[EL] ELB News and Commentary 5/9/16
Rick Hasen
rhasen at law.uci.edu
Sun May 8 20:04:41 PDT 2016
“The Supreme Court’s Next Big Fight Over Money in Politics: Will the
justices gut the rest of McCain-Feingold — and make it easier for
wealthy donors to influence elections?”
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82627>
Posted onMay 8, 2016 8:02 pm <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82627>byRick
Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
I have writtenthis
piece<http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/supreme-court-soft-money/480978/>for
The Atlantic. It begins:
At some point next year, the U.S. Supreme Court is likely to face a
major First Amendment question: whether to overturn what remains of
the 2002 McCain-Feingold Act. This measure prohibited political
parties from raising “soft money”—unlimited funds that wealthy
individuals, corporations, and labor unions could give to parties,
thanks to a loophole in the post-Watergate campaign-finance laws.
Such a ruling would allow political parties once again to take
millions of additional dollars from donorswho, as the Supreme Court
found in 2003
<https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/02-1674.ZO.html>, use soft
money to ingratiate themselves to election officials and secure
access to them. How the Court rules is likely to determine whether
the wealthiest donors will have an easier path to secure that
access—and whether the rest of the country will suffer as a result.
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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,campaigns
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>,Supreme Court
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>
“A Second Chance and the Right to Vote”
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82625>
Posted onMay 8, 2016 8:00 pm <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82625>byRick
Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
NYT editorial:
<http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/opinion/a-second-chance-and-the-right-to-vote.html?ref=opinion>
Republican legislators in Virginiaare threatening to sue
<http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/03/us/virginia-felon-voting-rights-republicans-court-challenge.html>Gov.
Terry McAuliffe to block his executive order restoring voting rights
to more than 200,000 residents who have completed their felony
sentences. The lawmakers have no good legal case, and worse, such a
suit would be affirming Virginia’s racist history.
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Posted infelon voting <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=66>
“Women’s Rising Influence in Politics, Tinted Green”
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82623>
Posted onMay 8, 2016 7:58 pm <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82623>byRick
Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Nick Confessore
<http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/us/politics/womens-donors-influence-in-politics.html?ref=politics&_r=0>:
Women are bankrolling political campaigns this year more than ever,
driven by their rising rank in the workplace, boosts in women’s
wealth, and networks set up to gather their donations and bolster
their influence.
In an election year when women could be a decisive force, the
transformation is occurring at every level of political giving and
in both parties, from grass-roots supporters sending in a few
hundred dollars to the rarefied ranks of ultrawealthy donors who
fund “super PACs
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/campaign_finance/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>.”
Forty-three percent of all reported contributions to federal
candidates for this election have come from women, according to an
analysis ofFederal Election Commission <http://www.fec.gov/>data
byCrowdpac <https://www.crowdpac.com/>, a political crowdfunding
website, higher than any election cycle on record. Women have also
provided a fifth of all individual contributions to super PACs for
this election, compared with just 1 percent in 2010, the year
theSupreme Court’s Citizens United decision
<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/us/politics/22scotus.html>paved
the way for new levels of giving to outside groups.
The increase is especially pronounced on the left, with the
presidential campaign ofHillary Clinton
<http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/elections/hillary-clinton-on-the-issues.html?inline=nyt-per>galvanizing
female donors. She has counted on women to help propel her toward
the Democratic nomination, and could count on themeven more
<http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2016/05/02/hillary-clinton-cashes-in-on-donald-trumps-womans-card-comments/>in
a general election race againstDonald J. Trump
<http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/elections/donald-trump-on-the-issues.html?inline=nyt-per>.
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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,campaigns
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>
“Dark money group leads last-minute effort to speed up campaign
finance changes” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82620>
Posted onMay 8, 2016 7:54 pm <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82620>byRick
Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Tucson Sentinel
<http://www.tucsonsentinel.com/local/report/050816_dark_money/dark-money-group-leads-last-minute-effort-speed-up-campaign-finance-changes/>:
Arizona is already poised to relax rules regarding so-called “dark
money” groups starting next year, but a last-minute amendment from
the state Senate could make the changes go into effect in less than
a month.
