[EL] ELB News and Commentary 12/2/14
Rick Hasen
rhasen at law.uci.edu
Mon Dec 1 22:45:29 PST 2014
"Clamor Rises to Rewrite the U.S. Constitution"
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=68743>
Posted onDecember 1, 2014 7:52 pm
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=68743>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Al Hunt International NYT column
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/01/us/politics/clamor-rises-to-rewrite-the-us-constitution.html?ref=politics&_r=0>on
an Article V convention.
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Posted inUncategorized <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>
"Florida Democrats want to change an election law they created to
help them win again" <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=68741>
Posted onDecember 1, 2014 7:43 pm
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=68741>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
WaPo reports.
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/12/01/florida-democrats-want-to-change-an-election-law-they-created-to-help-them-win-again/>
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Posted incampaigns <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>
Lesson for Democrats: Don't Joke About Voter Fraud
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=68739>
Posted onDecember 1, 2014 7:42 pm
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=68739>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Fox Nation
<http://nation.foxnews.com/2014/12/01/video-landrieu-aide%E2%80%99s-father-%E2%80%98if-you-early-voted-go-vote-again-tomorrow%E2%80%99>on
a video allegedly of the father of a Landrieu staff member.
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Posted inThe Voting Wars <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>
"West Virginia Coal Country Sees New Era as Donald Blankenship Is
Indicted" <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=68737>
Posted onDecember 1, 2014 5:19 pm
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=68737>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Chilling Trip Gabriel NYT report.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/01/us/west-virginia-coal-country-sees-new-era-as-a-mine-boss-is-indicted.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimes>
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Posted inUncategorized <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>
"Reform Groups Urge Senators to Oppose Sen. McConnell's Efforts to
Sneak Campaign Finance Revision into Appropriations Bill"
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=68735>
Posted onDecember 1, 2014 2:14 pm
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=68735>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
See here.
<http://www.democracy21.org/legislative-action/press-releases-legislative-action/reform-groups-urge-senators-to-oppose-sen-mcconnells-efforts-to-sneak-campaign-finance-revision-into-appropriations-bill/>
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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>
"Schultz looks ahead to serving as county attorney"
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=68733>
Posted onDecember 1, 2014 10:05 am
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=68733>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
AP
<http://www.nonpareilonline.com/news/other/schultz-looks-ahead-to-serving-as-county-attorney/article_b6c4b20e-7969-11e4-951c-3352fd052db3.html>:
"After four tumultuous years adamantly pursuing voter fraud and lobbying
for voter identification, Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz is
preparing to leave office with no regrets and a determination to
prosecute criminals of another kind."
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Posted inelection administration
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>,The Voting Wars
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>
"In Arizona, Slow Counts of Early Votes Raise Questions, Concerns"
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=68731>
Posted onDecember 1, 2014 7:10 am
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=68731>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
A ChapinBlog.
<http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cspg/electionacademy/2014/12/in_arizona_slow_counts_of_earl.php>
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Posted inelection administration <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>
"The Van Hollen Case" <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=68727>
Posted onDecember 1, 2014 6:49 am
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=68727>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Bauer blogs. <http://www.moresoftmoneyhardlaw.com/2014/12/van-hollen-case/>
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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>
All Too Familiar: The Brookings Response to Transparency Critics
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=68724>
Posted onDecember 1, 2014 6:30 am
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=68724>byBruce Cain
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=14>
In a recent Brookings publication entitled/Why Critics of Transparency
Are Wrong/
<http://www.brookings.edu/%7E/media/research/files/papers/2014/11/24%20why%20critics%20transparency%20wrong%20bass%20brian%20eisen/critics.pdf>,
Gary D. Bass, Danielle Brian and Norman Eisen take on a growing number
of critics who have publicly questioned the trend towards more
transparency in US politics. A healthy debate on this topic is long
overdue. There is shockingly little empirical research to date in
political science about transparency, open meeting laws, disclosure
rules and related topics. But how we discuss and evaluate transparency
matters greatly.
