[EL] ELB News and Commentary 5/28/15
Rick Hasen
rhasen at law.uci.edu
Thu May 28 07:46:29 PDT 2015
Foster Friess Pledges to Spend for Santorum Again, This Time
Secretly <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=72877>
Posted onMay 28, 2015 7:45 am
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=72877>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Trip Gabriel
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/28/us/politics/rick-santorum-republican-2016-presidential-race.html?action=click&contentCollection=Politics&module=RelatedCoverage®ion=Marginalia&pgtype=article>for
the NYT:
One supporter present was Foster Friess, a wealthy investor whose
multimillion-dollar donations in 2012 helped Mr. Santorum remain in
the race long after he might have quit.
Mr. Friess, in a black cowboy hat, said he would support Mr.
Santorum again, but not through a “super PAC
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/campaign_finance/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>,”
which reports donors.
“The money I give will be hard to track,” said Mr. Friess, adding
that he had spent $26,000 for a private jet to the rally.
Nick Confessore
<https://twitter.com/nickconfessore/status/603919417802645505>on
Twitter: “Consider: a donor says he wants to give money to elect a
candidate but will give through groups that claim not to be electing
candidates.”
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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,tax law
and election law <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=22>
“Shirley Abrahamson files appeal in attempt to stay chief justice”
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=72875>
Posted onMay 28, 2015 7:36 am
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=72875>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
AP reports.
<http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/shirley-abrahamson-files-appeal-in-attempt-to-stay-chief-justice-b99508675z1-305252651.html>
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Posted injudicial elections <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=19>
Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream an In-Kind Contribution to Sanders
Campaign <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=72873>
Posted onMay 28, 2015 7:34 am
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=72873>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Here
<http://freebeacon.com/politics/millionaire-sanders-supporters-donate-ice-cream-to-presidential-campaign/>.
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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,campaigns
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>
“Supreme Court Litmus Testing in the 2016 Election”
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=72871>
Posted onMay 28, 2015 7:32 am
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=72871>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Linda Greenhouse NYT:
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/28/opinion/supreme-court-litmus-testing-in-the-2016-election.html>
It’s somewhat delicious, in fact, to imagine the scene in the Senate
Judiciary Committee if a Clinton Supreme Court nominee expresses —
as the four dissenting justices did at the time — disagreement with
Citizens United. Are Republican senators really going to go to the
mat during the confirmation process in defense of a Supreme Court
decision that most of their own constituents hate. ?
The effort will be — as it is already in some quarters of the right
— to depict anyone who opposes Citizens United as an opponent of
free speech. That’s a characterization easily deflected. The problem
with Citizens United, it has always seemed to me, is not whether
corporations have a right to spend money to express their political
views. They do, and they did under decades-old Supreme Court
precedent before Citizens United, although many of the decision’s
critics don’t seem to realize that fact. The mantra of “money isn’t
speech” is too simplistic a critique; speech without money is speech
that no one is going to hear.
The problem is the legal reasoning the court employed in opening the
floodgates to unlimited corporate spending. The only rationale the
First Amendment permits for limiting political spending, the court
said, is the prevention of corruption or the appearance of
corruption. Fair enough, but then the Citizens United majority made
its key move in defining corruption. JusticeAnthony M. Kennedy
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/k/anthony_m_kennedy/index.html?inline=nyt-per>’s
majority opinion said “corruption” meant only “quid pro quo”
corruption — extracting or giving a promise in exchange for a
political expenditure. In a word, bribery.
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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,Supreme
Court <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>
“Get the IRS Out of the Speech-Police Business; Tax collectors
shouldn’t decide if an organization is a political committee or a
social-welfare group.” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=72869>
Posted onMay 28, 2015 7:31 am
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=72869>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Scott Blackburn
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/get-the-irs-out-of-the-speech-police-business-1432767013?cb=logged0.23847135622054338>WSJ
oped.
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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,tax law
and election law <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=22>
“Time to Put the Political Spending Horse Before the Lobbying Cart |
Commentary” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=72867>
Posted onMay 28, 2015 7:23 am
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=72867>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Marian Corrinder Roll Call oped.
