[EL] ELB News and Commentary 2/24/17

Thu Feb 23 20:30:19 PST 2017

“Montana Republicans Attack Their Own Bill Because It Makes Voting Too Easy”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=91290>
Posted on February 23, 2017 8:18 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=91290> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
The Daily Banter reports.<http://thedailybanter.com/2017/02/republican-admits-voter-suppression-tactics/>
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Posted in The Voting Wars<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>

NH: “New state Senate GOP voter registration plan tightens proof-of-residency requirements”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=91287>
Posted on February 23, 2017 8:13 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=91287> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
WMUR reports.<http://www.wmur.com/article/new-state-senate-gop-voter-registration-plan-tightens-proof-of-residency-requirements/8973521>
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Posted in election administration<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>, The Voting Wars<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>

“Plaintiffs Oppose Texas & Justice Department Effort to Delay Hearing on Photo ID Law”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=91285>
Posted on February 23, 2017 8:07 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=91285> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Release:
Groups and individuals suing Texas over its strict photo ID law filed a brief<http://www.brennancenter.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=107434&qid=12135587> in U.S. District Court today in opposition to a joint request by the state and the United States Department of Justice, who asked to delay a hearing to determine whether the law was enacted with a discriminatory intent. The state and DOJ said in their request that a bill had been filed in the Texas Legislature which, if passed, would amend the existing strict law. Courts have held four times that the current law discriminates against African Americans and Latinos.
In opposing the request, plaintiffs argue that the contents of the new legislation are speculative at this point, and that the bill has not yet been passed. Even if passed into law, the bill “has no bearing on whether SB 14, enacted in 2011, was passed with unlawful discriminatory purpose,” they wrote. The intent hearing was ordered by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals last summer when it ruled that the Texas law had a discriminatory effect.
Texas first attempted to delay the intent hearing last year, which the court denied. On Inauguration Day, the court granted a separate request from Justice Department lawyers to postpone the hearing, which had been scheduled for late-January, in order to allow the DOJ under the new administration to examine the issues in the case. The hearing was rescheduled for Tuesday, February 28 in front of U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos, the same judge who found the law to be intentionally discriminatory<http://www.brennancenter.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=107435&qid=12135587> in October 2014. For the last 5 years, in various federal courts, the Department of Justice has steadfastly taken the position that the Texas bill was intentionally discriminatory.
In July 2016, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, one of the most conservative appellate courts in the country, agreed that the law has the effect of discriminating against African American and Latino voters in Texas, becoming the fourth court in four years to declare the law racially discriminatory. But it sent the case back to the lower court for further review of the claim that the Texas legislature had intended to discriminate when passing the law.
The Texas State Conference of the NAACP and the Mexican American Legislative Caucus of the Texas House of Representatives, or MALC, challenged the Texas law in September 2013. That case was consolidated with other similar cases and is now known as Veasey v. Abbott. The attorneys representing the groups include the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the national office of the NAACP, Dechert LLP, The Bledsoe Law Firm, the Law Offices of Jose Garza, the Law Office of Robert S. Notzon, and the Covich Law Firm, P.C.

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Posted in Department of Justice<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=26>, election 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>

“Judge Won’t Order FEC to Pursue Conservative Nonprofit”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=91283>
Posted on February 23, 2017 8:04 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=91283> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Bloomberg BNA:<http://news.bna.com/mpdm/MPDMWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=106168114&vname=mpebulallissues&jd=a0k9k6e1f6&split=0>
A federal judge has refused to order the Federal Election Commission to disclose information about or take further enforcement action against a nonprofit group that spent millions of dollars on ads opposing House Democrats in the 2010 elections.
The FEC investigated the now-defunct nonprofit Commission on Hope Growth and Opportunity (CHGO) for more than five years, but the case was dismissed after the six FEC commissioners ultimately deadlocked in a party-line vote on possible enforcement action. Judge Rudolph Contreras of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said in a Feb. 22 ruling<http://www.bloomberglaw.com/public/document/CITIZENS_FOR_RESPONSIBILITY_AND_ETHICS_IN_WASHINGTON_et_al_v_FEDE/14> that he would not reverse the FEC’s dismissal of the CHGO matter.
Although the FEC “strong grounds to prosecute” CHGO for campaign finance violations, the judge said, the agency had discretion to drop the case because it dragged on for so long that a statute of limitations had lapsed and the nonprofit group had ceased operating.
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Posted in campaign finance<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, federal election commission<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=24>

NC AG Files Another #SCOTUS Letter, Noting Board of Elections Has No Interest in Voting Case and Asking for Cert. Dismissal<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=91280>
Posted on February 23, 2017 3:40 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=91280> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
See this filing.<http://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/Notice-of-Non-interest.pdf>
So it looks like the Court is very likely to dismiss the case, unless the NC Legislature gets involved and can convince the Court that it can assert the interests of the state of North Carolina.
So far, nothing from the Legislature on the docket.<https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docketfiles/16-833.htm>
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Posted in election administration<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>, The Voting Wars<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>, Voting Rights Act<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=15>

“Trump’s Get-Rich-Quick Presidency”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=91278>
Posted on February 23, 2017 1:48 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=91278> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Eliza Newlin Carney writes.<http://prospect.org/article/trump%E2%80%99s-get-rich-quick-presidency>
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Posted in conflict of interest laws<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=20>

“Commissioner Weintraub and her Critics”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=91275>
Posted on February 23, 2017 7:30 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=91275> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Bauer:<http://www.moresoftmoneyhardlaw.com/2017/02/commissioner-weintraub-critics/>
Are Weintraub’s comments directly and squarely within the jurisdiction of the Commission, such that she can take some action in response to the President’s failure to produce the requested evidence? No, but then again she rightly says that as a 13 year Commissioner, she should be free to take notice of any claims that bear on the integrity of elections. And she has tried, probably unnecessarily, to bolster her case<http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/21/politics/fec-ellen-weintraub-trump-voter-fraud/> by pointing out that anyone paying for busloads to come into New Hampshire to vote illegally may have committed a campaign finance violation.
Any government funding supposedly directed toward this purpose is an accounting fiction. It would have to be somehow scraped out of the conversation she had with government paid staff about what she proposed to do, and any of the minutes required for the production of the statement, the posting and tweets. Budgets are not balanced on the savings achieved by stopping this level of activity. There is very little of a principle to be upheld here.
Cause of Action does not appear to have thought this ploy through very clearly. No one believes it cares in the least about the protection of government resources associated with the Weintraub statement and tweets. Its purpose is clearly to strike back at the Weintraub for the substance of her comments and have her think twice about repeating them while “under investigation.”  But it cannot escape attention that to make its point, the organization urges a remedy that requires throwing real government money away, on an “investigation.” Weintraub’s statement-and-tweets communication on voter fraud is a bargain compared to the paper and staff time that may be burned in an IG inquiry.
Funded by the Koch related organizations<http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/fec-commissioner-i-will-not-be-silenced-on-trumps-voter-fraud-claims/article/2615425>, Cause of Action doesn’t display much in the way of the Koch brothers’ libertarian spirit in making a pointless call on government resources with the aim of suppressing unwanted speech.
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Posted in 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
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rhasen at law.uci.edu<mailto:rhasen at law.uci.edu>
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http://electionlawblog.org<http://electionlawblog.org/>
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