[EL] ELB News and Commentary 11/21/15
Rick Hasen
rhasen at law.uci.edu
Fri Nov 20 20:15:11 PST 2015
“Democrat Wins Mississippi House Race After Drawing Straw”
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77726>
Posted onNovember 20, 2015 8:06 pm
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77726>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
NYT
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/21/us/mississippi-house-race-comes-down-to-one-deciding-straw.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news>:
Moments after winning, Mr. Eaton, who raises cattle and grows timber
and soybeans, attributed his win to a farmer’s luck. “There’s always
happiness in a good crop year,” he said.
A lawyer for Mr. Tullos said that a challenge had been filed with
the State House of Representatives. Mr. Tullos, a lawyer himself,
declined to comment but had said he planned a challenge if he lost
the draw. He had cited concerns about the way a county election
board handled nine paper “affidavit ballots” filed by voters who
believed their names were erroneously left off the voter rolls.
Resorting to a game of chance to break an electoral tie is common in
many states, and coin tosses are often used to settle smaller local
races. But in few instances had the pot been as rich as this: If Mr.
Tullos had won, his fellow Republicans would have gained a
three-fifths supermajority in the State House of Representatives,
the threshold required to pass revenue-related bills.
At stake, potentially, was hundreds of millions of dollars in tax
revenue. The three-fifths requirement has allowed the Democratic
minority to block Republican tax-cut proposals in the past on the
grounds that Mississippi needs the revenue to finance schools and
other services. Republicans, who also control the State Senate and
governor’s mansion, say the cuts, including a proposal to phase out
the state’s corporate franchise tax, will jump-start the economy and
promote job growth….
Some Democrats wondered whether the Republican-controlled House
would be able to impartially judge the matter. On Thursday, Greg
Snowden, the Republican House speaker pro tempore, predicted that
“every member of the House will treat this with the utmost seriousness.”
“It’s not a game,” he said.
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Posted invoting <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=31>
“Inglewood City Council’s new hours aren’t exactly welcoming”
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77724>
Posted onNovember 20, 2015 4:39 pm
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77724>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
LAT editorial
<http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-adv-inglewood-council-20151119-story.html>:
Earlier this year, the same council took advantage of a loophole in
state election law to approve the construction of a giant football
stadium without conducting a full environmental review or taking a
vote of the people. Then the city filed a federal lawsuit against
resident Joseph Teixeira, alleging he violated copyright law by
using snippets of official council meeting footage in YouTube videos
that criticized Mayor James T. Butts Jr. Calling the lawsuit a
“serious threat to critical political expression,” a federal judge
tossed out the city’s claims and ordered it to pay Teixeira’s
lawyers $117,741 in fees.
Since then, The Times reported, the city has stopped posting council
meetings on YouTube. It’s also cut the time residents can speak
during the meetings’ public comment period from two minutes per
person to one. So it’s understandable that residents, especially
those skeptical of the city leadership, feel the move to daytime
meetings is part of trend to limit participation and curtail
opposing views.
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Posted inchicanery <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>,legislation and
legislatures <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=27>
“Mysterious pro-Mitch McConnell group bankrolled by megadonors”
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77722>
Posted onNovember 20, 2015 4:31 pm
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77722>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
CPI
<http://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/11/20/18887/mysterious-pro-mitch-mcconnell-group-bankrolled-megadonors>:
A secretive nonprofit group that helped boost Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell of Kentucky during his hotly contested 2014
re-election bid itself raised more money than McConnell’s
challenger, Alison Lundergan Grimes, according to copies of the
group’s tax filings obtained by theCenter for Public Integrity
<http://www.publicintegrity.org/>.
The Kentucky Opportunity Coalition raised more than $21 million
during 2013 and 2014, including $15 million last year alone,
according todocuments the group filed this week
<https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2519461-kentucky-opportunity-coalition-irs-form-990-for.html>with
the Internal Revenue Service. Most of the money came from just a
handful of wealthy — and anonymous — donors.
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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,tax law
and election law <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=22>
“Koch Spy Agency Led by Voter Fraud Huckster”
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77720>
Posted onNovember 20, 2015 7:25 am
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77720>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Oh this is interesting
<http://www.prwatch.org/news/2015/11/12980/koch-spy-voter-fraud>:
The Kochs have been complaining about a “lack of civility in
politics” as they seek to boost their public image–but one of their
top operatives helped propel perhaps the most egregious case of
race-baiting voter fraud hucksterism in recent years.
At the same time that the Kochs have been on a PR blitz, publicly
spinning an image of themselves
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/31/us/koch-brothers-brave-spotlight-to-try-to-alter-their-image.html?_r=1>as
well-intentioned patriots trying to make the world a better place
and decrying “character assasination
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303978304579475860515021286>,” they’ve
been quietly ramping up a clandestine surveillance and intelligence
gathering operation focused on their perceived political enemies,
Ken Vogelreports at /Politico/
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/the-koch-brothers-intelligence-agency-215943>.
At the helm of this “competitive intelligence” operation is a man
named Mike Roman, Vice President of Research for Kochs’ Freedom
Partners and who was paid $265,000 last year, according toFreedom
Partners’ recent tax filing
<http://www.prwatch.org/news/2015/11/12979/freedom-partners>.
But who is Mike Roman? He’s been described generally as a longtime
GOP operative. However, he’s also the guy who was behind the release
of the 2008 “New Black Panthers scaring old white ladies at the
polls” video. The clip dominated Fox News for months and went on to
fuel unfounded allegations that the Obama administration’s
Department of Justice was biased against white people.