The Brookings article suffers in some ways that are characteristic of
the reform community. For many years the implicit and often unexamined
assumption behind American political reform was that more transparency,
public participation, conflict of interest regulation and the like was
the answer to our political problems.In my forthcoming book/Democracy
More or Less/
<http://www.amazon.com/Democracy-More-Less-Political-Cambridge/dp/1107612268/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1417445833&sr=8-1>,
I argue that decades of political science research should have
undermined any naive faith in citizen capacity and made us aware that
pluralist realities often overtake populist ideals. A more realistic
reform agenda must take more seriously the role that formal and informal
intermediaries play and design the "stakeholder" side of democracy to be
more fair and effective.
The Brookings paper ends with an extended, unnecessary argument against
imaginary critics who apparently think that transparency has no role. As
if serious scholars like Sarah Binder, Frances Lee and Frank Fukuyama
would ever make such an argument. The right argument about transparency
is not whether it is an important democratic value that promotes
accountability and good governance. Rather, it is about how much
transparency is needed for holding governments accountable and at what
point in the decision processes it is needed most.
The authors concede at several points that transparency demands cannot
be absolute. For instance they say: "Where there are legitimate problems
with openness laws and procedures, we should fix them;" "We are all for
deal-making in order to get things done...we do not oppose private
communications; " and "Deliberation in front of the cameras doesn't
always produce the best public policy." But in every instance they
quickly hedge their concession with such caveats as: "/Bu/t the need for
that balance is already widely agreed upon and it has by and large been
struck (all too often with a decided tilt towards secrecy)," or "/but/we
should recognize that secrecy brings serious risks, and that
transparency is required to hedge against those risks."
I applaud their attempt to bring data into the discussion with their
test of whether televising Senate deliberations affected its
productivity, even though the test itself is pretty weak and
questionable in its choice of variables. However, their empirical
assertion that government disclosure tools are frequently used by the
public" is misleading. Citing the heavy use of FOIA by seniors and
veterans neglects the important distinction between citizen requests for
information about their own government benefits versus requests for
information about government policies. The latter, not the former,
relate to democratic accountability, and they are largely made by the
press and other intermediaries (see my co-authored chapter on
transparency in the volume/Democracy Transformed/co-edited with Russ
Dalton and Susan Scarrow for details).
At several points, they defend the status quo by heralding the fact that
transparency laws are weak. Apparently, Binder and Lee are wrong because
strict open meeting and FOIA laws do not apply to Congress. And critics
of agency sunshine rules miss that notational voting is allowed. But
they do not say whether they would favor reforms to fix these omissions.
I suspect that they would not but they should. In my transparency
chapter in/Democracy More or Les/s, I show that when such rules are
applied strictly at the local government level, they can lead to absurd
intrusions into the political process.
I also make the point in my book that one of the confusing problems
about political reform is that we are often dealing with opposite ends
of the spectrum. In some cases, we may have gone too far in preserving
government secrecy (e.g. FISA) while in other settings we have gone too
far in the transparency direction (e.g. strict enforcement of the
California's Brown Act). We also do not always distinguished between
pre-decision, in process and post-decision transparency. The demand to
see decisions being made is more often about giving reporters fodder for
juicy stories or enabling groups to pressure decision-makers than
helping voters make decisions. Voters rarely understand or pay attention
to process. They care more about effects.
The authors several times refer to how transparency helps "the public"
see and understand what the government is doing, but they elide over the
important fact that this information brokering role is played by groups
with their own agendas. The fiction that they represent "the public" is
problematic. As critics of US pluralism have long pointed out, interest
groups politics all too often over-represent those with intense
preferences and resource advantages.
Until we rid ourselves of populist illusions and focus more consciously
on the role that stakeholders, activists and other intermediaries should
and will inevitably play in American democracy, we will continue to
double down on failed strategies and be disappointed with the results.
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Posted inUncategorized <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>
"Recount set to begin in Barber-McSally race"
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=68721>
Posted onNovember 30, 2014 9:13 pm
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=68721>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
The Arizona Republic reports.
<http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/arizona/politics/2014/11/30/ron-barber-martha-mcsally-recount/19694257/>
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Posted inelection administration
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>,recounts
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=50>
--
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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