[EL] more news 10/30/14

Thu Oct 30 15:15:24 PDT 2014

Of course the last sentence in the voter id case is important to not only the voter ID case but also to the the house and congressional cases which are pending decision on merits. 

The house and congressional cases were tried a couple of months ago on in the basis of the 2011 legislative enactments. Perez v Perry 

No elections were ever held under the plan as tried. 

Rather The districts were modified significantly in an agreed order between two of the plaintiff groups and the state.  In other words an agreed interim plan of sorts. 

With only minor changes the districts under the intern plan were adopted by the legislature in 2013. 

I suspect that the trial on the basis of the 2011 plan was because it presented the clearest case for sec 3 remedy. If there was a section 3 finding, then the merits would presumably be delayed pending preclearance.   If not I understand that the Perez court will consider the current plan. 

The voter id case is a single judge trial and the congressional and house cases are three judge cases. Presumably different appellate avenues.  It is possible that we might have different section 3 findings based on virtually identical evidence. 

Sent from my iPhone

> On Oct 30, 2014, at 2:57 PM, Rick Hasen <rhasen at law.uci.edu> wrote:
> 
> “Messing With Texas Again: Putting It Back Under Federal Supervision”
> Posted on October 30, 2014 12:40 pm by Rick Hasen
> I have written this piece for TPM Cafe. It begins:
> 
> Readers of the entire 147-page opinion issued earlier this month by a federal district court striking down Texas’s strict voter identification law as unconstitutional and a violation of the Voting Rights Act might have been too exhausted to realize that the opinion’s very last sentence may be its most important. The court ended its opinion with a dry statement promising a future hearing on “plaintiffs’ request for relief under Section 3(c) of the Voting Rights Act.” That hearing, however, has the potential to require Texas to get federal approval for any future voting changes for up to the next decade, and to make it much more difficult for the state to pass more restrictive voting rules. It may be much more important than the ruling on the voter ID law itself.
> 
> <share_save_171_16.png>
> Posted in election administration, The Voting Wars, voter id, Voting Rights Act
> “McDonnell team sought mistrial over juror’s ouster, expressed concern about alternate”
> Posted on October 30, 2014 12:30 pm by Rick Hasen
> WaPo reports.
> 
> <share_save_171_16.png>
> Posted in bribery
> “Ginsburg Was Right: Texas’ Extreme Voter ID Law Is Stopping People From Voting”
> Posted on October 30, 2014 12:24 pm by Rick Hasen
> HuffPo reports.
> 
> <share_save_171_16.png>
> Posted in election administration, The Voting Wars, voter id, Voting Rights Act
> “50,000 Missing Georgia Voter-Registration Applications? Nothing to See Here”
> Posted on October 30, 2014 12:20 pm by Rick Hasen
> The Daily Beast reports.
> 
> <share_save_171_16.png>
> Posted in election administration, The Voting Wars, voter registration
> “Argument preview: Racial gerrymandering, partisan politics, and the future of the Voting Rights Act”
> Posted on October 30, 2014 12:07 pm by Rick Hasen
> I have written an extensive preview for SCOTUSBlog of a pair of cases the Supreme Court will hear at a November 12 oral argument. The issues are complex but very important and I’ve tried to lay it out so that someone not in the election law field can understand what’s at stake.  The preview begins:
> 
> The Supreme Court has long ignored Justice Felix Frankfurter’s warning to stay out of the political thicket. It regularly hears challenges to redistricting cases (not to mention lots of other types of election cases), raising issues from the one-person, one-vote rule to vote dilution under the Voting Rights Act, to racial and partisan gerrymandering claims. The Court’s decision to hear a part of a challenge to Alabama’s state legislative redistricting plan enacted after the 2010 census (in Alabama Legislative Black Caucus v. Alabama and Alabama Democratic Conference v. Alabama, set for argument on November 12) brings all of these issues together in a seemingly technical but high-stakes case, showing the artificiality of separating issues of race and party in redistricting, offering a bold role reversal in political parties’ use of racial gerrymandering claims, and offering a surprising new threat to the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act.
> 
>  
> 
> <share_save_171_16.png>
> Posted in Uncategorized
> “State election officials opt to delay election in Bobby Harrell’s old House seat”
> Posted on October 30, 2014 10:06 am by Rick Hasen
> Following up on this post, the South Carolina state election board is delaying the election and Democrats intend to appeal to the state Supreme Court.
> 
> <share_save_171_16.png>
> Posted in election administration
> “In Michigan, Spending Big Money to Stop Big Money”
> Posted on October 30, 2014 9:45 am by Rick Hasen
