[EL] ELB News and Commentary 10/29/15
Rick Hasen
rhasen at law.uci.edu
Wed Oct 28 20:31:00 PDT 2015
“F.E.C. Lawyers Say Common Tactics by Super PACs Should Not Be
Allowed” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77118>
Posted onOctober 28, 2015 8:29 pm
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77118>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
NYT
<http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/10/28/f-e-c-lawyers-say-common-tactics-by-super-pacs-should-not-be-allowed/?ref=politics&_r=0>:
Lawyers for the Federal Election Commission have concluded that some
of the aggressive fund-raising tactics commonly used this campaign
season by the candidates and “super PACs” should not be allowed
under federal law, setting up what promises to be a heated debate
Thursday on the issue between Democratic and Republican commissioners.
In the draft of a legal opinion made public on Wednesday, the F.E.C.
lawyersconcluded <http://saos.fec.gov/aodocs/201509.pdf>that
politicians can be bound by fund-raising restrictions even if they
insist they have not decided whether to run and were simply “testing
the waters” for a possible campaign. A politician cannot get around
those restrictions simply by using a super PAC or another
organization as a proxy to raise money, the lawyers concluded….
The F.E.C. lawyers assessed the legality of a dozen campaign
fund-raising scenarios in response to a request made in September by
Democratic campaign lawyers. The request was a gambit by the
Democrats that could serve to force the commission either to block
some of the aggressive tactics used by Republican super PACs or to
give Democrats legal blessing to do the same things without legal
jeopardy.
The election commissioners — three Democrats and three Republicans —
will consider the lawyers’ draft findings on Thursday morning. Based
on past votes, the commission is likely to split, 3-3, on whether to
adopt the findings, with Democrats backing tougher restrictions and
Republicans opposing them.
Campaign lawyers say that the expected split vote would have the
effect of giving campaigns and super PACs a green light to use some
of the more controversial tactics in the absence of any ban by the
commission.
I’m old enough to remember when it took 4 votes, not 3, on the
commission to create a safe harbor.
Share
<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D77118&title=%26%238220%3BF.E.C.%20Lawyers%20Say%20Common%20Tactics%20by%20Super%20PACs%20Should%20Not%20Be%20Allowed%26%238221%3B&description=>
Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,federal
election commission <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=24>
“Former Olathe couple among those charged with voter fraud by Kris
Kobach” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77116>
Posted onOctober 28, 2015 6:12 pm
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77116>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
KC
<http://www.kansascity.com/news/government-politics/article41728149.html> Star:
An Olathe couple charged in a Kansas voter fraud case made a voting
mistake during the confusion of a retirement move to Arkansas, their
lawyer said Wednesday.
“They’re very good people,” said Trey Pettlon. He is representing
Steven and Betty Gaedtke in the cases filed against them recently by
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach.
Pettlon said the couple applied for advance voting ballots in
Johnson County for the 2010 general election and submitted them.
Meanwhile, they were traveling back and forth between their Olathe
home and their new residence in Arkansas over several months,
sorting and moving their belongings. During that time, they voted in
person in Arkansas.
“It was a stressful time for them and in the confusion they made a
mistake,” Pettlon said. “They weren’t stuffing ballot boxes or
anything.”
The secretary of state’s office recentlyfiled three
cases<http://www.kansascity.com/news/government-politics/article38923398.html>in
the launch of Kobach’s promised crackdown on voter fraud. Steven
Gaedtke, 60, and Betty Gaedtke, 61, were charged with misdemeanors
for allegedly casting 2010 general election ballots in both Kansas
and Arkansas.