<http://blogs.rollcall.com/beltway-insiders/time-to-put-the-political-spending-horse-before-the-lobbying-cart-commentary/?dcz>
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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>
“The ‘One Person, One Vote’ Case Relies On Statistics That Nobody
Has” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=72865>
Posted onMay 28, 2015 7:16 am
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=72865>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
538 reports.
<http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/one-person-one-vote-case-relies-on-statistics-that-nobody-has/>
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Posted inredistricting <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>,Supreme Court
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>
“Jury convicts ex-US Senate hopeful of violating election law”
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=72861>
Posted onMay 27, 2015 8:48 pm
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=72861>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
AP
<http://www.sfgate.com/news/crime/article/Annette-Bosworth-s-election-law-violation-trial-6288209.php>:
A South Dakota jury on Wednesday convicted formerU.S. Senate
<http://www.sfgate.com/search/?action=search&channel=news%2Fcrime&inlineLink=1&searchindex=gsa&query=%22U.S.+Senate%22>candidateAnnette
Bosworth
<http://www.sfgate.com/search/?action=search&channel=news%2Fcrime&inlineLink=1&searchindex=gsa&query=%22Annette+Bosworth%22>of
election law violations.
The 43-year-old Sioux Falls physician had been charged with six
counts each of perjury and filing false documents stemming from the
mishandling of her candidate petitions. Jurors convicted her on all
of those counts after deliberating for more than 3 hours.
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Posted inUncategorized <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>
No, The Evenwel Case Does Not Put the Apportionment of Congressional
Districts to the States in Play <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=72858>
Posted onMay 27, 2015 8:08 pm
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=72858>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Richard Wingerhelpfully points out
<http://ballot-access.org/2015/05/27/los-angeles-times-misinforms-readers-about-possible-effect-of-future-u-s-supreme-court-decision-on-redistricting/>some
confusion about the effects of /Evenwel/on reapportionment. So let’s
make this clear.
1. At issue in /Evenwel/, is whether drawing district for state
legislatures and other state purposes must be done on total (eligible or
registered) voter basis, as opposed to a choice between that, total
population, or perhaps other measures, to comply with the U.S.
Constitution’s 14th Amendment equal protection clause.
2. The source of the one person, one vote rule in congressional
elections/within /is Article 1, not the Equal Protection Clause. (See
/Wesberry v. Sanders
<https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/376/1/case.html>/.) The
rules are somewhat different. OPOV for congressional districts must be
/exactly/equal, but there is some room for minor deviations in state
(and local) redistricting. Nonetheless, if the Court in /Evenwel
/requires use of voters in the denominator for OPOV purposes in state
elections, its logic would likely carry over to the OPOV rule for
congressional elections.
3. Nonetheless, the number of congressional districts /across
states/(commonly called apportionment) is textually committed in
theFourteenth Amendment
<https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxiv>to one based on
total numbers of people. Section 2 reads (with my emphasis):
*Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states
according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of
persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed.*But when the
right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for
President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives
in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the
members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of themale
<https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxix>inhabitants
of such state,being twenty-one years of age
<https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxxvi>, and
citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for
participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of
representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the
number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male
citizens twenty-one years of age in such state.
UPDATE: Marty Lederman reminds me of language in /Wesberry /itself,
noting “The history of the Constitution, particularly that part of it
relating to the adoption of Art. I, § 2, reveals that those who framed
the Constitution meant that, no matter what the mechanics of an
election, whether statewide or by districts,*it was population which was
to be the basis of the House of Representatives*.” He suggests this
language as well as originalist material throws doubt on my point # 2
(that the logic of a decision in favor of the voter denominator in
/Evenwel/logically could apply to congressional districts as well). It
is a fair point, and I had forgotten about this language. Nonetheless,
if indeed (as I think remains unlikely) the Supreme Court holds in
/Evenwel/that one person, one principles in the equal protection clause
/require/the use of total voters otherwise some voters’ votes are
unconstitutionally diluted, it is hard to imagine the court not applying
the same logic and denominator to congressional elections. (This is one
of the reasons why, as Marty has suggested, the court is unlikely to
require the use of the voters denominator on the state level in /Evenwel/.)
