[EL] ELB News and Commentary 4/18/18

Wed Apr 18 07:26:04 PDT 2018

“Elections Commission wants to use $7 million in federal funds to block hackers from Wisconsin’s system”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98719>
Posted on April 18, 2018 7:23 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98719> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel report.<https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2018/04/18/elections-commission-wants-use-7-million-federal-funds-block-hackers-wisconsins-system/526241002/>

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Posted in election administration<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>

Ken Jost Interviews Me About My New Book on Justice Scalia’s Legacy at the Washington Independent Review of Books<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98717>
Posted on April 18, 2018 7:12 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98717> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

I appreciated the opportunity to do this Q & A<http://www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/features/an-interview-with-richard-l.-hasen> with Ken at the Washington Independent Review of Books about my new book, The Justice of Contradictions: Antonin Scalia and the Politics of Disruption. <https://www.amazon.com/Justice-Contradictions-Antonin-Politics-Disruption/dp/0300228643/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&qid=1523901036&sr=8-1&keywords=richard+hasen&linkCode=sl1&tag=washinderev0a-20&linkId=4e368807dddfe5bb7dfbddac1a0d320e>

I linked earlier to his review<http://www.jostonjustice.com/2018/03/scalias-legacy-abiding-contradictions.html> of my book at Jost on Justice.
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Posted in Scalia<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=123>, Supreme Court<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>

“Trump Campaign Rebukes Indiana Candidate Signs” (Rokita)<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98715>
Posted on April 18, 2018 6:57 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98715> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

AP:<https://apnews.com/08e91ed33ae84bb2a37828914493d794>

 Donald Trump’s re-election campaign has demanded that Rep. Todd Rokita take down yard signs it says give the false impression the president endorsed the Indiana Republican’s Senate bid, two people with direct knowledge of the matter told The Associated Press.

The rebuke came after two volunteers who led Trump’s bare-bones 2016 campaign in Vice President Mike Pence’s home state endorsed Rokita during an Indianapolis news conference last week.

The Rokita signs, which have gone up since that event, proclaim in large white letters “Endorsed by Trump/Pence,” with smaller letters below adding “2016 Indiana Team Leaders.”

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Posted in campaigns<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>, chicanery<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>

“NY-25 Voters File Lawsuit To Force Special Election”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98712>
Posted on April 18, 2018 6:51 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98712> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NY State of Politics reports.<http://www.nystateofpolitics.com/2018/04/ny-25-voters-file-lawsuit-to-force-special-election/>
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Posted in Uncategorized<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

“Maine’s top court clears way for ranked-choice voting in June”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98710>
Posted on April 18, 2018 6:47 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98710> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Bangor Daily News:<https://bangordailynews.com/2018/04/17/politics/maines-top-court-clears-way-for-ranked-choice-voting-in-june/>

Ranked-choice voting<http://bangordailynews.com/topic/ranked-choice-voting/> will be used in Maine’s June primary elections, the state’s high court ruled on Tuesday in a massive win for supporters of the first-in-the-nation system that has faced constitutional scrutiny and run a political gauntlet in the Legislature.

The decision from the Maine Supreme Judicial Court allows Secretary of State Matt Dunlap to continue implementing the system for gubernatorial and congressional primaries just before his office needs to finalize state ballots for printing to go to overseas voters later this month….

In a unanimous decision<http://www.courts.maine.gov/opinions_orders/supreme/lawcourt/2018/18me052.pdf>, the high court ruled that ranked-choice voting “is the law of Maine” for the June primaries, throwing out the Republican-led Maine Senate’s questions about whether Dunlap can spend unallocated money on administering the system and hiring private couriers to transport ballots to Augusta for counting — both parts of his plan to implement the law.
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Posted in alternative voting systems<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=63>

Accountability Claims in Constitutional Law<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98708>
Posted on April 17, 2018 3:38 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98708> by Nicholas Stephanopoulos<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=12>

I just posted<https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3164631> a new article of mine, “Accountability Claims in Constitutional Law,” that recently came out in the Northwestern University Law Review. The abstract is below. While the piece addresses a range of constitutional doctrines, readers of this blog will be most interested in its treatment of campaign finance regulation. The Supreme Court often asserts that it promotes electoral accountability when it strikes down restrictions on money in politics. Without these restrictions, in the Court’s view, corporations, unions, and other groups are able to deploy more funds to inform voters about incumbents’ records, thus rendering incumbents more accountable.

The article explains why this claim is wrong — indeed, backward. First, campaign finance regulation tends to affect incumbents more than challengers. It therefore shrinks the spending advantage that incumbents enjoy over their rivals. Second, incumbents’ smaller spending advantage produces more competitive elections. Races are typically closer when candidates are more evenly matched in resources. And third, voters respond to greater competition by learning more about incumbents’ records and more often voting based on them. Voters respond, that is, by holding incumbents more accountable for their performances. Accordingly, it is campaign finance regulation — not deregulation — that actually fosters greater accountability.

________________________________

Several of the Supreme Court’s most controversial constitutional doctrines hinge on claims about electoral accountability. Restrictions on the President’s power to remove agency heads are disfavored because they reduce the President’s accountability for agency actions. Congress cannot delegate certain decisions to agencies because then Congress is less accountable for those choices. State governments cannot be federally commandeered because such conscription lessens their accountability. And campaign spending must be unregulated so that more information reaches voters and helps them to reward or punish incumbents for their performances.

There is just one problem with these claims. They are wrong—at least for the most part. To illustrate their error, I identify four conditions that must be satisfied in order for incumbents to be held accountable. Voters must (1) know about incumbents’ records, (2) form judgments about them, (3) attribute responsibility for them, and (4) cast ballots based on these judgments and attributions. I then present extensive empirical evidence showing that these conditions typically are not met in the scenarios contemplated by the Court. The crux of the problem is that voters are less informed than the Court supposes, more likely to be biased by their partisan affiliations, and less apt to vote retrospectively than in some other way. Accountability thus does not rise in response to the Court’s interventions—at least not much.

The qualifiers, though, are important. If the Court’s claims are mostly wrong, then they are partly right. If accountability does not rise much due to the Court’s efforts, then it does go up a bit. These points are established by the same studies that document the general inadequacy of the Court’s reasoning. With respect to certain voters in certain settings, accountability is influenced by presidential control over agencies, congressional delegation to agencies, federal commandeering of state governments, and regulation of campaign spending. That is why this Article discounts accountability as a constitutional value but not does reject it altogether.
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Posted in Uncategorized<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

“Minor Party Fights New York’s Campaign-Finance Limits”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98704>
Posted on April 17, 2018 1:50 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98704> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Courthouse News Service reports.<https://www.courthousenews.com/minor-party-fights-new-yorks-campaign-finance-limits/>

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Posted in campaign finance<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, third parties<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=47>

“Rep. Charlie Dent’s Early Retirement Creates a Total Headache for Pennsylvania”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98702>
Posted on April 17, 2018 1:44 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98702> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Slate reports.<https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/04/rep-charlie-dents-early-retirement-creates-total-headache-for-pennsylvania.html>
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Posted in Uncategorized<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

“Lawsuit Filed Against Missouri Over State Motor Vehicle Agency’s Failure to Provide Federally-Mandated Voter Registration Services”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98700>
Posted on April 17, 2018 1:41 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98700> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Press release.<http://www.demos.org/press-release/lawsuit-filed-against-missouri-over-state-motor-vehicle-agency%E2%80%99s-failure-provide-feder>

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Posted in NVRA (motor voter)<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=33>

--
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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