Share
<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D77116&title=%26%238220%3BFormer%20Olathe%20couple%20among%20those%20charged%20with%20voter%20fraud%20by%20Kris%20Kobach%26%238221%3B&description=>
Posted inelection administration <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>
“Disability advocate calls for state agency spokeswoman’s
resignation” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77114>
Posted onOctober 28, 2015 4:25 pm
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77114>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Following up on myQuote of the Day
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77075>, Bryan Lowryreports:
<http://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/prairie-politics/article41718744.html>\
The executive director of a group that works with intellectually and
developmentally disabled Kansans called Wednesday for the
resignation of a state agency spokeswoman who used the phrase “slow
learners” on social media.
Angela de Rocha, spokeswoman for the Kansas Department for Aging and
Disability Services,criticized on Facebook an effort by the League
of Women Voters
<http://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/prairie-politics/article41544393.html>to
teach college students how to register themselves and their peers to
vote.
De Rocha questioned that it took a course to register, quipping, “Do
we want these slow learners voting?”
Tim Cunningham, executive director of Tri-Valley Developmental
Services, a Chanute-based group that provides transportation and
residential services to intellectually and developmentally disabled
Kansans, said in an e-mail that he was appalled by de Rocha’s comment.
“Is she suggesting that people who are ‘slow learners’ should not be
allowed to vote? This is not the type of message we want coming from
the spokesperson for the Kansas Department of Aging and Disability
Services,” Cunningham wrote in an e-mail to eight lawmakers from
southeast Kansas and to Kari Bruffett, secretary of KDADS and de
Rocha’s superior. “This is not the first time she has caused angst
among people with disabilities by her comments and it is time for
her to go!”
Share
<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D77114&title=%26%238220%3BDisability%20advocate%20calls%20for%20state%20agency%20spokeswoman%E2%80%99s%20resignation%26%238221%3B&description=>
Posted inThe Voting Wars <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>
“Corporations, the Constitution, and Democracy”
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77112>
Posted onOctober 28, 2015 4:21 pm
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77112>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Looking forward to participating inthis
event<http://freespeechforpeople.org/corporations-the-constitution-and-democracy/>Nov.
20:
Free Speech For People and Loyola Law School invite you to attend a
special symposium
*Friday, November 20, 2015*
*12:00pm – 4:30pm*
Robinson Courtroom, Loyola Law School, 919 Albany St, Los Angeles,
CA 90015**
“The Future of Corporate Constitutional Rights Litigation
and Theory”
*12pm – 1:10 pm*
Erwin Chemerinsky, UC Irvine School of Law
Margaret M. Blair, Vanderbilt Law School
Adam Winkler, UCLA School of Law
James D. Nelson, University of Houston Law Center
Sarah Haan, University of Idaho College of Law
Anne Tucker, Georgia State University College of Law
“Democracy, Corporations, and Money in Politics”
*1:20pm – 2:30 pm
*
Jeff Clements, Free Speech For People
Richard L. Hasen, UC Irvine School of Law
Michael S. Kang, Emory School of Law
Jessica Levinson, Loyola Law School
Michele Sutter, Money Out Voters In
Abby Wood, USC Gould School of Law
Keynote Address
/Corporate Power Ratchet: The Courts’ Role in Eroding
//“We the People’s” Ability to Constrain Our Corporate Creations/
*2:30pm – 3:45pm*
The Honorable Leo E. Strine, Jr.,Chief Justice of the Delaware
Supreme Court
Closing Remarks
*3:45pm – 4pm*
John Bonifaz, Free Speech For People
Elizabeth Pollman, Loyola Law School
*Light Refreshments*
*4pm – 4:30pm *
Share
<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D77112&title=%26%238220%3BCorporations%2C%20the%20Constitution%2C%20and%20Democracy%26%238221%3B&description=>
Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>
“Corporate Lobbyists Continue Fight Against Transparency”
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77110>
Posted onOctober 28, 2015 4:13 pm
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77110>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
HuffPo:
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/chamber-of-commerce-transparency_5630f5b0e4b00aa54a4c21b0?pmz5xw29>
As more and more corporations adopt rules governing their political
activity, large trade associations engaged in Washington lobbying
are pushing back.
