[EL] ELB News and Commentary 6/17/15

Tue Jun 16 19:31:47 PDT 2015

    Nice Review of Mutch’s Buying the Vote in American Historical Review
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73541>

Posted onJune 16, 2015 7:29 pm 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73541>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Here <http://ahr.oxfordjournals.org/content/120/3/1038.2.extract>.  From 
the conclusion:

    Good books leave the reader wanting more and help set an agenda for
    future scholarship, and Mutch has written a very good book. He takes
    as a given the premise that wealth inherently corrupts politics and
    leaves to future scholars the task of demonstrating precisely
    how that process has operated historically and what the
    policy outcomes have been. As a political and legal history, Buying
    the Vote has much to offer historians, political scientists, and
    students of public policy who wish to better understand the
    bewildering world of campaign finance law.

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

    Confidence in #SCOTUS Falls to 32%, 12 Points Below Historical
    Average in Gallup Polling <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73539>

Posted onJune 16, 2015 7:24 pm 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73539>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

And 
this<http://wonkwire.com/2015/06/16/americans-show-no-confidence-in-their-major-institutions/>is 
before we get the controversial rulings at the end of the term.  It will 
be interesting to watch what happens then.

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Posted inSupreme Court <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>

    “Patronage Wins at NYC Board of Elections”
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73537>

Posted onJune 16, 2015 7:15 pm 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73537>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

New York Election News reports. 
<https://nyelectionsnews.wordpress.com/2015/06/16/patronage-wins-at-nyc-board-of-elections/>

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

    “CLC Blog: Charles Fried and Trevor Potter Respond to Wall Street
    Journal Editorial Attacking CLC’s Work”
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73535>

Posted onJune 16, 2015 7:01 pm 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73535>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Here. 
<http://www.campaignlegalcenter.org/news/blog/clc-blog-charles-fried-and-trevor-potter-respond-wall-street-journal-editorial-attacking>

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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,campaigns 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>

    Right to Rise Super PAC Disclaimers Buried in Jeb Bush Campaign Page
    Source Code <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73533>

Posted onJune 16, 2015 6:58 pm 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73533>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

What? <https://twitter.com/laurenm/status/610890425994448896>

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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,campaigns 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>

    Whose party is it anyway? <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73489>

Posted onJune 16, 2015 1:43 pm 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73489>byHeather Gerken 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=6>

Coauthored with Joseph Fishkin, University of Texas Law School

In yesterday’s post, we described how major functions once performed by 
official party organizations are migrating instead to what we call 
shadow parties—groups situated outside the official party apparatus, but 
clearly aligned with one party or the other. The Koch brothers are at 
the leading edge of the trend. Their fundraising network and complicated 
array of “outside” groups are increasingly developing the capabilities 
to provide most of the services one would previously have expected the 
official party to provide to campaigns—from fundraising networks to 
television ads. Now the Koch brothers are even offering a voter database 
with a software interface that many campaigns prefer to the RNC’s.

As we noted yesterday, some people describe this as a fight between “the 
party” and “outside groups,” but that frame conceals a lot of the real 
action. The Koch brothers are almost as deeply intertwined with the 
Republican Party as the RNC itself is. But there are differences. The 
Koch brothers represent a faction within the party, rather than the 
party as a whole. Their shadow party groups answer to the people who 
write the checks, not the rest of the party. This fight is an internal 
struggle for control of the party. And it’s starting to be clear who has 
the upper hand in that struggle. The big winners are likely to be those 
intra-party factions with the enormous resources necessary to rival and 
sometimes beat the official party at its own game.

So, a skeptic might ask, isn’t this basically a case of what Sam 
Issacharoff and Pam Karlan call the “hydraulics” of campaign finance 
reform, where money blocked from one channel (the official parties) 
flows through another (the shadow parties)? Yes and no. Here, when the 
money flows through a different channel, the party ends up with a 
different center of gravity. It means some voices count more inside the 
party than they did before—and other voices count less.

These shifts raise a fundamental question: who ought to be in control of 
the party, anyway? In the paper we just published, we imagine three 
models of who should control a party:

1. The equality model: On this model, each party member should have 
equal influence over the direction of the party. If you think of the 
party as a democratic arena, this model is analogous to one-person-one-vote.

2. The elite-driven model: On this model, the parties are not 
democracies; they are more like firms, competing in the broader 
democratic arena. In this analogy, party elites are the executives; the 
donors are the shareholders; and ordinary voters are like consumers who 
can accept or reject what the elites are selling. This model has its 
roots in a Schumpeterian conception of democracy.