The proposal to accelerate the dark money regulation changes came
late Thursday, as anamendment to HB 2296
<http://www.azleg.gov/FormatDocument.asp?inDoc=/legtext/52leg/2r/adopted/2296pierce421.doc.htm&Session_ID=115>,
and originated with theArizona Free Enterprise Club
<http://www.azfree.org/>, a dark money group that spent about $1.7
million during the 2014 election cycle.
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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,tax law
and election law <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=22>
“Few stand in Trump’s way as he piles up the Four-Pinocchio
whoppers” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82618>
Posted onMay 8, 2016 7:51 pm <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82618>byRick
Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Glenn Kessler
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/few-stand-in-trumps-way-as-he-piles-up-the-four-pinocchio-whoppers/2016/05/07/8cf5e16a-12ff-11e6-8967-7ac733c56f12_story.html>for
WaPo:
At the Fact Checker, we have often said we do not write fact checks
to change the behavior of politicians. Fact checks are intended to
inform voters and explain complicated issues.
Still, most politicians will drop a talking point if it gets labeled
with Four Pinocchios by The Fact Checker or “Pants on Fire” by
PolitiFact. No one wants to be tagged as a liar or misinformed, and
we have found most politicians are interested in getting the facts
straight. So the claim might be uttered once or twice, but then it
gets quietly dropped or altered.
But the news media now faces the challenge of Donald Trump, the
presumptive Republican nominee for president. Trump makes
Four-Pinocchio statements over and over again, even though fact
checkers have demonstrated them to be false. He appears to care
little about the facts; his staff does not even bother to respond to
fact-checking inquiries.
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Posted incampaigns <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>
“The bogeyman at the ballot box: Voter fraud in Florida is largely a
myth” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82616>
Posted onMay 8, 2016 7:45 pm <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82616>byRick
Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Must-read<http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/stateroundup/the-bogeyman-at-the-ballot-box-voter-fraud-in-florida-is-largely-a-myth/2276141?platform=hootsuite>from
the Tampa Bay Times.
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Posted inelection administration
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>,The Voting Wars
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>
“Atlanta Mayor’s Column Ripping Bernie Sanders Drafted by Lobbyist,
Emails Show” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82614>
Posted onMay 6, 2016 7:26 pm <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82614>byRick
Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
The Intercept:
<https://theintercept.com/2016/05/06/hillary-super-pac-draft-oped/>
A few days before the Georgia primary
<http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/georgia>, influential
Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed published a column
<http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/29/opinions/atlanta-mayor-why-im-backing-clinton-opinion-reed/index.html> on CNN.com
praising Hillary Clinton and ripping her opponent, Bernie Sanders.
Reed attacked Sanders as being out of step with Democrats on gun
policy, and accused him of elevating a “one-issue platform” that
ignores the plight of the “single mother riding two buses to her
second job.”
Butemails
<https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2823095-Mayor-Reed-Op-Ed-emails.html> released
from Reed’s office indicate that the column, which pilloried Sanders
as out of touch with the poor, was primarily written by a corporate
lobbyist, and was edited by Correct the Record, one of several
pro-Clinton Super PACs.
Anne Torres, the mayor’s director of communications, told/The
Intercept/ this week that the column was not written by the mayor,
but by Tharon Johnson, a former Reed adviser who now works as
alobbyist
<http://media.ethics.ga.gov/search/lobbyist/Lobbyist_Name.aspx?&FilerID=L20100177>for
UnitedHealth, Honda, and MGM Resorts, among other clients. The
column’s revisions by staffers from Correct the Record are
documented in the emails.
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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,campaigns
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>
“A Super-Easy Guide to Voting in a Red State”
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82612>
Posted onMay 6, 2016 5:41 pm <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82612>byRick
Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
New Yorker:
<http://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/a-super-easy-guide-to-voting-in-a-red-state?mbid=nl_160506_Daily&CNDID=24399013&spMailingID=8889223&spUserID=MTIwNDQ2MzAwNDIxS0&spJobID=920647026&spReportId=OTIwNjQ3MDI2S0>
Welcome to your state’s Board of Elections Web site, brought to you
by a Republican-controlled legislature! Here you can find useful
information pertaining to our new voter-I.D. election law. First and
foremost, we’d like to thank our friends at the U.S. Supreme Court
for upholding the constitutionality of voter-I.D. laws, as well as
for striking down crucial elements of the Voting Rights Act of 1965!
