[EL] ELB News and Commentary 2/12/15

Thu Feb 12 07:41:32 PST 2015

    "Lawmakers divided on system to remap districts”
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=70253>

Posted onFebruary 12, 2015 7:38 am 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=70253>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

News 
<http://hamptonroads.com/2015/02/lawmakers-divided-system-remap-districts>from 
Va.

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Posted inredistricting <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>

    “The Constitution: Wrongage” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=70250>

Posted onFebruary 12, 2015 7:36 am 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=70250>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Richmond Times-Dispatch editorial 
<http://www.richmond.com/opinion/our-opinion/article_a5502c4c-f19e-519d-92a0-2cda74719d50.html>manages 
to diss both the President and me on campaign finance and foreign spending.

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

    “Liberal group files complaint alleging Walker’s tax-exempt group
    runs afoul of federal law” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=70248>

Posted onFebruary 12, 2015 7:30 am 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=70248>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

AP 
<http://www.greenfieldreporter.com/view/story/d1eaa34e79f54b168ba671a1e03026b2/WI--GOP-2016-Walker-Complaint>: 
“A liberal group has filed a complaint alleging that a new tax-exempt 
group created by Gov. Scott Walker is acting in violation of federal 
election law because it is actually a presidential exploratory committee.”

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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,tax law 
and election law <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=22>

    “Charles Stewart’s First 2014 Survey Data Shows Continued Drift Away
    From ‘Election Day'” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=70246>

Posted onFebruary 12, 2015 7:28 am 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=70246>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Chapin 
<http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cspg/electionacademy/2015/02/charles_stewarts_first_2014_su.php>:

    Professor Charles Stewart of MIT has released the first data from
    his 2014 edition of the Survey of the Performance of American
    Elections (SPAE) – and it shows that the country’s growing embrace
    of alternatives to the polling place continues to weaken the notion
    of an “Election Day.” The Pew Charitable Trusts (which provides
    support for the SPAE) has more in itsrelease
    <http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/about/news-room/news/2015/02/09/new-survey-highlights-the-2014-voting-experience>:

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

    “The FEC Hearing and Its Detractors”
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=70244>

Posted onFebruary 12, 2015 7:09 am 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=70244>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Bauer <http://www.moresoftmoneyhardlaw.com/2015/02/fec-hearing-detractors/>:

    It seem unfair that just holding a hearing subjects the FEC
    tocriticism
    <http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/02/fec_hearing_on_campaign_finance_rules_the_agency_appears_powerless_to_do.html>andridicule.
    <http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-fecs-farcical-open-hearing/2015/02/11/bc3f2982-b233-11e4-827f-93f454140e2b_story.html> The
    agency was acted entirely reasonably in inviting views on what it
    might do, if anything, in response to the/McCutcheon/case.  So what
    followed was predictable: the usual strong divisions were expressed
    and anyone hoping for a clear picture of the problems of campaign
    finance and how to address them was bound to be disappointed.  The
    FEC is not the culprit here: it only hosted the discussion and is
    not responsible for its content. It was a hearing.

    And while additional ridicule has come the agency’s way for inviting
    public comment, some of which was colorfully off-point, that, too,
    is no crime: why not give members of the public a chance to come and
    say what they will about money in politics? Critics cannot have it
    both ways, complaining one minute that campaign finance is an
    insider’s game and the public is shut out of it, and then mocking
    the expression of public sentiment when it is provided for.  Not all
    of the commentary, as reported, was uninformative…

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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,federal 
election commission <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=24>

    Would Judge Moore Be on Less Solid Ground in SSM Case if 11th
    Circuit Involved? <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=70242>

Posted onFebruary 11, 2015 8:15 pm 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=70242>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Emily Bazelon’s sorta defense 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/11/magazine/in-sort-of-defense-of-roy-moore.html>of 
Judge Moore is definitely worth the read. But one aspect of it struck me 
as wrong, or at least incomplete:

    Roy Moore is right that on its face, Granade’sorder
    <http://www.washingtonblade.com/content/files/2015/01/253551999-1-14-cv-00208-53-Alabama-Opinion-and-Order.pdf>doesn’t
    require state probate judges all over Alabama — who weren’t named in
    the case Granade heard — to issue marriage licenses. Granade merely
    instructed Alabama’s attorney general not to enforce the state’s
    same-sex-marriage ban. That means a probate judge/could/go along
    with her decision,as some have
    <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/11/us/alabama-gay-marriage-advocates-renew-legal-push-for-licenses.html>,
    (and as clerks of the court did in Florida, after asimilar
    district-court decision there went into effect in January
    <http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/gay-south-florida/article5439081.html>).
    But they don’t necessarily have to. “If the 11th Circuit had
    invalidated Alabama’s gay-marriage ban, all the state-court judges
    would know what to do,” the Florida International University law
    professor Howard Wasserman,who has written about the Alabama dust-up
    <http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/2015/02/irony.html>, told
    me. “But the district court’s authority is much more limited.”

