[EL] ELB News and Commentary 10/28/15
Rick Hasen
rhasen at law.uci.edu
Tue Oct 27 19:49:07 PDT 2015
“New Challenge to ‘Soft Money’ Limits Faces Hurdles”
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77097>
Posted onOctober 27, 2015 7:31 pm
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77097>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Bloomberg BNA
<http://news.bna.com/mpdm/MPDMWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=78213353&vname=mpebulallissues&jd=a0h4u0m1y4&split=0>:
Attorney James Bopp faced skeptical questioning in a court hearing
as he sought to convince a federal judge to convene a special,
three-judge panel in a renewed a challenge to restrictions on “soft
money” contributions to political parties (Republican Party of La.
v. Federal Election Commission
<http://www.bloomberglaw.com/public/document/REPUBLICAN_PARTY_OF_LOUISIANA_et_al_v_FEDERAL_ELECTION_COMMISSION/1>,
D.D.C., No. 15-cv-1241,motion hearing10/27/15).
Judge Christopher R. Cooper of the U.S. District Court for the
District of Columbia on Oct. 27 quoted Yogi Berra’s quip about “deja
vu all over again,” as Bopp made his way to the microphone to argue
on behalf of the Republican Party of Louisiana and two local party
committees in that state.
Cooper suggested Bopp’s latest case was similar to two earlier cases
challenging party contribution limits established under the 2002
Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA). The previous cases included
one brought just last year in which the same judge refused to
approve a three-judge panel.
Appointing such a special panel would be crucial to getting the
Supreme Court to again consider BCRA’s party contribution limits
because a decision by such a panel could be appealed directly to the
high court….The judge did not indicate whether he would approve a
three-judge panel in the new case, nor did he say when he would rule
on the issue.
Related: My NLJ piece, The McCain-Feingold Law May Doom Itself
<http://www.nationallawjournal.com/id=1202734808860/OpEd-The-McCainFeingold-Act-May-Doom-Itself?cmp=share_twitter>,/National
Law Journal/, Aug. 16, 2015
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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,political
parties <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=25>,Supreme Court
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>
“Judge poised to strike down part of new Utah election law”
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77095>
Posted onOctober 27, 2015 5:34 pm
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77095>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Deseret News:
<http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865640083/Judge-poised-to-strike-down-part-of-new-Utah-election-law.html?pg=all>
A federal judge appears poised to strike down part of a disputed new
state election law that defines how political parties choose
candidates for elected office.
U.S. District Judge David Nuffer signaled Tuesday that he intends to
find forcing parties to hold open primary elections is
unconstitutional. He noted that every other court has found that
requirement violates the First Amendment.
“Honestly, that’s how I think I’m ruling,” he said after hearing
arguments from the Utah Republican Party, the Utah Constitution
Party and the state.
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Posted inpolitical parties
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=25>,primaries
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=32>
Virginia House Map Redistricting Case Appealed to Supreme Court
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77092>
Posted onOctober 27, 2015 5:27 pm
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77092>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
As expected <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76966>, here is thenotice of
appeal. <http://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/behune-appeal.pdf>
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Posted inUncategorized <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>
“Republican super PACs dominate early ad spending”
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77090>
Posted onOctober 27, 2015 5:14 pm
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77090>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
CPI reports
<http://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/10/27/18697/republican-super-pacs-dominate-early-ad-spending>
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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>
“The Revenge of Scott Walker” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77087>
Posted onOctober 27, 2015 1:40 pm
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77087>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
NYT editorial.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/27/opinion/the-revenge-of-scott-walker.html?_r=0>
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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,chicanery
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>
“Ending Super PACs: Is Speechnow Vulnerable?”
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77085>
Posted onOctober 27, 2015 1:34 pm
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77085>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Good lineup
<http://org2.salsalabs.com/o/7003/p/salsa/event/common/public/?event_KEY=79789>at
this Free Speech for People event.
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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>
“Dictionaries 2.0: Exploring the Gap between the Supreme Court and
the Courts of Appeals” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77083>
Posted onOctober 27, 2015 1:32 pm
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77083>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Jim Brudney and Larry Baum have postedthis
draft<http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2662229>on SSRN
(Yale L.J. Forum). Here is the abstract:
The remarkable rise in dictionary usage by the Supreme Court since
the mid-1980s has been a subject of considerable scholarly and media
interest. We published an article in November 2013 that explored the
Court’s new dictionary culture in depth from empirical and doctrinal
perspectives. In a Yale Law Journal Note one year later, John
Calhoun embraced some of our findings, criticized others, and —
importantly — broadened the inquiry to identify a sizeable gap in
overall frequency of citation to dictionaries between the Supreme
Court and the federal courts of appeals.