Since 2013, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association
of Manufacturers and the Business Roundtable have been engaged in an
effort to discredit activist investors’
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/22/chamber-of-commerce-transparency_n_7111022.html> attempts
to force shareholder votes on political spending and disclosure
policies.
The three trade associations have also targeted the Center for
Political Accountability and its annualCPA-Zicklin Index
<http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/CPAZicklinIndex2015FINAL100515.pdf>.
The center works with investors to encourage corporations to adopt
political spending and transparency policies, including the
disclosure of campaign contributions and donations to politically
active nonprofits and trade associations. Its annual index ranks
corporations on their adoption of such policies.
On Oct, 8, the Center for Political Accountabilityreleased its
annual index
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/cpa-zicklin-index-2015_56159b37e4b021e856d3833e> and
for the first time included all companies listed in the S&P 500.
Predictably, the three corporate trade groups responded with their
own pushback in the form of an email from U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Institute of Legal Reform President Lisa Rickard to an inside
Washington corporate group known as the Carlton Club. The Carlton
Club, an 80-member nonprofit organization, is made up of the heads
of the Washington offices of major U.S. corporations and corporate
trade associations.
Share
<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D77110&title=%26%238220%3BCorporate%20Lobbyists%20Continue%20Fight%20Against%20Transparency%26%238221%3B&description=>
Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>
“Is There a Silver Lining to Citizens United?”
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77108>
Posted onOctober 28, 2015 11:13 am
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77108>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Tom Edsall NYT column
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/28/opinion/is-there-a-silver-lining-to-citizens-united.html>:
The five-member conservative majority of the Supreme Court did
Democrats and reformers a favor when it released its decision
inCitizens United
<http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/citizens-united-v-federal-election-commission/>in
2010.
The ruling andits progeny
<http://www.fec.gov/law/litigation/speechnow.shtml>, much reviled by
the left, effectively banned limits on political contributions and
opened the door to direct corporate financing of campaigns. In doing
so, Citizens United inadvertently rescuedprogressive
crusaders<http://www.fec.gov/info/appfour.htm>from their
futile,century-long struggle
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/16/opinion/can-anything-be-done-about-all-the-money-in-politics.html?_r=0>to
control the flow of money into politics.
In the absence of caps on contribution amounts — and with loosened
restrictions on sources of political cash — reformers have been
forced to look toward innovative legislation at the city and state
level. Those local experiments have led to the development of
alternative strategies for financing federal elections that focus on
large, publicly funded incentives for the solicitation of small donors….
For reformers to have a chance requires post-2020 congressional
redistricting with Democrats in control in such key states as
Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and North Carolina, allowing the
party to take control of the House in 2022.
The Roberts court has deregulated campaign finance on the premise
that the only legitimate grounds for restricting money in politics
is to prevent explicit corruption. In doing so, however, the court
has sanctioned a pervasively corrupt regime.
In hisforthcoming book
<http://yalepress.yale.edu/book.asp?isbn=9780300212457>on campaign
finance,Rick Hasen <https://electionlawblog.org/>, a professor of
law and political science at the University of California-Irvine,
writes:
The more central problem of money in politics is something just as
troubling but much harder to see: systems in which economic
inequalities, inevitable in a free market economy, are transformed
into political inequalities that affect both electoral and
legislative outcomes. Without any politician taking a single bribe,
wealth has an increasingly disproportionate influence on our
politics. While we can call that a problem of “corruption,” this
pushes the limits of the words too far (certainly far beyond what
the Supreme Court is going to entertain as corruption) and obscures
the fundamental unfairness of a political system moving toward
plutocracy.
The long run solution, Hasen argues — with reasoning I find
unimpeachable — is a Supreme Court “that will accept political
equality as a compelling interest that justifies reasonable campaign
regulations.”
