[EL] ELB News and Commentary 6/9/15

Tue Jun 9 10:04:54 PDT 2015

She’s making it a partisan thing because it is a partisan thing: there’s no systematic attempt to disenfranchise anybody and campaign finance “reform” is a solution in search of a problem – but both issues play extremely well to the Dem base. (There are, of course, issues that Republican politicians raise to activate their base that also aren’t real problems.) So let’s not kid ourselves: it’s not healthy for the country, but Hillary’s doing what she thinks she needs to do to get elected. It might work.

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From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Paul Gronke
Sent: Tuesday, June 09, 2015 12:55 PM
To: Rick Hasen; law-election at uci. edu law-election at uci. edu
Subject: Re: [EL] ELB News and Commentary 6/9/15

Is Rick Hasen looking for some love?  We love ya, Rick!  :-)

You know that I wrote a piece following a similar piece regarding the automatic voter registration bill passed by the Oregon legislature and signed by Governor Kate Brown.  I remained agnostic in the piece about AVR, but regretted that the bill passed without a single Republican vote.  (http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2015/03/with_motor_voter_bill_oregon_p.html)

I have received negative feedback similar to yours, Rick.  I try to explain that setting the rules of the game via purely partisan votes can be problematic, often using the tired but apt analogy of one soccer team choosing a referee before a match.

The responses I receive are more of (1) and (3), by the way.

Some academic friends hoisting me on my own petard, recommending Alex Keyssar's book to me (which I have usually recommended to them first!).  After all, since Keyssar's primary argument is that the right to vote throughout American history has waxed and waned in response to partisan competition, why should we expect anything different today?

What do you think about that argument (Mark Elias made a similar argument on a Twitter exchange)?

On Tue, Jun 9, 2015 at 8:52 AM, Rick Hasen <rhasen at law.uci.edu<mailto:rhasen at law.uci.edu>> wrote:
Pushback on My Hillary Voting Wars Piece<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73306>
Posted on June 9, 2015 8:50 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73306> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

The good news is that Doug Chapin<http://about%20a%20quarter%20of%20americans%20also%20say%20they%27d%20like%20to%20see%20their%20state%20expand%20early%20voting%2C%20while%2037%20percent%20say%20their%20state%27s%20policies%20are%20about%20right.%20only%209%20percent%20want%20to%20see%20early%20voting%20reduced.%20%20more%20broadly%2C%20a%20majority%20of%20the%20public%20--%2061%20percent%20--%20say%20that%20low%20voter%20turnout%20is%20at%20least%20a%20moderate%20problem.%20many%2C%20though%2C%20aren%27t%20sure%20it%27s%20the%20government%27s%20problem%20to%20fix.%20forty-six%20percent%20of%20people%20say%20the%20government%20is%20already%20doing%20enough%20to%20make%20sure%20that%20everyone%20who%20wants%20to%20vote%20in%20elections%20is%20able%20to%2C%20while%2032%20percent%20say%20it%20isn%27t.%20democrats%20say%20by%20a%2024-point%20margin%20that%20the%20government%20doesn%27t%20do%20enough%2C%20while%20republicans%20say%20by%20a%2055-point%20margin%20that%20it%20does./> liked my Slate piece<http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cspg/electionacademy/2015/06/putting_out_a_fire_with_gasoli.php> from yesterday on whether Hillary Clinton is making real election reform harder by framing the issue as a partisan fight. The bad news is that Doug seems to be alone in telling me to “Rock on.”  Most thoughtful people I know with whom I share my writing have had a much more negative reaction to the piece, even if it appears that Clinton’s framing of the issue may decrease Republican support for reform<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73304>.

I would say the responses fit into three categories:

1. There are no moderate Republicans who will deal on election reform. Republicans won’t support fixing the Voting Rights Act or anything else so there’s very little to lose (and, as I agree in the Slate piece, Clinton is advancing good policies and it is good base politics for her to give this red meat to her supporters). The examples I give in the eighth paragraph of my piece, where Republicans and Democrats have come together on issues, is simply too little, or the policies they’ve come together on, too insignificant.

2. The few moderate Republicans out there are more likely to respond by being shamed into doing the right thing than through rational discussion. (I’m not sure how to judge what is more effective, but I thought the Bauer-Ginsberg commission was a good example of how things could get done with the rhetoric lower.)

3. The comments of Scott Walker, Rick Perry etc. about the extent of voter fraud and the policies they have adopted are so outrageous that they deserve to be called out for their bad behavior.  (On this point, I agree, but I don’t think the Clinton, who has about an even chance to be the next President, is the one to do it.  I try to do it all the time on the blog when the issue arises, and many, many people write about this.)

I usually don’t have doubts about the positions I put forward in my opeds and commentaries, but this pushback has been so strong from many people I respect that I will think on this some more.
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---
Paul Gronke    Ph: 503-771-3142
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Professor of Political Science and
Director, Early Voting Information Center
Reed College

http://earlyvoting.net
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