[EL] ELB News and Commentary 11/26/13

Mon Nov 25 20:39:08 PST 2013

    "Stockman's filings don't explain his income"
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=56973>

Posted on November 25, 2013 8:36 pm 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=56973>by Rick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Must-read Houston Chronicle story 
<http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/politics/us/article/Stockman-s-filings-don-t-explain-his-income-5006941.php?t=e7e7844f8f4d372650#/5> 
quoting the great Kathleen Clark on congressional ethics obligations.

Worth clicking for the graphic alone 
<http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/politics/us/article/Stockman-s-filings-don-t-explain-his-income-5006941.php?t=e7e7844f8f4d372650#/5>.

I expect this story to have legs.

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Posted in campaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, 
chicanery <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>, ethics investigations 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=42>

    "How liberal mega-donor Peter Lewis left his mark on politics"
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=56971>

Posted on November 25, 2013 8:31 pm 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=56971>by Rick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

The Fix reports. 
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/11/25/how-liberal-mega-donor-peter-lewis-left-his-mark-on-politics/>

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

    "Obama visit to DreamWorks Animation spotlights studio run by top
    Hollywood donor" <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=56969>

Posted on November 25, 2013 8:28 pm 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=56969>by Rick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WaPo: 
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-visit-to-dreamworks-animation-spotlights-studio-run-by-top-hollywood-donor/2013/11/25/34f49972-55f4-11e3-ba82-16ed03681809_story.html>

    The decision by the White House to put the presidential spotlight on
    his company underscores how well many top campaign donors have fared
    in Obama's administration, despite the president's early pledge to
    temper the influence of wealthy interests on the political system.

    Since 2008, Obama has appointed at least three dozen big check
    writers and fundraisers to coveted ambassadorships in spots such as
    the United Kingdom, France and Italy. Earlier this year, Obama gave
    the commerce secretary nod to Chicago hotel heiress Penny Pritzker,
    who served as national finance chairwoman of his first White House
    bid and raised more than $500,000 for his reelection.

    Obama's stop at DreamWorks Animation is "payback for somebody who
    was a very early supporter of his, and somebody with very deep
    pockets," said Bill Allison, editorial director at the Sunlight
    Foundation, a nonpartisan group that advocates for transparency in
    government. "What it says is that money is alive and well as a way
    of buying access in Washington."

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

    Verifying ID--With a Health Care Twist
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=56967>

Posted on November 25, 2013 8:23 pm 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=56967>by Rick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/26/us/id-verification-lagging-on-health-care-website.html?ref=politics>.

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Posted in election administration <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>

    Interesting Intervention Motion in North Carolina Challenge to New
    Voting Law <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=56963>

Posted on November 25, 2013 8:16 pm 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=56963>by Rick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

The lawyers at Perkins Coie have filedthis complaint 
<http://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/29-1.pdf> in intervention 
and motion <http://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/29-main.pdf> 
on behalf of young North Carolina voters, raising the kinds of issues  
wrote about in my recent NYT oped 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/16/opinion/voter-suppressions-new-pretext.html>.

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Posted in election administration <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>, 
The Voting Wars <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>

    "Citizens United in Affordable Care Act litigation, Part VI"
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=56961>

Posted on November 25, 2013 7:55 pm 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=56961>by Rick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Muller. 
<http://excessofdemocracy.com/blog/2013/11/citizens-united-in-affordable-care-act-litigation-part-vi>

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Posted in campaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, Supreme 
Court <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>

    "Statutory Interpretation from the Inside -- An Empirical Study of
    Congressional Drafting, Delegation and the Canons: Part II"
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=56959>

Posted on November 25, 2013 7:48 pm 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=56959>by Rick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Abbe Gluck and Lisa Schultz Bressman have posted this draft o 
<http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2358074>n SSRN 
(forthcoming, /Stanford Law Review/). This moves to the top of my 
statutory interpretation reading pile. Here is the abstract:

    This is the second of two Articles relaying the results of the most
    extensive survey to date of 137 congressional drafters about the
    doctrines of statutory interpretation and administrative delegation.
    The first Article focused on our respondents' knowledge and use of
    the interpretive principles that courts apply. This second Article
    moves away from the judicial perspective. Our findings here
    highlight the overlooked legislative underbelly: the personnel,
    structural and process-related factors that, our respondents
    repeatedly volunteered, drive the details of the drafting process
    more than do judicial rules of interpretation. These factors range
    from the fragmentation caused by the committee system; to the
    centrality of nonpartisan professional staff in the drafting of
    statutory text; to the use of increasingly unorthodox legislative
    procedures -- each of which, our respondents told us, affects
    statutory consistency and use of legislative history in different
    and important ways. Our respondents also painted a picture of
    legislative staffers in a primary interpretive conversation with
    agencies, not with courts, and as using different kinds of signals
    for their communications with agencies than courts consider.