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Posted inredistricting <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>,Supreme Court
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>
Chief Justice, While Government Lawyer, Defended One Person, One
Vote Total Population Rule <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=72856>
Posted onMay 27, 2015 7:54 pm
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=72856>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Great
find<http://balkin.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-curious-result-urged-by-appellants.html>by
Marty Lederman, who praises the Chief’s analysis.
Watch these arguments, and perhaps even this brief, be cited in the
/Evenwel/briefing.
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Posted inredistricting <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>,Supreme Court
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>
“One Person One Vote Goes to the Supreme Court”
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=72854>
Posted onMay 27, 2015 7:42 pm
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=72854>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Great interview <http://t.co/znBhVECKEC>with Nate Persily by Madeiline
Brand.
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Posted inredistricting <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>,Supreme Court
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>
“‘One Man, One Vote’ Keeps Changing”
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=72852>
Posted onMay 27, 2015 7:39 pm
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=72852>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Noah Feldman
<http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-05-27/-one-man-one-vote-keeps-changing>for
Bloomberg View.
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Posted inredistricting <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>,Supreme Court
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>
“The Supreme Court just took up a redistricting case. It could help
Republicans.” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=72848>
Posted onMay 27, 2015 8:51 am
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=72848>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
The Fix reports
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/05/27/how-the-supreme-court-could-overhaul-our-congressional-map-explained/>.
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Posted inUncategorized <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>
I Agree with the Koch Brothers on FOIAing Academic Emails
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=72845>
Posted onMay 27, 2015 8:39 am
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=72845>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
In the WSJ,John Hardin
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-campaign-to-stop-fresh-college-thinking-1432683566>of
the Charles Koch foundation writes about American Bridge’s attempts to
FOIA emails.
College should be a place where students encounter a diversity of
ideas—just ask many of the more than 1.8 million students who are
graduating this year. That diversity often relies on charitable
foundations, which support countless educational programs across the
country. For example, the Charles Koch Foundation, where I work, has
responded to hundreds of grant requests from colleges and
universities. These requests have led us to support educational
initiatives in economics, philosophy, entrepreneurship, criminal
justice and other disciplines at more than 250 institutions of
higher learning.
Yet student access to a broad range of ideas is under assault.
Across the country, political groups from outside the academy are
organizing campus crusades to silence those with whom they disagree.
Look at what’s taking place at Mississippi State University. The
school will soon launch its new Institute for Market Studies, which
was made possible in part by a $365,000 grant from our foundation.
Yet before the first book could even be opened, the political-action
committee American Bridge filed an open-records request seeking
emails between professors and between the school’s faculty and our
foundation. This overtly political fishing expedition is designed to
intimidate the faculty at MSU, discouraging them from participating
in the new institute.
Strong-arm tactics such as these have no place on a college campus,
but the MSU incident is not unique…
Left-leaning groups are not the only users of pressure tactics.
Organizations on the right, such as state Republican groups, have
targeted professors with whom they disagree as well. Recently, a
University of Wisconsin professor was singled out for espousing
ideas with which they disagreed.
Regardless of who initiates them, these attacks are typically
organized by political special-interest groups, which mask their
true motives by claiming to seek “transparency” in the funding
relationships between universities and philanthropists. Yet they
only target those with whom they disagree, and the information they
claim to seek—the amount of money provided and its purpose—is almost
always already publicly available. The grants they target also
follow the standards laid out by each university and were thoroughly
reviewed by faculty and administrators.
I was the subject of a similar attempt a few years ago, and a number
ofconservatives <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=60748>came to my defense,
such asEric Rasmussen <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=60687>. This is an
issue of academic freedom which should unite left and right.
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Posted inUncategorized <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>
--
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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