[EL] ELB News and Commentary 3/6/17

Sun Mar 5 20:46:28 PST 2017

“Liberals to Senate Democrats: Step up the Gorsuch fight”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=91495>
Posted on March 5, 2017 8:43 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=91495> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Politico:<http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/liberals-neil-gorsuch-supreme-court-235688>
Liberal advocacy groups are issuing a sharp rebuke to Senate Democrats, who they say have failed to sufficiently fight President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court pick.
In a letter to be delivered Monday and obtained by POLITICO, 11 progressive groups warn that the 48-member minority “must get out in front of this nomination process and refuse to be bullied by President Trump as he stampedes on the rights of Americans.”
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Posted in Supreme Court<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>

“Leashes Come Off Wall Street, Gun Sellers, Polluters and More”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=91493>
Posted on March 5, 2017 8:40 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=91493> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
NYT:<https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/05/us/politics/trump-deregulation-guns-wall-st-climate.html?ref=politics>
These are just a few of the more than 90 regulations that federal agencies and the Republican-controlled Congress have delayed, suspended or reversed in the month and a half since President Trump took office, according to a tally by The New York Times.
The emerging effort — dozens more rules could be eliminated in the coming weeks — is one of the most significant shifts in regulatory policy in recent decades. It is the leading edge of what Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s chief strategist, described late last month<https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/24/us/politics/stephen-bannon-cpac-speech.html?_r=0> as “the deconstruction of the administrative state.”…
On a near daily basis, regulated industries are now sending in specific requests<https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3480299-10-Examples-Industries-Push-Followed-by-Trump.html#document/p54/a341316> to the Trump administration for more rollbacks, including recent appeals from 17 automakers<https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3480299-10-Examples-Industries-Push-Followed-by-Trump.html#document/p60/a341284> to rescind an agreement to increase mileage standards for their fleets, and another from pharmaceutical industry figures<https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3480299-10-Examples-Industries-Push-Followed-by-Trump.html#document/p73/a341285> to reverse a new rule that tightens scrutiny over the marketing of prescription drugs for unapproved uses. As of late Friday, word had leaked that the automakers’ request<https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/03/us/politics/trump-vehicle-emissions-regulation.html> for a rollback was about to be granted, too.
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Posted in legislation and legislatures<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=27>, lobbying<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=28>

“Patience Gone, Koch-Backed Groups Will Pressure G.O.P. on Health Repeal”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=91491>
Posted on March 5, 2017 8:30 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=91491> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
NYT:<https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/05/us/politics/koch-brothers-affordable-care-act.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share&_r=0>
Saying their patience is at an end, conservative activist groups backed by the billionaire Koch brothers and other powerful interests on the right are mobilizing to pressure Republicans to fulfill their promise to swiftly repeal the Affordable Care Act.
Their message is blunt and unforgiving, with the goal of reawakening some of the most extensive conservative grass-roots networks in the country. It is a reminder that even as Republicans control both the White House and Congress for the first time in a decade, the party’s activist wing remains restless and will not go along passively for the sake of party unity.
With angry constituents storming town hall-style meetings across the country and demanding that Congress not repeal the law, these new campaigns are a sign of a growing concern on the right that lawmakers might buckle to the pressure.
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Posted in campaigns<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>

“Trump pleads for cash at closed donor retreat”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=91489>
Posted on March 5, 2017 8:22 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=91489> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Politico:<http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/trump-donors-republican-senate-235678>
President Donald Trump buttered up a room full of Republican donors Friday night by boasting of his upset 2016 election win and ticking through a list of his surprise swing state victories that even the party high rollers at the private dinner couldn’t have imagined possible.
But Trump also told them to focus on what he needs most: campaign cash to win 60 Republican-held seats in the U.S. Senate in 2018.
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Posted in campaign finance<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, campaigns<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>

“Democracy, Disrupted”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=91487>
Posted on March 5, 2017 8:19 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=91487> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Must-read<https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/02/opinion/how-the-internet-threatens-democracy.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region&_r=0> Tom Edsall in the NYT:
As the forces of reaction outpace movements predicated on the ideal of progress, and as traditional norms of political competition are tossed aside, it’s clear that the internet and social media have succeeded in doing what many feared and some hoped they would. They have disrupted and destroyed institutional constraints on what can be said, when and where it can be said and who can say it.
Even though in one sense President Trump’s victory in 2016 fulfilled conventional expectations — because it prevented a third straight Democratic term in the White House — it also revealed that the internet and its offspring have overridden the traditional American political system of alternating left-right advantage. They are contributing — perhaps irreversibly — to the decay of traditional moral and ethical constraints in American politics.
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Posted in social media and social protests<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=58>

