[EL] ELB News and Commentary 5/16/17

Mon May 15 20:19:42 PDT 2017

Tobacco Companies, Other Corporations Pouring Money Supporting Republicans in Montana and Georgia Special Elections<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92547>
Posted on May 15, 2017 7:50 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92547> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Bloomberg BNA:<http://news.bna.com/mpdm/MPDMWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=111720830&vname=mpebulallissues&jd=a0m4p6d4k3&split=0>
A Republican super political action committee that is pouring money into congressional races in Montana and Georgia is being funded by tobacco companies, video game manufacturers, other corporations and wealthy donors, according to recently filed Federal Election Commission reports.
Affiliates of R.J. Reynolds and Phillip Morris, along with the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), a trade association for video game makers, and the American Action Network (AAN), a nonprofit group that has received corporate funding, gave a total of nearly $2 million over the last month to the Congressional Leadership Fund, the super PAC endorsed by House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and other GOP leaders.
AAN provided more than $1.6 million to the super PAC, according to an FEC report<http://docquery.fec.gov/pdf/436/201705119053522436/201705119053522436.pdf> filed May 11. RAI Services Co., an affiliate of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. parent Reynolds American Inc., gave $250,000. Altria Client Services LLC, an affiliate of Philip Morris USA, gave $25,000. ESA gave $50,000.
Spending by the GOP super PAC and others in the Georgia and Montana special elections could presage record-shattering fundraising for the 2018 midterms. The latest FEC reports indicate an arms race is taking shape as Democratic contributors motivated by opposition to President Donald Trump and the Republican agenda are being countered by Republican groups funded by corporations, trade associations and wealthy individual donors seeking to preserve a business-friendly Congress.
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Posted in campaign finance<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, campaigns<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>

The Texas Redistricting Cases are Likely the Next Big Voting Cases to Come to the Supreme Court<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92545>
Posted on May 15, 2017 3:14 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92545> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
With the North Carolina voting case gone<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92522>, I’ve seen some suggestions that the Texas voter id case is the next big voting rights case to make it to SCOTUS.
I don’t think that’s right. That case won’t be decided by the district court until summer at the earliest, and then there will be a Fifth Circuit appeal and possible en banc, followed by discretionary review by the Supreme Court.
But the longrunning Texas congressional<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=91555> and House redistricting case <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92173> is headed to SCOTUS, directly from a three judge court on a mandatory appeal. It has everything in it:<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=91545> Voting Rights Act violations, racial gerrymandering, a finding of intentional racial discrimination in voting (with a dissent from Judge Jerry Smith saying it is all about party, not race<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92173>), and potentially the imposition of preclearance by that Court on the next round of Texas redistricting.
This will be a big one, and it could make it to the court by the middle of next term, with our without Justice Kennedy.
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Posted in Supreme Court<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>, Voting Rights Act<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=15>

Why Did the Chief Justice Write Separately in North Carolina and Texas Voting Cases?<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92542>
Posted on May 15, 2017 3:08 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92542> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Today Chief Justice Roberts wrote separately<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92522> in connection with the Supreme Court decision not to hear the North Carolina voting case, underlining the procedural irregularities of the case and noting it was not a decision on the merits.
The Chief did a similar thing<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=90590> a few months ago in turning down the Texas voter id case. He made it clear that the rejection was all about the fact that the Texas case was not fully final, and not about the merits.
What’s this all about? I think the Chief is trying to signal to states to keep litigating these cases, and that he remains a great skeptic of the voting rights act and race-based remedies for voting. Whether or not the Chief Justice “evolves” on other issues if and when he becomes the new swing Justice<http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-hasen-roberts-swing-vote-20170410-story.html>, I don’t expect to see him evolving on voting rights. That’s one of his signature issues. Anyone thinking otherwise is engaged in wishful thinking.
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Posted in Supreme Court<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>, The Voting Wars<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>, Voting Rights Act<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=15>

