[EL] ELB News and Commentary 8/3/18

[Rick Hasen]

“Wisconsin’s redistricting case draws new judge on panel as Barbara Crabb withdraws”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=100438>
Posted on August 3, 2018 8:38 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=100438> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:<https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2018/08/02/wisconsins-redistricting-case-draws-new-judge-panel/892642002/>

Wisconsin’s redistricting case is headed back to a three-judge panel — but it will consist of a slightly different set of judges.

Barbara Crabb, a U.S. district judge for Wisconsin’s western district, on Thursday withdrew from the case without explanation. She will be replaced by U.S. District Judge James Peterson, a colleague in her district who was randomly assigned to the case.

The case centers on whether legislative maps that GOP lawmakers drew in 2011 are so beneficial to Republicans that they violate the voting rights of Democrats.

The U.S. Supreme Court in June determined the Democrats didn’t have legal standing<https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2018/06/18/supreme-court-sends-wisconsin-redistricting-case-back-lower-court/646165002/>to bring their lawsuit, but found<https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-1161_dc8f.pdf> they may be able to establish standing and continue the case. The justices returned it to the three-judge panel for further proceedings.

I have asked the reporter for clarification on whether this was really a random draw replacement. As I understand it, it is the chief judge who gets to pick the composition of the three-judge panel.
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Posted in redistricting<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>


“Russian Threat ‘Is Real,’ Trump Officials Say, Vowing to Protect U.S. Elections”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=100436>
Posted on August 3, 2018 8:32 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=100436> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT:<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/02/us/politics/russia-election-security-midterm.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fpolitics&action=click&contentCollection=politics&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront>

Top national security officials vowed Thursday to defend American elections against what they called real threats from Russia only weeks after President Trump seemed to accept President Vladimir V. Putin’s denials of interference during a summit meeting in Finland.

After the meeting, Mr. Trump said he had not meant to endorse Mr. Putin’s denial of election meddling, but insisted that the culprit behind the intrusion“could be other people.” A few days later, he asserted that the idea of any meddling by Russia was “all a big hoax.”

But the men and women charged with detecting and defending against any threats to the American political process showed no such ambivalence. They bluntly said that Russia was behind a “pervasive” campaign to weaken America’s democracy and influence the 2018 election.

They also sought to reassure voters that federal, state and local governments were taking steps to guard against what Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, described as a “24-7 365-days-a-year” effort by Russia to sow division as Americans head to the polls in the fall.
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Posted in chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>, election administration<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>


ELB Podcast, Season 2: Episode 1. Dale Ho: From the Trenches of the Voting Wars<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=100430>
Posted on August 2, 2018 8:48 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=100430> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

After a long hiatus, the ELB Podcast is back in time for the midterm election season with a great first guest!

What is the state of voting rights in America? What did the ACLU’s lawsuit against Kris Kobach over the state of Kansas’s “show us your papers” citizenship voting law teach us about the extent of the voter fraud problem? What’s at stake in the litigation over the citizenship question which may appear on the 2020 census?

On Season 2, Episode 1 of the ELB Podcast, we talk with Dale Ho<https://www.aclu.org/bio/dale-ho>, Director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, who supervises the ACLU’s voting rights litigation and advocacy work nationwide.

You can listen to the ELB Podcast Season 2, Episode 1 on Soundcloud<https://soundcloud.com/rick-hasen/elb-podcast-season-2-episode-1-dale-ho-from-the-trenches-of-the-voting-wars> or subscribe at iTunes.<https://soundcloud.com/rick-hasen/elb-podcast-season-2-episode-1-dale-ho-from-the-trenches-of-the-voting-wars>
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Posted in ELB Podcast<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=116>, The Voting Wars<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>


“Abbott v. Perez, Race, and the Immodesty of the Roberts Court”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=100428>
Posted on August 2, 2018 12:06 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=100428> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Guy Charles and Luis Fuentes-Rohwer<https://blog.harvardlawreview.org/abbott-v-perez-race-and-the-immodesty-of-the-roberts-court/> for the HLR Blog.
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Posted in redistricting<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>, Supreme Court<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>


“Donation from prominent L.A. politician roils USC, which referred case to federal prosecutors”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=100426>
Posted on August 2, 2018 12:04 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=100426> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Quite a story<http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-usc-investigation-20180801-story.html> in the LAT:

When state Assemblyman Sebastian Ridley-Thomas resigned suddenly in December, it marked an abrupt halt to a promising political career.

The son of powerful Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas had enjoyed the backing of his father’s donors and the Democratic Party establishment.

Ridley-Thomas, 30, said at the time that unspecified health problems left him no choice but to step down. He needed “an extended period of time to recuperate,” he wrote in a statement.

Within months, the younger Ridley-Thomas reemerged at the University of Southern California.

The university, which sits in his father’s district, hired him as a professor of social work and public policy. USC also gave Ridley-Thomas, who lacked a graduate degree, a scholarship to pursue a master’s program in social work, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The unusual arrangement has come under scrutiny in recent weeks as the scandal-plagued university attempts to adopt more transparency in its affairs. Administrators launched an investigation and Sebastian Ridley-Thomas was fired last month, said the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.

After the internal probe, USC approached the U.S. Attorney’s office in Los Angeles. The university told federal prosecutors it had concerns about a recent $100,000 donation from a campaign fund controlled by Mark Ridley-Thomas.

The gift to USC’s Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work ended up in the account of a nonprofit group outside the university run by Sebastian Ridley-Thomas, according to sources and public records.
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Posted in chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>


“Arrested, Jailed and Charged With a Felony. For Voting.”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=100424>
Posted on August 2, 2018 12:02 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=100424> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT:<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/02/us/arrested-voting-north-carolina.html>

Keith Sellars and his daughters were driving home from dinner at a Mexican restaurant last December when he was pulled over for running a red light. The officer ran a background check and came back with bad news for Mr. Sellars. There was a warrant out for his arrest.

As his girls cried in the back seat, Mr. Sellars was handcuffed and taken to jail.

His crime: Illegal voting.

“I didn’t know,” said Mr. Sellars, who spent the night in jail before his family paid his $2,500 bond. “I thought I was practicing my right.”

Mr. Sellars, 44, is one of a dozen people in Alamance County in North Carolina who have been charged with voting illegally in the 2016 presidential election. All were on probation or parole for felony convictions, which in North Carolina and many other states disqualifies a person from voting. If convicted, they face up to two years in prison.

While election experts and public officials across the country say there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud, local prosecutors and state officials in North Carolina, Texas, Kansas, Idaho and other states have sought to send a tough message by filing criminal charges against the tiny fraction of people who are caught voting illegally.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


--
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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