You guys are the/best/.
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Posted inelection administration
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>,election law "humor"
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=52>,The Voting Wars
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>
“Voter ID lawsuit abruptly withdrawn in state court”
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82610>
Posted onMay 6, 2016 2:58 pm <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82610>byRick
Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
The Austin American-Statesman reports.
<http://www.mystatesman.com/news/news/voter-id-lawsuit-abruptly-withdrawn-in-state-court/nrJKc/?platform=hootsuite>
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Posted inUncategorized <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>
“No, a Conservative Third-Party Candidate Can’t Steal the Electoral
College” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82608>
Posted onMay 6, 2016 2:06 pm <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82608>byRick
Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Jonathan Chiat.
<http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/05/a-third-party-cant-steal-electoral-college.html>
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Posted incampaigns <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>,electoral
college <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=44>
“The rise of Donald Trump and the politics of delegitimization”
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82606>
Posted onMay 6, 2016 1:33 pm <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82606>byRick
Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Must-read by Orin Kerr.
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/05/06/the-rise-of-donald-trump-and-the-politics-of-delegitimization/?postshare=5161462565485209&tid=ss_tw-bottom>
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Posted inUncategorized <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>
“Clearing the Landmines of the Roberts Court”
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82604>
Posted onMay 6, 2016 1:17 pm <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82604>byRick
Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Ciara Torres-Spelliscy
<https://www.brennancenter.org/blog/clearing-landmines-roberts-court>:
The University of Colorado at Boulder hosted a symposium last month
on “Money and the First Amendment
<http://www.colorado.edu/keller/events/conference>.” The keynote
was delivered byProf. Jeffrey Rosen
<http://constitutioncenter.org/media/files/jeffrey-rosen-bio.pdf>,
whosebook on Justice Louis Brandeis
<http://www.amazon.com/Louis-D-Brandeis-American-Prophet/dp/030015867X>will
be published in June. In the course of asking WWJBD? or “what
would Justice Brandeis do?” about/Citizens United/, Rosen also
explored the impact of the absence of Justice Antonin Scalia on the
current Supreme Court, especially in campaign finance law.
Theloss of Scalia
<https://www.brennancenter.org/blog/without-scalia-supreme-court-could-tie-three-major-cases>could
be monumental in election law since he was a reliable fifth vote for
deregulating money in politics and diminishing voter protections.
His unexpected death could mean that troublesome language in Roberts
Court campaign finance cases during the past 11 years will not be
used to jettison even more regulations.
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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,Supreme
Court <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>
“Making Progress on Campaign Finance Reform”
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82602>
Posted onMay 6, 2016 10:52 am
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82602>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Third Way is hostingthis event
<http://www.thirdway.org/events/making-progress-on-campaign-finance-reform>in
DC on May 20.
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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>
“Okaying North Carolina’s Voter Suppression Law”
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82600>
Posted onMay 6, 2016 10:49 am
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82600>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Gene Nichol for ACS Blog.
<https://www.acslaw.org/acsblog/okaying-north-carolina%E2%80%99s-voter-suppression-law>
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Posted inelection administration
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>,The Voting Wars
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>,voter id
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=9>,Voting Rights Act
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=15>
“Uncovering the Voting Rights Act: The Racial Progress Argument in
Shelby County” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82598>
Posted onMay 6, 2016 9:01 am <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82598>byRick
Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Derrick Darby has postedthis draft
<http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2769552>on SSRN
(forthcoming, /Kansas Journal of Law and Public Policy/). Here is the
abstract:
The coverage formula of the Voting Rights Act succumbs in Shelby
County v. Holder due to the majority’s narrative of racial progress
in America. While they concede that the nation has a tarnished
racial history, and is far from perfect, the majority makes a big
deal of the fact that “history did not end in 1965.” They rest their
novel argument against the coverage formula on the claim that the
“entrenched racial discrimination in voting” in covered states in
1965 that justified exceptional legislation back then is no longer
prevalent or flagrant. This perspective can be summed up with the
motif, “that was then, this is now.” In this Article I reconstruct
the majority’s racial progress argument in Shelby County, and raise
some concerns about ways of answering it that merely replace a
conservative narrative about racial progress with a liberal one.