This gap in dictionary usage is our primary focus here. Previously
we analyzed nearly 700 Supreme Court cases decided between 1986 and
2011, taken from three fields that together comprise substantial
portions of the Court’s statutory docket: labor and employment law;
business and commercial law; and criminal law. In this Essay, we
examine dictionary use by federal courts of appeals in these same
cases before the Supreme Court granted certiorari and reviewed them.
Our analysis encompasses majority opinions from the circuit courts
in 109 cases where the Supreme Court subsequently made affirmative
use of dictionaries and in 106 cases where the Court’s decisions did
not make use of dictionary definitions.
We find that circuit courts cited to dictionaries in only one-sixth
of the cases where the Supreme Court went on to use dictionaries
after granting certiorari and in only about one of every nineteen
cases in which the Court did not use dictionaries. The frequency of
circuit court citation increased from the early Rehnquist Court
period to the late Rehnquist and early Roberts Court years, but over
that same period the gap between appeals court and Supreme Court
references to dictionaries grew by substantial amounts. Further,
when dictionary definitions were invoked, Supreme Court justices
relied on those definitions to help justify the result (not simply
as citations in dicta) over four-fifths of the time — twice as often
as circuit court judges did when they cited dictionaries. Additional
findings, reported below, support our conclusion that there are
striking differences between the dictionary cultures in the Supreme
Court and the courts of appeals.
We begin by setting forth brief background regarding how our
approach to analysis of dictionary use differs from Calhoun’s.
Contrary to Calhoun’s assertions, there are no direct disagreements
between us when our respective Supreme Court datasets are properly
compared. We then describe our empirical approach to the courts of
appeals data and present our findings, which relate to the basic gap
in frequency of usage and reliance. We also describe some
finer-grained observations regarding number and types of
dictionaries used, and how often the circuit court judges and the
justices define the same word in the same case. Finally, we suggest
possible reasons why the Supreme Court uses and relies on
dictionaries so much more often than circuit courts, and we outline
plans for further research in this area.
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Posted instatutory interpretation
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=21>,Supreme Court
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>
“Chinatown seniors caught in middle of voter fraud claims — again”
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77081>
Posted onOctober 27, 2015 1:08 pm
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77081>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
SF Examiner.
<http://www.sfexaminer.com/chinatown-seniors-caught-in-middle-of-voter-fraud-claims-again/>
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Posted inabsentee ballots <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=53>,chicanery
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>
Quote of the Day: “Do We Want These Slow Learners Voting?”
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77075>
Posted onOctober 27, 2015 12:08 pm
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77075>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
“So it takes an entire semester to learn how to register to vote.
Really?…..Do we want these slow learners voting? Or is this a stealth
course paid for by taxpayers to train left-wing ‘community organizers’
like the League of Women Voters on how to agitate?”
—Angela de Rocha, spokeswoman for the Kansas Department for Aging and
Disability Services, quoted inState agency spokeswoman calls League of
Women Voters ‘left-wing’ agitators
<http://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/prairie-politics/article41544393.html>
For more on the conservative idea that uninformed or lazy people should
be disenfranchised, see my Slate piece,The New Conservative Assault on
Early Voting
<http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/02/the_new_conservative_assault_on_early_voting_more_republicans_fewer_voters.html>.
Nice touch that Ms. de Rocha works for the Department of Age and
Disability Services.
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Posted inThe Voting Wars <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>,voting
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=31>
“San Francisco could lead on open source voting”
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77073>
Posted onOctober 27, 2015 11:44 am
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77073>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
SF Examiner
<http://www.sfexaminer.com/san-francisco-could-lead-on-open-source-voting/>:
Nowhere in the United States is there an open source voting system.
While Los Angeles and Travis County, Texas, are working on open
source voting systems, San Francisco could emerge as a leader.
But only if there is the political will and the funding.
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Posted inelection administration
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>,voting technology
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=40>
“New Study: Bringing Voter Registration into the Digital Age”
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77071>
Posted onOctober 27, 2015 11:34 am
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77071>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Brennan Center:
<http://www.brennancenter.org/press-release/new-study-bringing-voter-registration-digital-age>
America’s outdated voter registration needs improvement, but as
technology has advanced, a growing number of states are using 21st
century methods.
A total of 38 states now use electronic and/or online voter
registration, nearly double the total from our last study five years
ago, according to anew report from the Brennan Center for Justice
<https://www.brennancenter.org/publication/voter-registration-digital-age-2015-update>.
These systems boost registration rates, increase voter roll
accuracy, and save money, the study found.
Electronic and online registration are two of the most popular
modern methods of signing up voters, according to the report, which
is based on interviews with more than 70 election officials nationwide.
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Posted inelection administration
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>,voting technology
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=40>
Kevin Kennedy Responds to Criticism of WI GAB as Senate Considers
Bill to Dismantle It <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77068>
Posted onOctober 27, 2015 11:32 am
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77068>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Read hissupplemental testimony
<http://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/Kennedy-Supplemental-Testimony-GAB-Restructure-10.27.15.pdf>.
