[EL] ELB News and Commentary 6/4/15
Rick Hasen
rhasen at law.uci.edu
Mon Jun 8 07:23:57 PDT 2015
“Billionaire Or Bust: Who Are Rich Backers Lining Up With?”
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73271>
Posted onJune 8, 2015 7:19 am
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73271>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Peter Overby
<http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/06/08/412763052/billionaire-or-bust-who-are-rich-backers-lining-up-with>on
the plutocrat/sugar daddy phenomenon.
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Posted incampaign finance
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,Plutocrats United
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=104>
“Counting Everyone for ‘One Person, One Vote'”
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73269>
Posted onJune 8, 2015 7:15 am
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73269>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Jost on Justice.
<http://jostonjustice.blogspot.com/2015/06/counting-everyone-for-one-person-one.html>
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Posted inredistricting <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>,Supreme Court
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>
“Citizens United Shouldn’t Get All the Blame”
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73267>
Posted onJune 8, 2015 7:14 am
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73267>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Wendy Kaminer Boston Globe column.
<https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2015/06/07/citizens-united-shouldn-get-all-blame/0UHXEyijQY3CHfzKG7fsPI/story.html>
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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,Supreme
Court <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>
“The super PAC minuet” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73265>
Posted onJune 8, 2015 7:12 am
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73265>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
George Will WaPo column.
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-super-pac-minuet/2015/06/05/9a5ec2ea-0b12-11e5-95fd-d580f1c5d44e_story.html>
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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,Supreme
Court <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>
#SCOTUS Agrees to Hear Another Redistricting Case Next Term, This
One with Lower (Or at Least More Obscure) Stakes
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73263>
Posted onJune 8, 2015 6:53 am
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73263>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
This morning, the Supreme Courtagreed
<http://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/060815zor_8m58.pdf>to
hearShapiro v. Mack
<http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/shapiro-v-mack/>, a
redistricting case raising a procedural point: “Whether a single-judge
district court may determine that a complaint covered by 28 U.S.C. §
2284 is insubstantial, and that three judges therefore are not required,
not because it concludes that the complaint is wholly frivolous, but
because it concludes that the complaint fails to state a claim under
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6).”
Unlike the Court’s recent decision to hear theEvenwel
<http://electionlawblog.org/?s=evenwel&x=0&y=0>one person, one vote
case, which garnered considerable press coverage (my thoughts
<http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2015/05/evenwel_v_abbott_supreme_court_case_state_districts_count_voters_or_total.html>at
Slate), this case is less high stakes and less controversial. But it
still has its own importance. Here’s why.
Almost all cases come up to the Court on a cert. petition, and a
decision not to hear a case up on cert. (the fate of the vast, vast
majority of cert. petitions) has no precedential value. That is, you
can’t read into a Court decision to deny a cert. petition anything about
if the Supreme Court agrees with the lower court ruling it refused to hear.
But a small minority of cases, most importantly in the area of
redistricting and campaign finance, come directly /on appeal/from a
3-judge district court to the Supreme Court. Unlike a cert. denial, the
Court’s decision not to hear a case up on appeal means the lower court
/did/get the result right (though not necessarily for the right
reasons). It seems pretty clear both from my look at older Supreme
Court cases and from comments Justices have made at oral argument in
3-judge court cases, that courts feel more pressure to give full
hearings to cases up on appeal, because the Justices are worried about
essentially signing off on lower court opinion results without a full
hearing. So litigants really want to get their cases heard before
three-judge courts if they can, because it greatly increases the odds
the Court will hear the case. (That’s part of why Evenwel may have been
heard—the Court had denied cert. on cases raising the same issue in the
past, but Evenwel was an appeal, not a cert. petition.) The
/Shapiro/case concerns the question when a district court asked to put
together a 3-judge court (this one to review Maryland redistricting) can
decide the issue is insubstantial and does not deserve a three-judge court.
As I explainedhere <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=26377> on the
importance of cases coming up on appeal,In my 2003 book,/The Supreme
Court and Election Law/,
<http://www.amazon.com/Supreme-Court-Election-Law-Equality/dp/0814736599>I
discuss the fate of the famous case of/Harper v. Virginia State Board of
Elections/
<http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=383&invol=663>,
which started out as a summary affirmance/in favor/of the
constitutionality of the poll tax, accompanied by a bitter dissent from
Justice Goldberg. Justice Black did not like what he saw in that
dissent, and agreed to a full hearing. This delayed a decision a long
time. Long story short, he got burned as three Justices changed their
minds when the Court heard the case, leading to an opinion striking down
the poll tax and a dissent by Justice Black. (My book reprints the
draft Goldberg dissent in an appendix.)