Although I am partial to the latter narrative, and believe that the
argument for striking down the coverage formula is deeply flawed, it
seems unwise to rest the entire case for saving the Voting Rights
Act and defending the right to vote — moving forward — on winning
the racial progress argument, especially in a nation so smitten by
the view that we have reached the “postracial” promised land. I
conclude with speculative remarks about where we might turn to
safeguard the right to vote post-Shelby County.
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Posted inSupreme Court <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>,Voting
Rights Act <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=15>
Trump Channels Sergeant Schultz’s “I Know Nothing”
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82596>
Posted onMay 6, 2016 7:42 am <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82596>byRick
Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
This
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-turns-to-general-election--and-away-from-past-positions/2016/05/05/22fc6fa6-12d5-11e6-81b4-581a5c4c42df_story.html?postshare=7641462545083885&tid=ss_tw>:
But Trump expressed little concern this week that a super PAC called
Great America PAC was emerging asthe vehicle of choice for wealthy
Trump supporters
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/donald-trump-takes-the-reins-of-a-divided-republican-party/2016/05/04/48df48ca-122a-11e6-93ae-50921721165d_story.html>and
praised one of the group’s advisers, longtime Republican consultant
Ed Rollins.
“I know that people maybe like me and they form a super PAC, but I
have nothing to do with it,” the candidate said Wednesday on “NBC
Nightly News,” adding, “So we’ll see what happens.”
He also acknowledged that he cannot personally cover the cost of a
general-election campaign for the next six months, unless he was
willing to “sell a couple of buildings,” as he said on MSNBC’s
“Morning Joe.”
Reminded me of this <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgcxGFmYyPs>.
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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,campaigns
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>
“New questions emerge about Bentley’s Vegas trip, Republican
Governors Association’s influence” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82594>
Posted onMay 6, 2016 7:18 am <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82594>byRick
Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Al.com
<http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2016/05/new_questions_emerge_about_ben.html#incart_river_index>:
The Republican Governors Association (RGA) has given Gov. Robert
Bentley far more money than any other governor since Bentley and his
former adviser and alleged mistress Rebekah Mason attended RGA’s
annual conference in Las Vegas in November.
The RGA made a one-time payment of over $11,000 to Bentley on March
14, three months after it doled out travel reimbursements of no more
than $1,307 to six other Republican governors, IRS records show.
None of the nation’s other 24 Republican governors have received
travel reimbursements from the RGA since the November event,
according to the IRS documents.
And while the RGA reimbursed six of his colleagues’ travel by making
the payments to employees of their state offices, the Bentley
payment was made to his campaign committee, despite the fact that he
cannot run for governor again.
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Posted incampaigns <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>,chicanery
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>
Breaking: NC Supreme Court Deadlocks 3-3 Over Whether Its Recused
7th Member Must Run in Competitive Election
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82592>
Posted onMay 6, 2016 7:14 am <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82592>byRick
Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Today’s order
<https://www.dropbox.com/s/nr7dkkbq1qh2jha/Faires%20opinion.pdf?dl=0>noting
the 3-3 split leave the lower court ruling in place, and prevents what
looked like a way <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=80557>for the
Republican legislature to try to stop a Republican justice from having
to face a competitive election this fall.
Good thing the judge who directly benefitted from the decision recused
himself.
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Posted injudicial elections <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=19>
“Options for Continued Reform of Money in Politics: Citizens United
is Not the End” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82590>
Posted onMay 6, 2016 6:50 am <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82590>byRick
Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Nicole Gordon (of the NYC Campaign Finance Board) has postedthis draft
<http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2775452>on SSRN
(forthcoming, /Albany Law Review/).
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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,Supreme
Court <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>
--
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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