“Patrons Walk Out As Ala. Official Pushes Voter ID At Selma Anniversary Service”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=91485>
Posted on March 5, 2017 8:16 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=91485> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
TPM:<http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/john-merrill-promotes-voter-id-selma-anniversary-service-church-patrons-walk-out?utm_content=buffereb8eb&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer>
After Alabama’s Secretary of State John Merrill promoted the state’s voter ID law at a church service held Sunday to commemorate the anniversary of a civil rights milestone in Selma, patrons walked out.
The service at Brown Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Alabama was held to commemorate the 52nd anniversary of the “Bloody Sunday” march that erupted in police violence on Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge, according to a video<https://www.facebook.com/RevDrBarber/videos/1223242501128954/> posted to Rev. William Barber’s Facebook page.
Barber, who is president and senior lecturer of Repairers of the Breach, and church patrons walked out after Merrill spoke in support of Alabama’s voter ID law, according to the video’s caption.
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Posted in Voting Rights Act<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=15>

Rick Scott and Pam Biondi Expected to Oppose FL Initiative Measure Easing Felon Disenfranchisement Laws<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=91483>
Posted on March 5, 2017 8:14 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=91483> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
If the Florida Supreme Court allows this measure <https://www.wsj.com/articles/states-ease-restrictions-on-voting-by-felons-1488740524> to go on the ballot, it would be a huge deal in Florida. WSJ:
Mr. Meade plans to be in the courtroom Monday when the Florida Supreme Court reviews a proposed constitutional amendment to allow felons, except for murderers and sex offenders, to vote after they finish their sentences, parole and probation. The court will decide whether the measure meets standards to go before voters, provided it gets enough signatures; Mr. Meade, as head of Floridians for a Fair Democracy, is leading the petition drive to put the amendment on the 2018 ballot….
Beginning in 2011, under current Gov. Rick Scott, with support from state Attorney General Pam Bondi, felons had to wait at least five law-abiding years before applying to a clemency board.
Applications for clemency plunged after the board, which includes Mr. Scott and Ms. Bondi, implemented the new wait time. Since Mr. Scott’s election in 2010, 2,487 people with felony convictions have regained access to the polls.
A Scott spokeswoman said he “believes in the clemency process.” Mr. Scott and Ms. Bondi—both close allies of the president’s—are expected to oppose the constitutional amendment.
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Posted in felon voting<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=66>

“The Justice Department to black voters: Don’t bother”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=91481>
Posted on March 5, 2017 10:55 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=91481> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
WaPo editorial.<https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-justice-department-to-black-voters-dont-bother/2017/03/04/9e387b9e-fe96-11e6-8f41-ea6ed597e4ca_story.html?utm_term=.bc48a680f7ca&wpmk=MK0000200>
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Posted in election administration<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>, The Voting Wars<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>

Adam Liptak on Judge Gorsuch with a Style Like Kennedy’s But an Ideology Like Scalia’s<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=91479>
Posted on March 4, 2017 10:12 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=91479> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Interesting read<https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/03/us/politics/neil-gorsuch-anthony-kennedy-supreme-court.html?ref=politics>:
The White House hopes the bond matters to Justice Kennedy, too. In choosing Judge Gorsuch to replace Justice Antonin Scalia and floating the names of other former Kennedy clerks<https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/06/us/politics/neil-gorsuch-trump-supreme-court-nominee.html> for the next Supreme Court vacancy, administration officials have sought to reassure Justice Kennedy, 80, that the court will be in good hands should he choose to retire and open a seat for another, younger justice.
While Judge Gorsuch learned a great deal in Justice Kennedy’s chambers, the lessons seem to have been more personal than political.
“There were a lot of ideologues both left and right, and he wasn’t one of them,” said Stephen F. Smith<http://law.nd.edu/directory/stephen-smith/>, who served as a law clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas that same term and is now a law professor at the University of Notre Dame. “He was careful, quiet.”
Judge Gorsuch’s critics say his own mild and courteous manner masks a fierce commitment to a right-wing agenda, and political scientists say he is likely to vote with the court’s most conservative justices rather than with Justice Kennedy. In closely divided cases, Justice Kennedy often holds the crucial vote, and he generally leans right. He wrote the majority opinion, for instance, in the Citizens United campaign finance case.
But in recent years, Justice Kennedy has joined the court’s four-member liberal wing in major cases establishing a right to same-sex marriage, protecting abortion rights and upholding affirmative action.
“It’s safe to say that little of Justice Kennedy rubbed off on him when it comes to certain critical areas of the law,” Nan Aron, the president of the Alliance for Justice<http://www.afj.org/>, a liberal group, said of Judge Gorsuch.
From me earlier in the week at CNN opinion, Why Gorsuch Could Lead Court in the Wrong Direction.<http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/01/opinions/worry-about-gorsuch-hasen/>
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Posted in 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
rhasen at law.uci.edu<mailto:rhasen at law.uci.edu>
http://www.law.uci.edu/faculty/full-time/hasen/
http://electionlawblog.org<http://electionlawblog.org/>
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