At least if the object is to buy some time, and to make a final stand, I 
don’t think this order having been affirmed by the 11th Circuit would 
have made a difference. The probate judges are not parties, and a 
non-party can’t be directly bound or held in contempt for violating a 
court order directed to someone else.  (Nonparties may be subject to 
minor and ancillary direct orders, but an order to marry same sex 
couples wouldn’t be that.)
Howard is right of course that making a last stand in the face of 11th 
Circuit precedent could raise some additional issues about liability and 
lack of qualified immunity for violating clearly established law. So 
things would move faster. But the probate judges, unless parties found 
to be adjudicated wrongdoers, would not be immediately bound even if the 
original district crder were affirmed by the 11th circuit.

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Posted inRemedies <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=57>

    “Dark Money Could Get Even Darker” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=70240>

Posted onFebruary 11, 2015 8:09 pm 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=70240>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Ciara Torres Spelliscy blogs. 
<https://www.brennancenter.org/blog/dark-money-could-get-even-darker>

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

    “CCP Wins Nevada Express Advocacy Case”
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=70238>

Posted onFebruary 11, 2015 8:03 pm 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=70238>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Press release 
<http://www.campaignfreedom.org/2015/02/11/ccp-wins-nevada-express-advocacy-case/>:

    The Nevada Supreme Court today ruled in favo
    <http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001RUflgtrBCuAaaD2qi5fxaXm2Mx8tFOm-Vn4JdVLkU4oI_HXOZFUPcDSlhd7UB1ufk0Hm7ezeuaezQGDDjpC4ggoDnvoMu8_vGI05lyD3zKmVOG2sI0_3sG3w7tONSNsWfoLOE2H9PDeTiNDQU4Oda68G0_aLrCP8ynPO4PMsNw7RdZPmL-BedhrYjUnW_eVABG4SprjdytGyln8f_3TQEUjp72osRi_GWP1I3HyVZFJ_WFhz9RTql07s3GARCSjWueaLCsUSFm4=&c=CebZdlfFHnsuC0olgsjtFJudfsjfgUsd1_-H9Y3lz7bDWrNYqolDBw==&ch=PnnE4ez9VMz5yL0dlIr5HrRL_AF1UZqe8zEatvWO-R2N7S7JbeURKA==>r
    of a citizens group that sent mailings in 2010 that criticized an
    officeholder, blocking an effort by the Secretary of State from
    imposing fines or government reporting requirements on the group.
    The Center for Competitive Politics (CCP) argued the appeal of the
    case for Citizen Outreach, a nonprofit engaged in grassroots
    activism in Nevada, after the group had lost in a lower court.

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

    VRAA Reintroduced; Likely Not Going Anywhere in Republican Congress
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=70236>

Posted onFebruary 11, 2015 8:01 pm 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=70236>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Details. 
<https://www.brennancenter.org/press-release/bipartisan-bill-introduced-congress-must-restore-voting-rights-act>

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Posted inVoting Rights Act <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=15>,VRAA 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=81>

    CA City Tries to Get Around CA Prohibition on Internet Election
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=70234>

Posted onFebruary 11, 2015 7:47 pm 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=70234>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Lowell Finley<http://lowellfinleylaw.com/just-ducky/>explains the 
troubling scenario.

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Posted inelection administration 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>,internet voting 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=49>,voting technology 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=40>

    “Open Mic Disaster;The FEC held a hearing. It revealed almost
    everything that’s wrong with American democracy.”
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=70232>

Posted onFebruary 11, 2015 7:44 pm 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=70232>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Alec MacGillis for Slate. 
<http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/02/fec_hearing_on_campaign_finance_rules_the_agency_appears_powerless_to_do.html>

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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,federal 
election commission <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=24>

-- 
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
hhttp://www.law.uci.edu/faculty/full-time/hasen/
http://electionlawblog.org

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