    Most of the structural, personnel and process-related influences
    that our respondents emphasized have not been recognized by courts
    or scholars, but understanding them calls into question almost every
    presumption of statutory interpretation in current deployment. These
    findings have significance for textualism, purposivism and beyond.
    They undermine the claims of proponents of each theory that theirs
    is the most democracy-enhancing, because none makes satisfactory
    efforts to really reflect congressional expectations. Our findings
    challenge textualism's operating assumption that text is the best
    evidence of the legislative bargain and suggest more relevant -- but
    still-formalist -- structural features that might do better. They
    reveal that although purposivists or eclectic theorists may have the
    right idea with a more contextual approach, many of factors on which
    they focus are not the same ones that Congress utilizes. With
    respect to delegation, for both types of theorists, Chevron now
    seems too text- and court-centric, in the light of our findings, to
    actually capture congressional intent to delegate, which has been
    its asserted purpose.

    In the end, our findings raise the question whether the kind of
    "faithful agent" approach to interpretation that most judges
    currently employ -- one aimed effectuating legislative deals and
    often focused on granular textual details -- can ever be successful.
    We thus look to different paradigms less dependent on how Congress
    works, including rule-of-law and pragmatic approaches to
    interpretation. These alternatives respond to the problem of the
    sausage factory, but pose different challenges in light of the
    modern judicial sensibility's pronounced concern with legislative
    supremacy.

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Posted in legislation and legislatures 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=27>, statutory interpretation 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=21>

    "How much lobbying is there in Washington? It's DOUBLE what you
    think" <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=56957>

Posted on November 25, 2013 5:49 pm 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=56957>by Rick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Interesting Tim LaPira post. 
<http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2013/11/25/how-much-lobbying-is-there-in-washington-its-double-what-you-think/>

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Posted in legislation and legislatures 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=27>, lobbying 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=28>

    "Kelly Horwitz files appeal in Tuscaloosa voter fraud case"
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=56955>

Posted on November 25, 2013 5:45 pm 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=56955>by Rick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WRBC 
<http://www.myfoxal.com/story/24063972/kelly-horwitz-files-appeal-in-tuscaloosa-voter-fraud-case>: 
"Tuscaloosa City School board candidate Kelly Horwitz has filed an 
appeal with the Alabama Supreme Court in the Tuscaloosa voter fraud case 
<http://www.myfoxal.com/story/23283925/tuscaloosa-city-school-board-candidate-alleges-voter-fraud>."

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Posted in chicanery <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>, election 
administration <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>, residency 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=38>

    "Montgomery voting task force to consider automatic voter
    registration with driver's license"
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=56953>

Posted on November 25, 2013 5:41 pm 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=56953>by Rick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

See here 
<http://marylandreporter.com/2013/11/25/montgomery-voting-task-force-to-consider-automatic-voter-registration-with-drivers-license/>.

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Posted in election administration <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>, 
voter registration <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=37>

    "Dem declared official winner in Virginia AG race; recount
    uncertain" <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=56951>

Posted on November 25, 2013 5:40 pm 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=56951>by Rick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

CNN reports 
<http://wtkr.com/2013/11/25/dem-declared-official-winner-in-virginia-ag-race-recount-uncertain/>.

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Posted in election administration <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>, 
recounts <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=50>

    Thanks to the ABA Journal for Choosing Election Law Blog Again to
    Blawg 100 <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=56949>

Posted on November 25, 2013 5:19 pm 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=56949>by Rick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

You can find the Blawg 100 here. <http://www.abajournal.com/blawg100>

If you like the content of ELB, you can register (for free) to vote 
<http://www.abajournal.com/blawg100> for the blog in the "Niche" category.

Thanks for reading, and thanks to the ABA Journal!

image

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

    "Voter ID woes could soar in higher-turnout elections, officials
    fear" <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=56947>

Posted on November 25, 2013 11:30 am 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=56947>by Rick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Dallas News 
<http://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/headlines/20131124-voter-id-woes-could-soar-in-higher-turnout-elections-officials-fear.ece>:

    Delays at the polls this month due to glitches with voters'
    identifications could signal a bigger problem to come next year,
    when many more turn out for state and county elections.

    Thousands of voters had to sign affidavits or cast provisional
    ballots on Nov. 5 --- the first statewide election held under the
    state's new voter identification law --- because their name on the
    voter rolls did not exactly match the name on their photo ID.

    It took most only a short time, but election officials are concerned
    that a few minutes per voter to carefully check names and photos
    against voter registration cards, and then to have voters sign
    affidavits or fill out provisional paperwork, could snowball into
    longer waits and more frustration.

    A review by /The Dallas Morning News/ found that 1,365 provisional
    ballots were filed in the state's 10 largest counties. In most of
    them, the number of provisional ballots cast more than doubled from
    2011, the last similar election, to 2013.

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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>

    "Not All Canvass Stories Are Success Stories: Richland County Misses
    More than 1,000 Ballots" <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=56945>

Posted on November 25, 2013 7:43 am 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=56945>by Rick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

A ChapinBlog 
<http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cspg/electionacademy/2013/11/not_all_canvass_stories_are_su.php>.

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Posted in election administration <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>

    "High-powered attorneys line up in John Doe case"
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=56943>

Posted on November 25, 2013 7:36 am 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=56943>by Rick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

The latest 
<http://host.madison.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/high-powered-attorneys-line-up-in-john-doe-case/article_44d4bf2a-fdbc-5a06-93e0-49c1c45fcf96.html> 
from Wisconsin.

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

-- 
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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