Share
<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D77108&title=%26%238220%3BIs%20There%20a%20Silver%20Lining%20to%20Citizens%20United%3F%26%238221%3B&description=>
Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,campaigns
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>,Supreme Court
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>
“Obama Administration Violating Voting Rights Law”
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77106>
Posted onOctober 28, 2015 11:04 am
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77106>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Release
<http://www.projectvote.org/press-releases/obama-administration-violating-voting-rights-law/>:
*/Voting Rights Groups Urge Immediate Action to Provide Required
Registration Services through Federal Health Exchanges/*
WASHINGTON, DC – Today, in aletter
<http://www.projectvote.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Letter-to-President-Obama-on-ACA-Compliance-10.28.2015.pdf>to
President Obama, three of the nation’s leading voting rights
organizations—Demos, Project Vote, and the League of Women
Voters—urged the Administration to come into compliance with the
National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) by providing voter
registration to eligible persons through the federally-facilitated
health benefit exchanges set up under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
In theletter
<http://www.projectvote.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Letter-to-President-Obama-on-ACA-Compliance-10.28.2015.pdf>,
the groups—who have previously won many NVRA-enforcement
lawsuits—indicated that they are prepared to seek legal recourse if
necessary.
“We hope to avoid litigation, but we note that the NVRA includes a
private right of action,” the letter states.
Share
<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D77106&title=%26%238220%3BObama%20Administration%20Violating%20Voting%20Rights%20Law%26%238221%3B&description=>
Posted inUncategorized <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>
“Exclusive: FEC overhauls website to make it easier to track
campaign money” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77104>
Posted onOctober 28, 2015 11:01 am
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77104>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Fredreka Schouten reports
<http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2015/10/27/fec-updates-website-2016-election/74672832/>for
USA Today.
Share
<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D77104&title=%26%238220%3BExclusive%3A%20FEC%20overhauls%20website%20to%20make%20it%20easier%20to%20track%20campaign%20money%26%238221%3B&description=>
Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,federal
election commission <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=24>
“The Arc is Long” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77102>
Posted onOctober 28, 2015 10:58 am
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77102>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Rachel Cobb reviews
<http://newramblerreview.com/book-reviews/history/the-arc-is-long>Gary
May’s Bending Toward Justice at/The New Rambler/:
/Bending Toward Justice/is a terrific addition to the literature on
the history of the Voting Rights Act. It offers an engrossing
narrative of the drama leading up to the Act and a careful depiction
of the vulnerabilities, flaws, and challenges faced by many of the
key characters. Here the reader comes to know King’s self-doubt,
Johnson’s orders to have the FBI wiretap King, J. Edgar Hoover’s
attempts to undermine King, the raw racism, hatred, and anger of
Sherrif Clark, and the worries, fears, and heroism of the civil
rights activists. The book is not, as it promises, a full treatment
of the “transformation of American Democracy” since the Voting
Rights Act. More books are needed to help explain and elucidate the
polarized politics that marks today’s voting wars, and the
challenges ahead posed by a fragmented set of policies that vary so
widely by state. But Gary May’s book is a lucid and vibrant account
of the struggle to achieve this critically important piece of
legislation and of the battles that ensued after its passage.
Share
<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D77102&title=%26%238220%3BThe%20Arc%20is%20Long%26%238221%3B&description=>
Posted inUncategorized <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>
“Independent Expenditure Reporting, Made Simple”
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77100>
Posted onOctober 28, 2015 10:54 am
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77100>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Bauer blogs.
<http://www.moresoftmoneyhardlaw.com/2015/10/independent-expenditure-reporting-made-simple/>
Share
<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D77100&title=%26%238220%3BIndependent%20Expenditure%20Reporting%2C%20Made%20Simple%26%238221%3B&description=>
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
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20151028/6c4f26c5/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: share_save_171_16.png
Type: image/png
Size: 1504 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20151028/6c4f26c5/attachment.png>
View list directory