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Posted inelection administration
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>,The Voting Wars
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>
“Coming to SCOTUS: Battle of the dueling interpretive canons”
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77066>
Posted onOctober 27, 2015 10:49 am
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77066>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Law in Linguistics:
<http://lawnlinguistics.com/2015/10/27/coming-to-scotus-battle-of-the-dueling-interpretive-canons/>
Karl Llewellyn <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Llewellyn>, a
prominent mid-20th century legal scholar,famously said
<http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/files/llewellyn_on_canons.pdf>that
“there are two opposing canons on almost every point.” On November
3, the Supreme Court will hear argument in/Lockhart v. United
States/
<http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/lockhart-v-united-states/>,
a case that presents about as stark a clash between opposing canons
as you could ever hope to find.
/Lockhart/is of interest to us here at LAWnLinguistics because the
canons at issue are among the small group of “linguistic
canons”—those that deal with language-related issues. In particular,
they deal with resolving ambiguities that arise as a result of the
statutory language having more than one plausible syntactic
structure. I dealt at some length with the general issue of
syntactic ambiguity, and with the specific canons that are now at
issue in Lockhart, in my multipart look at/Reading Law: The
Interpretation of Legal Texts/
<http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Law-Interpretation-Legal-Texts/dp/031427555X>,
by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and legal-writing guru Bryan
Garner. (Of my previous posts about the book the ones most relevant
here areSyntactic ambiguity
<http://lawnlinguistics.com/2012/07/08/syntactic-ambiguity-part-3-of-scalia-and-garner-on-statutory-interpretation/>,Three
syntactic canons
<http://lawnlinguistics.com/2012/07/13/three-syntactic-canons/>,On
Garner on Posner on Scalia & Garner
<http://lawnlinguistics.com/2012/09/09/on-garner-on-posner-on-scalia-garner/>,
andLast antecedents, series qualifiers, and psycholinguistics
<http://lawnlinguistics.com/2012/10/08/last-antecedents-series-qualifiers-and-psycholingstics/>.)
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Posted instatutory interpretation
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=21>,Supreme Court
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>
“A New Low in Campaign Finance” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77064>
Posted onOctober 27, 2015 10:45 am
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77064>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Today’s must-read comes from OpenSecret’s Robert Maguire, writingan
oped<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/27/opinion/a-new-low-in-campaign-finance.html?_r=0>in
today’s NYT:
Carolina Rising has no credible claim to being a social welfare
organization. But the key thing to remember here is that Carolina
Rising is not an outlier. It’s a trailblazer. In 2014, it was one of
anew breed of politically active nonprofits
<http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2014/11/latest-candidate-must-have-your-very-own-dark-money-group/>that
sprang up to assist a single candidate’s bid for a seat in Congress,
with money from donors whose identities don’t have to be revealed.
The largest was the Kentucky Opportunity Coalition, which supported
Republican Senator Mitch McConnell’s re-election with more than $8.2
million in reported political spending. Another group, Oklahomans
for a Conservative Future, spent nearly $1.3 million backing the
state legislator T. W. Shannon’s failed bid to be the Republican
nominee for that state’s open Senate seat.
Carolina Rising is the first of these nonprofits to file a tax
return covering the midterms. Yes, that’s history now, but this is
the most recent info available; such groups don’t have to submit
their returns until 11 months after the end of their fiscal year, so
it’s impossible to track them in anything like real time.
But the document could be highly instructive for anyone paying
attention to developments in campaign finance, including voters. It
is also fair to wonder whether the Federal Election Commission and
the I.R.S. will act to enforce existing laws. In recent years, the
election agency has been frozen by partisan deadlock, and the I.R.S.
has been cowed by Congress, while politically active groups have
pushed through boundaries that once seemed impregnable, even in the
opaque world of campaign finance.
Has Carolina Rising set the bar low enough for either the F.E.C. or
the I.R.S. to say, finally, that enough is enough?
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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,campaigns
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>,tax law and election law
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=22>
“Watchdogs Urge FEC to Reject Democratic Super PACs’ Request to
Green-Light Illegal Coordination with Candidates”
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77062>
Posted onOctober 27, 2015 10:39 am
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77062>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
See here.
<http://www.campaignlegalcenter.org/news/press-releases/watchdogs-urge-fec-reject-democratic-super-pacs-request-green-light-illegal>
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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,campaigns
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>
“Zenith City Decision: Duluth, MN To Vote On Ranked Choice Voting”
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77060>
Posted onOctober 27, 2015 10:36 am
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77060>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
A ChapinBlog.
<http://editions.lib.umn.edu/electionacademy/2015/10/27/zenith-city-decision-duluth-mn-to-vote-on-ranked-choice-voting/>
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Posted inalternative voting systems <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=63>
--
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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