Neither of these models, we think, is adequate—either positively or 
normatively. We think parties both are, and should be, both internally 
democratic and actors in the broader democratic arena, selling their 
policies to the general public. As we discuss in the paper, we think 
there are good reasons to depart from the equality model, while not 
embracing the elite-driven model either. So we propose

3. The pluralist model: This hybrid model takes into account the party’s 
multi-layered role in our politics. On this model, the party stands in 
part for ordinary voters who make up the base of the party, in part for 
the party elites who run it, and in part for the activists in 
between—the party faithful, who knock on doors and show up at rallies 
and caucuses and provide much of the party’s energy.

The party faithful are much more heavily involved in the party than 
ordinary voters, but much less influential than the Koch brothers. One 
major worry we have about the shift from official parties to shadow 
parties is that the party faithful may get squeezed out, leaving us with 
a politics that is more centralized and broadcast-like. This kind of 
politics leaves little room for the vibrant, unruly, participatory sort 
of democracy that is driven by large numbers of people who feel strongly 
about their politics but don’t have an extra few million dollars lying 
around.

For more see the paper. Cross-posted on the Balkinization.

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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,campaigns 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>,election law and constitutional law 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=55>,political parties 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=25>,Uncategorized 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1> |TaggedCampaign finance 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?tag=campaign-finance-2>,political parties 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?tag=political-parties>,shadow parties 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?tag=shadow-parties>

    “The fight to strengthen Voting Rights Act is not over yet”
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73528>

Posted onJune 16, 2015 12:28 pm 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73528>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Zack Roth reports 
<http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/the-fight-strengthen-voting-rights-act-not-over-yet>for 
MSNBC.

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Posted inThe Voting Wars <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>,Voting 
Rights Act <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=15>

    “VoteRiders Announces Expansion Plus Focus on Next Targeted State”
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73526>

Posted onJune 16, 2015 12:16 pm 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73526>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Press release 
<http://www.voteriders.org/voteriders-announces-expansion-plus-focus-next-targeted-state>(spoiler 
alert: they are targeting efforts in Wisconsin, where it is very necessary).

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Posted inUncategorized <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

    “No ‘Sharp Warning’ From Recent Coordination Case”
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73524>

Posted onJune 16, 2015 12:07 pm 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73524>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Steve Klein blogs. 
<https://pillaroflaw.org/index.php/blog/entry/no-sharp-warning-from-recent-coordination-case>

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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,campaigns 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>

    “Thousands of Voters Are Disenfranchised by North Carolina’s Voting
    Restrictions” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73522>

Posted onJune 16, 2015 12:04 pm 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73522>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Ari Berman 
<http://www.thenation.com/blog/210025/thousands-voters-are-disenfranchised-north-carolinas-voting-restrictions#>:

    A month after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act, North
    Carolina passed the country’s most sweepingvoting restrictions
    <http://www.thenation.com/blog/175441/north-carolina-passes-countrys-worst-voter-suppression-law>.
    The Supreme Courtrefused to block
    <http://www.thenation.com/blog/181925/supreme-court-approves-countrys-worst-voting-restrictions-north-carolina>key
    parts of the law—cuts to early voting, the elimination of same-day
    registration, a prohibition on voting in the wrong precinct—just
    weeks before the 2014 Election. As a result of the new restrictions,
    there were lengthy lines and confusion atmany polling places
    <http://www.thenation.com/blog/188697/how-new-voting-restrictions-impacted-2014-election>,
    and longtime voters were turned away from the polls.

    Democracy North Carolina has estimated that “the new voting
    limitations and polling place problems reduced turnout by at least
    30,000 voters in the 2014 election.” In anew report
    <http://democracy-nc.org/downloads/SilencedVoterAlarm.pdf>, the
    group analyzed provisional ballots cast during the 2014 election and
    concluded that 2,344 rejected ballots would have been counted if the
    new restrictions were not in place.

    The new law disproportionately impacted African-American and
    Democratic voters. African-Americans cast 38 percent of the rejected
    ballots but comprise only 22 percent of registered voters. Democrats
    accounted for nearly half of all rejected ballots.

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Posted inelection administration 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>,provisional ballots 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=67>,The Voting Wars 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>

    “When the Free ID Isn’t Free” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73520>

Posted onJune 16, 2015 6:24 am 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73520>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Kelly Fetty 
<https://medium.com/@kellyfetty/when-the-free-id-isn-t-free-5d7d23b07747>on 
how being poor makes it harder to get an id than you might imagine.

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Posted inelection administration 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>,The Voting Wars 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>

    “In voting, will California finally enter the 21st century?”
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73518>

Posted onJune 16, 2015 6:21 am 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=73518>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

LAT editorial. 
<http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-voting-proposal-mail-ballots-for-all-20150616-story.html>

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Posted inElection Assistance Commission 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=34>,voting technology 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=40>

-- 
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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