North Carolina Passes Another Strict Voting Law at Its Peril<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92540>
Posted on May 15, 2017 3:02 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92540> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
There’s already talk of the North Carolina general assembly (which has a veto-proof Republican majority) passing another strict voting rule (over the certain objections of the Democratic governor). This may happen even though the Supreme Court allowed<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92522> the Fourth Circuit’s decision striking down the law as intentional racial discrimination in voting to stand.
It is worth remembering that a finding of intentional racial discrimination in voting gives a federal court the power to put a state or locality under federal supervision (or “preclearance”) for up to 10 years. Section 3 of the Voting Rights Act makes this “bail in” discretionary with the court after the intentional discrimination finding.
The Fourth Circuit declined to exercise this power in the last case, but a federal court could well do so next time, using the intentional discrimination finding in the last case as a predicate.
So more is at stake whenever the #ncga decides to make voting and registration harder again.
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Posted in The Voting Wars<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>, Voting Rights Act<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=15>

“Despite today’s Supreme Court ruling, the future looks grim for voting rights”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92538>
Posted on May 15, 2017 2:39 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92538> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Paul Waldman:<https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/05/15/despite-todays-supreme-court-ruling-the-future-looks-grim-for-voting-rights/?utm_term=.94d25be6c94d&wpmk=MK0000200>
And I promise you that if the Supreme Court upholds the Texas law, we’ll see just what we saw after the court took a knife to the Voting Rights Act: a rush to enact new restrictions in time for the next election. And they’ll be getting help from the Trump administration, which just impaneled its commission<https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/05/11/trumps-new-voter-fraud-commission-a-tool-to-help-gop-win-elections> on voter fraud, led by crusading anti-immigrant activist Kris Kobach. The commission will provide the rationale, the Trump Justice Department will provide support, and the five conservatives on the Supreme Court will provide the legal stamp of approval.
The only thing Democrats can do to stop it is to win enough state elections to control the legislatures and governorships so that they can reverse these restrictions. Which, when Republicans have their way, is going to be just a little harder.
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Posted in Supreme Court<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>, Voting Rights Act<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=15>

“U.S. District Court Rejects Gwinnett County Officials’ Efforts To Block Major Federal Voting Rights Lawsuit”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92535>
Posted on May 15, 2017 2:31 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92535> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Release:<https://lawyerscommittee.org/press-release/u-s-district-court-rejects-gwinnett-county-officials-efforts-block-major-federal-voting-rights-lawsuit/>
A federal district court judge in Georgia agreed that a coalition of plaintiffs representing minority communities has the right to claim the method of electing local officials in Gwinnett County, Georgia denies them from participating equally in electing local officials.
In her opinion in Georgia State Conference of the NAACP v. Gwinnett County Board of Registrations and Elections, Judge Amy Totenberg rejected the County’s argument that claims under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act are limited to members of a single minority group.  Judge Totenberg noted that the Eleventh Circuit and other courts have held that coalition claims are permissible so long as the racial groups are politically cohesive.  The decision was issued on Friday.
You can read the ruling here<http://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/gwinnett.pdf>.
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Posted in Voting Rights Act<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=15>

“When Does Political Gerrymandering Cross a Constitutional Line?”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92533>
Posted on May 15, 2017 9:54 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92533> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
New Adam Liptak NYT Sidebar column<https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/15/us/politics/when-does-political-gerrymandering-cross-a-constitutional-line.html?smid=tw-share>:
The Supreme Court has never struck down an election map on the ground that it was drawn to make sure one political party would win an outsize number of seats. But it has left open the possibility that some kinds of political gamesmanship in redistricting may be too extreme.
The problem, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote in a 2004 concurrence<https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/02-1580.ZC.html>, is that no one has come up with “a workable standard” to decide when the political gerrymandering has crossed a constitutional line.
Finding such a standard has long been, as one judge put it, “the holy grail of election law jurisprudence.”
In the coming weeks, the Supreme Court will consider an appeal from a decision in Wisconsin that may have found that holy grail. The case, Gill v. Whitford, No. 16-1161, arrives at the court in the wake of a wave of Republican victories in state legislatures that allowed lawmakers to draw election maps favoring their party.
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Posted in redistricting<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>, 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<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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