poll-workers-and-voting-machines/2012/11/07/c1057972-291d-11e2-b4e0-346287b7e56c_story.html> in parts of Fairfax County on Election Day in November was whether the problems resulted from a nefarious plot by the Republican-controlled elections apparatus to discourage voting in Virginia's largest Democratic county. So it's frustrating that that concern was precisely the one left unclarified in Tuesday's bipartisan commission report <http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/va-politics/report-fairfax-needs-more-poll-workers-better-technology-to-avoid-election-lines/2013/03/19/80716ab2-90d1-11e2-9abd-e4c5c9dc5e90_story.html> on how to ensure that such waits don't happen again."

One thing Charles Stewart made clear in his presentation at the University of Virginia conference this weekend was that the problem of long lines is not the same everywhere: causes differ, and that means that fixes will likely differ too.

So not, "We have to fix that," but "We have to fix those."
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Posted in election administration<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18> | Comments Off
"DOJ Responds to Vitter on Voting Issue That Could Hinder Perez Nomination"<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=48688>
Posted on March 23, 2013 10:04 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=48688> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Roll Call<http://www.rollcall.com/news/doj_responds_to_vitter_on_voting_issue_that_could_hinder_perez_nomination-223387-1.html?pos=htmbtxt>: "The Justice Department responded Friday to Sen. David Vitter<http://www.rollcall.com/members/205.html>'s request for more information about its enforcement of a federal voter registration law - a response the Louisiana Republican demanded before deciding whether to drop his threat to block the nomination of Thomas Perez as the next Labor secretary."
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Posted in direct democracy<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=62>, NVRA (motor voter)<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=33>, The Voting Wars<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60> | Comments Off
"A Structural Theory of Elections"<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=48685>
Posted on March 23, 2013 9:21 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=48685> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Franita Tolson has posted this draft <http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2228350> on SSRN.  Here is the abstract:

Scholars and courts have hotly debated whether section 5 of the Voting Rights Act is constitutional under the Reconstruction Amendments. In these debates, attention has focused almost exclusively on the provisions in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments that authorize congressional enforcement. This Article argues that there is a better, more sure way to ground section 5 of the Voting Rights Act in the Constitution by exploring the structural inferences that emerge from viewing these Amendments holistically. In particular, this Article draws important lessons from section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which allows Congress to reduce a state's representation in the House of Representatives for abridging the right to vote in state and federal elections for "any reason except for participation in rebellion, or other crime."

This Article contends that section 2 influences the scope of congressional authority under section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which gives Congress the "power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article." Section 2, with its low threshold for violations that trigger a relatively extreme penalty, illustrates the proper means/ends fit for congressional legislation to address voting rights violations. Renewed focus on section 2 also sheds light on the textual and historical link between the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, a link that provides a broad basis for Congress to regulate state elections. This Article concludes that requiring preclearance of all electoral changes instituted by select jurisdictions under section 5 of the Voting Rights Act is actually a lesser penalty than reduced representation under section 2, and is thus consistent with Congress's broad authority to regulate voting and elections under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.

I just had a chance to read this impressive piece.  There is a lot of history surrounding the passage of the 14th and 15th amendments which is important and was neglected until this piece. Download it while it's hot!
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Posted in Supreme Court<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>, voting<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=31>, Voting Rights Act<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=15> | Comments Off
Dr. Suess to Influence Justice Thomas's Opinion in Shelby County Case?<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=48682>
Posted on March 23, 2013 8:16 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=48682> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

That's the suggestion in this New Yorker piece<http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2013/03/18/130318ta_talk_mead>.
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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<mailto:rhasen at law.uci.edu>
http://law.uci.edu/faculty/page1_r_hasen.html
http://electionlawblog.org
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