Roman made a name for himself by releasing the video, which showed
two New Black Panther Party (NBPP) members holding billy clubs
outside a Philadelphia polling place, on his voter
fraud-peddling “Election Journal” website. He then worked with
<http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2011/01/what_you_didnt_hear_about_the.html>Republican
vote fraud conspiracist J. Christian Adams to try uncovering
evidence that voters were intimidated–which they could not find. But
that didn’t stop Roman, along with Fox News and the conservative
echo chamber, from conjuring up avast racist conspiracy
<http://mediamatters.org/research/2010/07/07/conservative-media-use-new-black-panthers-case/167383>inside
the Obama administration, a theme that continues today
<http://rickwells.us/archives/14344>.
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Posted infraudulent fraud squad <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>
“Liberal ‘dark money’ group rails against ‘dark money'”
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77718>
Posted onNovember 20, 2015 7:22 am
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77718>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
CPI
<http://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/11/20/18881/liberal-dark-money-group-rails-against-dark-money>:
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid lambasted secret political cash
when he appearedlast week in a video
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWx-ZCePJSo>filmed and produced by
a liberal advocacy group.
“Working families can’t compete with billionaires,” Reid, a Nevada
Democrat, said in the ad that also featured another liberal luminary
in Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. “Let’s stop the flood of dark
money into our political system and do it now.”
One catch: The group behind the video, a nonprofit calledAmerican
Family Voices <http://www.americanfamilyvoices.org/>, doesn’t
generally reveal who funds its operations — although a Center for
Public Integrity <http://www.publicintegrity.org/politics>review of
Internal Revenue Service and Department of Labor records indicates
large unions, environmental interests and a major corporate retail
lobbying group have this decade provided it with six- or
seven-figure contributions.
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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,tax law
and election law <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=22>
Today’s Must Read: Lee Drutman on La Raja and Schaffner on Campaign
Finance and Polarization <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77716>
Posted onNovember 20, 2015 7:21 am
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77716>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Vox
<http://www.vox.com/polyarchy/2015/11/20/9763292/parties-polarization-small-donors>:
Last December, as part of the must-pass “CRomnibus” bill,Congress
changed the law <https://electionlawblog.org/?p=68995>so that
political parties could raise considerably more money. Under the new
rules, a single donor can now give $1.5 million to the parties
during a two-year election cycle.
Good government groupswere predictably upset
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/10/cromnibus-campaign-finance_n_6298984.html>.
But anothergroup of observers
<http://www.democracyjournal.org/36/democratic-romanticism-and-its-critics.php?page=all>had
a different view: In their view, political parties may not be
perfect, but the alternative to strong political parties is
extremism and chaos. They argued that you can’t get money out of
politics. But you can channel it. And if you want moderation,
political parties are the best channel.
Two of the leading advocates of this view, Raymond J. La Raja and
Brian F. Schaffner of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, now
have a new book,/Campaign Finance and Political Polarization: When
Purists Prevail/
<https://www.press.umich.edu/4882255/campaign_finance_and_political_polarization>,
which makes the strongest and most extended case yet for allowing
political parties to control more money. “Our argument” they write,
“is that financially strong party organizations should reduce party
polarization.” They’re also skeptical about small donors, which they
dismiss as polarizing.
My colleague Mark Schmitt has written thedefinitive overview
<http://www.democracyjournal.org/36/democratic-romanticism-and-its-critics.php?page=all>of
the reform skeptic movement, a larger group of mostly academics
(which include La Raja and Schaffner) who, as Schmitt explains,
offer a “challenge to many of the assumptions and unexamined
verities of those who aspire to reform the American political process.”
What follows here is a more targeted discussion of two specific
debates this new book raises: about the value of empowering
political parties, as well as its skepticism of empowering small
donors. Although the small-donor critique is a side point of the
book, it’s an important critique to address, given the full-fledged
push by many campaign reformers into small-donor experiments.
Here’s the quick summary of my take: Stronger parties will not move
to the center because there are both few meaningful opportunities to
move to the center and little meaningful center to move toward. The
median voter theory on which they stake so much simply does not
operate under our current political rules. The claim that small
donors are polarizing reflects a failure to understand how a
small-donor matching system would change the incentives of running
for office and of giving.
And while I disagree with the conclusions La Raja and Schaffner
reach, I happily recommend their book. It’s clearly written, full of
data, and provocative. And I do agree with their implicit criticism
that reformers often fail to investigate their assumptions and as a
result develop overly simplistic and counterproductive models of the
world, often in a too simple corruption framework.
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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,political
parties <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=25>,political polarization
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=68>
Bauer on FEC Chair Ann Ravel’s Daily Show Appearance
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77714>
Posted onNovember 20, 2015 7:19 am
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77714>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Bob <http://www.moresoftmoneyhardlaw.com/2015/11/fec-late-night-comedy/>:
To be clear, and to be fair: Commissioner Ravel did not appear to
choose the particular example; there is plenty to complain about in
the design of the campaign finance law and ample grounds on which to
question, on a number of issues, the FEC’s performance; and
certainly no opinion is expressed here about the legal affairs of
the Fiorina Super PAC. Nor is there any doubt that/The/ /Daily
Show/, like the Colbert turns with Trevor Potter, can be exceedingly
entertaining and score a useful point here and there.
Commissioner Ravel concluded, however, that as Chair of the agency,
she could help inform the public about the agency’s failings, and
perhaps help bring pressure to right the ship, by appearing in
a/Daily Show/routine. It is not clear that, as an official
communication, this will work as intended. Certainly, the audience
would not likely have come away with the impression registered by
the judge presiding over the challenge to the “name” rule: “U.S.
federal election law is complex.” /Id/. at *2.
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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
http://www.law.uci.edu/faculty/full-time/hasen/
http://electionlawblog.org
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