[EL] ELB News and Commentary 10/24/15

Sat Oct 24 11:40:08 PDT 2015

    “Justice Department Threatened To Sue Alabama For Failure To Comply
    With Voting Law Prior To DMV Closures”
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77007>

Posted onOctober 24, 2015 11:33 am 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77007>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

TPM: 
<http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/doj-alabama-voting-laws-lawsuit-september>

    The U.S. Department of Justice threatened to sue the state of
    Alabama in aSeptember letter
    <https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8tTqqdCX7LqNEMxb2VZZ1BJckU/view>with
    a warning to the state attorney general, Luther Strange (pictured),
    that Alabama failed to comply with a two-decades-old voter
    registration law.

    The National Voter Registration Act is more than 20 years old and
    allows voter registration at the same office people can receive or
    renew their drive licenses or other public assistance. But,
    according toAL.com
    <http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2015/10/justice_department_we_will_sue.html#incart_river_home>,
    Alabama has never been compliant with the Motor Voter Act.

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

    “FEC’s Goodman Pushes to Ease Party Rules”
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77005>

Posted onOctober 24, 2015 10:55 am 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77005>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Bloomberg BNA 
<http://news.bna.com/mpdm/MPDMWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=78112842&vname=mpebulallissues&jd=a0h4p0h2q2&split=0>:

    A Republican-backed initiative to ease regulations on political
    parties is set to be discussed at the Federal Election Commission’s
    Oct. 29 meeting and will test whether FEC commissioners, sharply
    divided over a range of issues, will rally to a call to strengthen
    parties.
    As with other issues faced by the FEC, consensus may be hard to
    reach on whether and how to change party rules, as even the new
    initiative’s sponsor acknowledged.
    The proposal’s sponsor, Republican FEC Commissioner Lee Goodman,
    told Bloomberg BNA in a phone interview Oct. 23 that he is proposing
    specific changes in party rules because both Republican and
    Democratic commissioners have in the past indicated support for
    strengthening the parties….

    Specifically,Goodman’s memo said
    <http://fec.gov/agenda/2015/documents/mtgdoc_15-54-a.pdf>, his
    proposal would free political parties to coordinate “issue
    advertisements” mentioning candidates but stopping short of a direct
    call for votes. Parties also could republish parts of candidate
    materials in party-funded materials.

    In addition, political parties would have greater ability to
    distribute “volunteer campaign materials” without triggering
    coordination limits. The definition of party volunteer activities
    would be expanded to include activities such as volunteer mail
    drives, phone banks, and literature distribution.
    Finally, regulations defining “federal election activity” would be
    eased to allow parties to register voters and urge them to vote for
    state and local candidates free from FEC regulation. Also, state and
    local parties would have greater leeway to employ staffers to engage
    in state and local “get-out-the-vote” activities using
    state-regulated contributions, rather than federally regulated hard
    money.
    Republicans in the FEC and on Capitol Hill have long supported moves
    to ease party coordinated spending limits, but congressional
    Democrats and groups supporting campaign regulations have battled
    against this move. However, some Democratic election attorneys have
    been sympathetic to proposals to strengthen parties by easing FEC
    regulations, especially for state and local parties.
    Reiff: Ease State Party Rules
    Neil Reiff, an attorney with the firm Sandler Reiff Lamb Rosenstein
    & Birkenstock who represents Democratic Party state and local
    committees, praised the move by Goodman to advocate for easing the
    FEC rules on political parties.
    “I’m very excited for the FEC to be taking this up,” Reiff told
    Bloomberg BNA in a phone interview. “I hope they can reach
    consensus” on amending the party rules cited in Goodman’s proposal.

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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,campaigns 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>,federal election commission 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=24>,political parties 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=25>

    “Scott Walker signs bill limiting Doe probes as records released”
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77003>

Posted onOctober 23, 2015 3:59 pm 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77003>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Patrick Marley 
<http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/scott-walker-signs-bill-limiting-john-doe-b99602429z1-336367161.html>:

    Gov. Scott Walker signed legislation Friday curtailing the ability
    of district attorneys to use the John Doe law to launch
    investigations like the probes they have conducted of his campaign
    and his aides and associates.

    The GOP governor signed the measure a day after documents related to
    the secret probe of his campaign were released that showed
    investigators initially believed they had overwhelming evidence of
    violations of campaign finance laws. The documents suggested they
    had second thoughts after they were sued over the investigation,
    which thestate Supreme Court shut down
    <http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/wisconsin-supreme-court-ends-john-doe-probe-into-scott-walkers-campaign-b99535414z1-315784501.html>in
    July….

    Legal challenges to the probe started soon after subpoenas were
    issued and search warrants executed. That gave prosecutors second
    thoughts, according to a November 2013 email from Shane Falk, who
    was an attorney with the accountability board at the time.

    “Bottom line, (Schmitz) is really questioning the validity of the
    case. He also admitted to me that he, David and Bruce have been
    discussing things and in light of the motions, were very fearful
    that they had missed something,” Falk wrote, referring to assistant
    district attorneys David Robles and Bruce Landgraf.

    Soon afterward, accountability board members raised concerns that
    Walker could pull some of the members from the board because many of
    them had not been confirmed by the state Senate. They considered
    quickly filing a finding of probable cause that campaign finance
    laws had been violated, but decided against that to protect the
    integrity of the probe.

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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,ethics 
investigations <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=42>

    “Philadelphia Residents Could Win $10,000 for Voting”
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77001>

Posted onOctober 23, 2015 3:18 pm 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77001>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

TIME reports. <http://time.com/4085367/philadelphia-voting-lottery/>

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Posted invote buying <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=43>,voting 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=31>

    Quote of the Day <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76999>

Posted onOctober 23, 2015 2:50 pm 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76999>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

“We’re going to have to do something that’s pretty hard. Pretty, pretty, 
pretty hard, to quote Larry David.”

—Bernie Sanders 
<http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/10/23/verbatim-when-bernie-sanders-portrays-larry-david/>

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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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