> NYT First Draft: “Now, with Election Day nearing, Mayday is pinning its hopes on Michigan’s Sixth Congressional District, where Representative Fred Upton, a Republican who is the chairman of the influential Energy and Commerce Committee and was once deemed a safe incumbent, is facing an unexpectedly strong challenge from Paul Clements, a Democrat. In a race that was on no one’s           radar a month ago, Mayday is now the biggest outside spender.”
> 
> <share_save_171_16.png>
> Posted in campaign finance
> “Horse. Stable Door. Too Late”
> Posted on October 30, 2014 9:24 am by Rick Hasen
> Paul Gronke on the non-citizen voting controversy and Jesse Richman’s most recent comments on it which try to pull back from some of its bolder claims.
> 
> <share_save_171_16.png>
> Posted in election administration, The Voting Wars
> “CFI Releases Analysis of Money in State Elections”
> Posted on October 30, 2014 9:07 am by Rick Hasen
> New release, with these subheads:
> 
> Nearly Two-Thirds of the Candidates’ 2012 Money in the Median State Came from PACs or from $1,000+ Donors; Small Donors Gave 16%
> 
> Less than 1% of Adults in the Median State Gave any Money at All to a Candidate for State Office
> 
> <share_save_171_16.png>
> Posted in campaign finance
> Lava!
> Posted on October 30, 2014 9:05 am by Rick Hasen
> and other things that can mess up an election administrator’s election day, via Electionline Weekly.
> 
> <share_save_171_16.png>
> Posted in election administration
> Fight in South Carolina Over Replacing Resigning House Speaker on Ballot
> Posted on October 30, 2014 7:21 am by Rick Hasen
> See here and here.
> 
> <share_save_171_16.png>
> Posted in campaigns
> “Danger Zone: A Supreme Court Misstep On Voting Rights”
> Posted on October 30, 2014 7:19 am by Rick Hasen
> Linda Greenhouse NYT column.
> 
> <share_save_171_16.png>
> Posted in Supreme Court, The Voting Wars, Voting Rights Act
> “Keep On Drillin’? Santa Barbara Prepares To Vote On Oil Future”
> Posted on October 30, 2014 7:14 am by Rick Hasen
> NPR’s Kirk Siegler on big money being spent on a local ballot measure.
> 
> <share_save_171_16.png>
> Posted in campaign finance, campaigns
> “The S.E.C. and Political Spending”
> Posted on October 30, 2014 7:10 am by Rick Hasen
> NYT editorial.
> 
> <share_save_171_16.png>
> Posted in campaign finance
> “Ethics commission approves dark money regulation”
> Posted on October 30, 2014 7:09 am by Rick Hasen
> San Antonio Express News:
> 
> Texas’ campaign finance regulator is set to shine a light on secret spending in state elections.
> 
> The Texas Ethics Commission, in a unanimous vote Wednesday, approved a new regulation to require politically active nonprofits to disclose donors if they spend more than 25 percent of their annual budget on politicking.
> 
> <share_save_171_16.png>
> Posted in campaign finance
> “Beth White Hoist on Her Own Petard”
> Posted on October 30, 2014 7:06 am by Rick Hasen
> Robbin Stewart.  More here.
> 
> <share_save_171_16.png>
> Posted in campaign finance, campaigns
> “How Canadian Corporations are Tipping the Scales in US Politics”
> Posted on October 30, 2014 7:05 am by Rick Hasen
> The Globe and Mail reports.
> 
> <share_save_171_16.png>
> Posted in campaign finance
> “Election Analysis Blog Launched”
> Posted on October 30, 2014 7:02 am by Rick Hasen
> Press release:
> 
> The University of Kentucky College of Law Election Law Society, a law student             organization, and election law professor, Joshua A. Douglas, announce the first of its kind at UK – an Election Analysis Blog. http://www.uky.edu/electionlaw/
> 
> Professor Douglas, the Robert G. Lawson and William H. Fortune Associate Professor of Law, and students from the Election Law Society will provide live analysis on legal issues surrounding the election as results pour in across the Commonwealth and the nation. They will field questions from the general public and media and provide ongoing commentary on any legal issues that may arise.
> 
> There have already been significant lawsuits in the past few weeks – about Kentucky’s 300-foot ban on electioneering around a polling site, allegations of false campaign advertising, voter ID laws, and more – that will impact Election Day. The U.S. Senate race in Kentucky between Alison Lundergan Grimes and Mitch McConnell is one of the most expensive – and potentially one of the closest – in the country. UK’s Election Analysis Blog will chronicle it all.
> 
> Good luck to Josh Douglas and the students at UK.  They join the great State of Elections blog at William and Mary whose law students do a consistently excellent job.
> 
> <share_save_171_16.png>
> Posted in Uncategorized
> “Sandra Fluke’s Election Bid Opposed By One Big-Spending Businessman”
> Posted on October 30, 2014 6:58 am by Rick Hasen
> Paul Blumenthal reports for HuffPo.
> 
> <share_save_171_16.png>
> Posted in campaign finance, campaigns
> 
> -- 
> 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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