[EL] ELB News and Commentary 10/10/15

Sat Oct 10 11:58:42 PDT 2015

    Breaking News: Automatic Voter Registration Coming to CA
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76585>

Posted onOctober 10, 2015 11:55 am 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76585>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

So tweets <https://twitter.com/melmason/status/652919923337920513>LAT’s 
Melanie Mason that Gov Brown has signed the bill automatically 
registering eligible CA voters from DMV offices (unless voters object). 
(More details on thenew law. 
<http://www.projectvote.org/news/governor-brown-signs-padilla-bill-to-expand-voter-registration/>)

More on this later. This is a huge deal.

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

    Nick Confessore’s Deep Dive into America’s Plutocracy
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76583>

Posted onOctober 10, 2015 11:50 am 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76583>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Drop everything and read this 
<http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/11/us/politics/2016-presidential-election-super-pac-donors.html?_r=0>(online, 
because the graphics are fantastic):

    Just 158 families have provided nearly half of the early money for
    efforts to capture the White House….

    They are overwhelmingly white, rich, older and male, in a nation
    that is being remade by the young, by women, and by black and brown
    voters. Across a sprawling country, they reside in an archipelago of
    wealth, exclusive neighborhoods dotting a handful of cities and
    towns. And in an economy that has minted billionaires in a dizzying
    array of industries, most made their fortunes in just two: finance
    and energy.

    Now they are deploying their vast wealth in the political arena,
    providing almost half of all the seed money raised to support
    Democratic and Republican presidential candidates. Just158 families
    <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/11/us/politics/wealthy-families-presidential-candidates.html>,
    along with companies they own or control, contributed $176 million
    in the first phase of the campaign, a New York Times investigation
    found. Not since before Watergate have so few people and businesses
    provided so much early money in a campaign, most of it through
    channels legalized by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision
    five years ago….

    But regardless of industry, the families investing the most in
    presidential politics overwhelmingly lean right, contributing tens
    of millions of dollars to support Republican candidates who have
    pledged to pare regulations; cut taxes on income, capital gains and
    inheritances; and shrink entitlements. While such measures would
    help protect their own wealth, the donors describe their embrace of
    them more broadly, as the surest means of promoting economic growth
    and preserving a system that would allow others to prosper, too….

    In marshaling their financial resources chiefly behind Republican
    candidates, the donors are also serving as a kind of financial check
    on demographic forces that have been nudging the electorate toward
    support for the Democratic Party and its economic policies.
    Two-thirds of Americans support higher taxes on those earning $1
    million or more a year, according to a June New York Times/CBS News
    poll, while six in 10 favor more government intervention to reduce
    the gap between the rich and the poor. According to the Pew Research
    Center, nearly seven in 10 favor preserving Social Security and
    Medicare benefits as they are.

This is exactly the problem I talk about which needs to be fixed in my 
upcoming /Plutocrats United/book. 
<http://www.amazon.com/Plutocrats-United-Campaign-Distortion-Elections/dp/0300212453/ref=la_B0089NJCR2_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1430416698&sr=1-7>

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Posted incampaign finance 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,Plutocrats United 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=104>

    “Menendez appeals judge’s ruling in corruption case”
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76581>

Posted onOctober 9, 2015 3:32 pm 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76581>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Jonathan 
Salant<http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/10/menendez_files_appeal_of_judges_ruling_in_corrupti.html>for 
NJ.com:

    Lawyers for U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez on Friday asked an appeals
    court to throw out an
    indictment<http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/04/sen_bob_menendez_indicted_on_federal_corruption_ch.html>charging
    him with intervening with federal agencies in exchange for gifts and
    campaign contributions.

    Menendez’s lawyers appealed to the Third Circuit U.S. Court of
    Appeals a decision by U.S. District Judge William H. Wallson Sept.
    28 to let the trial proceed
    <http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/09/judge_refuses_to_throw_out_menendez_indictment.html> against
    the Democratic senator and his friend and campaign donor, Dr.
    Salomon Melgen, a West Palm Beach, Fla., ophthalmologist.

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Posted inbribery <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=54>,campaign finance 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,chicanery 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>

    “Racially Polarized Voting” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76579>

Posted onOctober 9, 2015 2:46 pm 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76579>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Chris Elmendorf, Kevin Quinn and Marisa Abrajano have postedthis draft 
<http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2668889>on SSRN 
(forthcoming, /University of Chicago Law Review/).  Here is the abstract:

    Whether voting is racially polarized has for the last generation
    been the linchpin question in vote dilution cases under the core,
    nationally applicable provision of the Voting Rights Act. The
    polarization test is supposed to be clear-cut (“manageable”),
    diagnostic of liability, and free of strong racial assumptions.
    Using evidence from a random sample of vote dilution cases, we argue
    that these objectives have not been realized in practice, and,
    further, that they cannot be realized under current conditions. The
    roots of the problem are twofold: (1) the widely shared belief that
    polarization determinations should be grounded on votes cast in
    actual elections, and (2) normative disagreement, often covert,
    about the meaning of racial vote dilution. We argue that the
    principal normative theories of vote dilution have conflicting
    implications for the racial polarization test. We also show that
    votes are only contingently related to the political preferences
    that the polarization inquiry is supposed to reveal, and, further,
    that the estimation of candidates’ vote shares by racial group from
    ballots cast in actual elections depends on racial homogeneity
    assumptions similar to those the Supreme Court has disavowed. Our
    analysis casts serious doubt on the notion — promoted in dicta by
    the Supreme Court and supported by prominent commentators — that
    courts should establish bright-line, vote-share cutoffs for “legally
    significant” racial polarization. The courts would do better to
    screen vote dilution claims using evidence of preference
    polarization derived from surveys, or non-preference evidence of
    minority political incorporation.

Looking forward to reading this!

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Posted inVoting Rights Act <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=15>

-- 
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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