For more background on the role of the three-judge court in election
litigation, I highly recommend the work ofMichael Solimine
<http://www.law.uc.edu/faculty-staff/faculty/michael-e-solimine>,
includinghis most recent piece
<http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/lawjournal/issues/volume68/number3/solimine.pdf>on
the topic. Josh Douglas also has anexcellent piece
<http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1679518>.
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Posted inSupreme Court <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>
Mike Carvin Says SCOTUS Appeal Likely in VA Redistricting Case
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73261>
Posted onJune 7, 2015 9:26 pm
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73261>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
WaPo.
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/federal-judges-bring-va-one-step-closer-to-a-new-congressional-map/2015/06/05/8a331de4-0bb7-11e5-9e39-0db921c47b93_story.html>
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Posted inredistricting <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>,Supreme Court
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>
Quote of the Day: Celebrity SCOTUS Edition
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73259>
Posted onJune 7, 2015 9:22 pm
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73259>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
“Never compromise your principles,…unless of course your principles are
Adolf Hitler’s, in which case you would be well advised to compromise
them as much as you can.”
—Justice Antonin Scalia
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/justice-scalia-takes-on-commencement-cliches-in-humor-filled-speech/2015/06/04/a8c32f7e-0a27-11e5-a7ad-b430fc1d3f5c_story.html>,
speaking at his granddaughter’s graduation.
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Posted inCelebrity Justice <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=109>,Supreme
Court <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>
“Same-sex Marriage and Plural Marriage”
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73257>
Posted onJune 7, 2015 9:17 pm
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73257>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Ron Den Otterblogs
<http://balkin.blogspot.com/2015/06/same-sex-marriage-and-plural-marriage.html>at
Balkinization on hisnew Cambridge book
<http://www.amazon.com/Defense-Plural-Marriage-Ronald-Otter/dp/1107087716>.
Very interesting!
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Posted inSupreme Court <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>
“Texas case could alter Statehouse district lines”
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73255>
Posted onJune 7, 2015 9:13 pm
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73255>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
CNHI reports.
<http://www.jacksonvilleprogress.com/news/texas-case-could-alter-statehouse-district-lines/article_95061662-0bea-11e5-8dfb-abe84cd38792.html>
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Posted inredistricting <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>,Supreme Court
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>
Remember That Rare Case of Impersonation Fraud Where a Woman Got Her
Son to Vote for Her Husband? <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73253>
Posted onJune 7, 2015 9:12 pm
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73253>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Back in 2012, I had a post ,Allegation of Actual Impersonation Voter
Fraud Attempt in Texas…and An Illustration of Why Such Fraud is Rare and
Stupid <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=33661>, with a follow-up, More on
the Voter Impersonation Fraud Case in Fort Worth
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=33751> about a woman who took her son to
vote for her husband while the husband was out of town, and then the
husband returned unexectedly and voted. I wrote in the first post:
Impersonation voter fraud is about the dumbest way I could think of
to swing an election. That’s why almost all the cases of real fraud
with the potential to affect elections involves absentee ballot
fraud or election official misconduct: in both ways you could
actually verify the fraudulent votes and cast them in sufficient
enough numbers to affect elections. (More about the extreme rarity
of impersonation voter fraudhere
<http://www.amazon.com/Fraudulent-Fraud-Squad-Understanding-ebook/dp/B00795X5XI/ref=zg_bs_157417011_9>.)
Note that the fraudulent scheme did not work—it was detected.
Nonetheless, look for this allegation to become the new “1984 grand
jury report <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=19560>“–supposed evidence
of a massive problem with impersonation voter fraud.
I wrote in that second post:
I wanted to get more information about the case, given how extremely
rare voter impersonation fraud is. The Tarrant County prosecutor’s
office was kind enough to share a copy of theindictment
<http://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/Hazel-Woodard-Indictment.pdf>,
It is pretty general, so I spoke by phone with the prosecutor in
charge of the case, David Lobingier.
Mr Lobingier told me that the allegation is that the mother took her
minor son, a teenager, to the polling place to vote on election day.
She took the father’s voting card. The son showed the father’s card
and signed in using his father’s name. (The son has the same name,
but is a Jr., and he did not sign the junior.) He was then sent over
to vote on the electronic voting machine. Later in the day, the
father showed up to vote and poll workers said he had already voted,
leading to the investigation and prosecution. The father did not
know that the son had been sent to vote.
I asked about the motivation for the mother’s alleged actions. Mr.
Lobingier said that the actions seemed “kind of stupid” and he could
not recall any other case like it. He said that his “surmise” was
that the mother thought the father would be unable to vote that day,
and so brought the son, but it was not clear why she was interested
in having him vote in this election. (The mother is running as a
Democratic precinct chair, but was not running in this election.)
Mr. Lobingier said that he believes the defense is going to claim
that the allegations are not true, and that the mother is claiming
some kind of long-running dispute with someone at the precinct.
Well now, a guilty plea, but witha twist
<http://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/community/fort-worth/article23415846.html>:
A Fort Worth woman who has been used as an example of why voter ID
laws are needed pleaded guilty twice last week in a voter fraud case.
On Tuesday, as Hazel Brionne Woodard lay partially unconscious in a
Tarrant County courtroom, she muttered to paramedics that she
confessed to a crime that she did not commit.
Woodard, a 2011 Democratic precinct chair candidate, had admitted to
having her son vote on behalf of his father on June 18, 2011. Voter
fraud allegations arose after the boy’s father showed up to cast his
own ballot later that same day.
Woodward was sentenced to two years of deferred adjudication
probation on her initial plea, but Judge Ruben Gonzales did not make
it official because of her medical issues.
Woodard was back in the courtroom Friday, when Gonzales gave her an
opportunity to withdraw her guilty plea and have a jury trial,
saying he had a “strong concern” that she did not admit to her crime.
Woodard then readmitted her guilt and took the probation offer.
“There is no doubt that after today that you admit to this crime,”
Gonzales said Friday.
Woodward’s plea was the latest twist in a case that has been used as
an example of what’s wrong with the Texas voting system. When she
was indicted in 2011 — under the name Hazel Woodward James
—lawmakers argued that her behavior was why the Texas voter ID law
was needed.
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Posted inchicanery <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>,election
administration <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>,The Voting Wars
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>,voter id
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=9>
“Dennis Hastert Rushed to Make Money as Payouts Grew”
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73251>
Posted onJune 7, 2015 9:00 pm
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73251>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Must-read NYT report
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/us/politics/dennis-hastert-rushed-to-make-money-as-payouts-grew.html?ref=politics>.
The Hastert case is about allegations of sexual abuse. But this Eric
Lipton report shows how thedocuments getting leaked
<http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/06/07/us/politics/document-from-public-servant-to-rainmaker-former-speaker-j-dennis-hastert.html>reveal
a lot about lobbyists, former lawmakers, and the pay to play culture in DC.
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Posted inchicanery <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>,lobbying
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=28>
“Not Everyone Hates Citizens United: The landmark campaign finance
ruling made local TV stations very, very rich.”
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73249>
Posted onJune 7, 2015 8:57 pm
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73249>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Michael Socolow for Slate
<http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2015/06/citizens_united_is_making_local_tv_rich_here_s_why.html>.
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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,campaigns
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>,Supreme Court
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>
“What Took You So Long, Jeb Bush?” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73247>
Posted onJune 7, 2015 8:54 pm
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73247>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Seth Meyers <http://www.hulu.com/watch/800858>on Jeb the Destroyer and
campaign finance.
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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,election
law "humor" <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=52>,Supreme Court
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>
EJ Dionne Column on Hillary Clinton and Voting Rights
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73245>
Posted onJune 7, 2015 8:53 pm
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73245>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
WaPo.
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/hillary-clinton-taps-the-political-power-of-you/2015/06/07/0329b954-0bdd-11e5-9e39-0db921c47b93_story.html>
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Posted inelection administration
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>,The Voting Wars
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>
“Shaun McCutcheon Blew Up Campaign-Finance Law and Became a GOP
Hero. Then He Set His Sights on Paris Hilton. Inside the marvelous
life of a first amendment celebrity.”
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73243>
Posted onJune 7, 2015 8:51 pm
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73243>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Great Washingtonian profile.
<http://www.washingtonian.com/blogs/capitalcomment/personalities/sean-mccutcheon-blew-up-campaign-finance-law-and-became-a-gop-hero-then-he-set-his-sights-on-paris-h.php>
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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,Supreme
Court <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>
“Gov. Brownback to sign bills for secretary of state prosecutorial
power, election changes” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73241>
Posted onJune 5, 2015 8:13 pm
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73241>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Boo.
<http://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article23210259.html> (Kobach)
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Posted infraudulent fraud squad <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>
“Republican Candidates Assail Hillary Clinton on Voting Rights”
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73239>
Posted onJune 5, 2015 12:46 pm
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73239>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Taking the bait
<http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/06/05/republican-candidates-assail-hillary-clinton-on-voting-rights/>?
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Posted inThe Voting Wars <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>
--
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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