[EL] ELB News and Commentary 7/3/18

Mon Jul 2 21:26:01 PDT 2018

North Carolina: “NAACP threatens to sue over charter school law and voter ID requirement”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=99892>
Posted on July 2, 2018 9:24 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=99892> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

The News & Observer reports.<https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article212939194.html>
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Posted in voter id<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=9>

“Kris Kobach accuses Gov. Colyer of voter fraud in GOP straw poll. He’s kidding, right?”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=99890>
Posted on July 2, 2018 9:13 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=99890> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

KC Star editorial. <https://www.kansascity.com/opinion/editorials/article214228689.html>

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Posted in fraudulent fraud squad<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>

“Mass. 20-Day Voter Registration Deadline Is Constitutional, SJC Rules”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=99888>
Posted on July 2, 2018 3:18 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=99888> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WBUR:<https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2018/07/02/when-political-spending-and-core-values-conflict/>
The requirement that Massachusetts voters register at least 20 days before the election in which they hope to cast a ballot does not violate the state’s constitution, the Supreme Judicial Court ruled Monday.
Supporters of voting reforms, including Election Day registration and automatic registration, said the decision highlighted a need for lawmakers to act.
The Chelsea Collaborative v. Galvin lawsuit was filed in November 2016, seeking to allow three plaintiffs to vote in that year’s state and presidential election though they registered less than 20 days before Election Day. The ACLU of Massachusetts, Chelsea Collaborative and MassVOTE argued the cutoff disenfranchises thousands of otherwise eligible voters.
A Suffolk Superior Court judge found the deadline unconstitutional<http://www.wbur.org/news/2017/07/24/voter-registration-cutoff-unconstitutional>, and Secretary of State William Galvin appealed to the Supreme Judicial Court.
In an opinion<https://www.mass.gov/files/documents/2018/07/02/12435.pdf> written by Justice Kimberly Budd, a Gov. Charlie Baker appointee, the SJC said the registration deadline “does not disenfranchise any voter.”
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Posted in voter registration<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=37>

“When Political Spending and Core Values Conflict”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=99886>
Posted on July 2, 2018 3:16 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=99886> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Bruce Freed blogs.<https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2018/07/02/when-political-spending-and-core-values-conflict/>

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

“How Justice Kennedy’s Successor Will Wreak Havoc on Voting Rights and American Democracy”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=99884>
Posted on July 2, 2018 11:34 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=99884> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

I have written this piece<https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/07/justice-kennedys-successor-will-wreak-havoc-on-voting-rights-and-democracy.html> for Slate. It begins:

Justice Anthony Kennedy, who announced his retirement from the Supreme Court last week, was certainly the “swing justice” in key cases on major issues from abortion to gay rights. But when it came to election law, Justice Kennedy didn’t swing: He consistently sided with conservatives and the Republican Party on the most important cases of the day. Still, I fully expect issues from voting rights to campaign finance to get far worse when President Trump appoints Kennedy’s successor in the mold of Justice Antonin Scalia.

Kennedy was the author or in the majority in three of the worst election law cases the court decided in the last two generations: Bush v. Gore<https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/00-949.ZPC.html> (2000), Citizens United v. FEC<http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/citizens-united-v-federal-election-commission/> (2010), and Shelby County v. Holder<http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/shelby-county-v-holder/> (2013). It’s worth looking back at Kennedy’s bad voting rights decisions—and how much worse they could have been—when thinking about his replacement….

In sum, Anthony Kennedy was not a friend of strong voting rights, but he was not a harsh conservative in the mold of Antonin Scalia. As I explained in my recent book on Scalia’s legacy, The Justice of Contradictions: Antonin Scalia and the Politics of Disruption<https://www.amazon.com/Justice-Contradictions-Antonin-Politics-Disruption/dp/0300228643/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1516904231&sr=8-1&keywords=richard+l.+hasen>, a court filled with Scalia acolytes—such as President Trump has promised the nation—is going to be a disaster for the cause of voting and democracy.
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Posted in campaign finance<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, Scalia<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=123>, Supreme Court<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>, The Voting Wars<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>, voter id<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=9>, Voting Rights Act<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=15>

Is Partisan Gerrymandering a Larger Symbol For Loss of Trust in the Political Process?<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=99880>
Posted on July 2, 2018 7:14 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=99880> by Richard Pildes<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=7>

An opinion essay<https://www.wsj.com/articles/if-faith-in-democracy-ebbs-danger-rises-1530535737?mod=hp_lead_pos3> in today’s WSJ, titled If Faith in Democracy Ebbs, Danger Rises, by Gerald F. Seib, generally discusses the loss of trust across the political spectrum in the political process.  The piece includes these chilling lines, based on the study of focus groups from both sides of the partisan divide:  “A lot of them have now just shut out the whole system,” he adds. “No one talks about elections now. [They say] we have to take to the streets.”

Interestingly, when Seib turns to asking what might stop this spiral of distrust, his starting point is an end to partisan gerrymandering.  He views this not just as important for its own sake, but for what partisan gerrymandering represents more broadly about whether the political system is perceived as rigged or fair:

How to turn this around? For starters, the nation needs leaders who, rather than stoke grievances, show they are committed to making the political system fair and effective. They could start with a commitment to end the gerrymandering of congressional districts for purely partisan benefit, a sin of which both parties are guilty.

For a long stretch in the 1970s and 1980s, Democrats were the ones who benefited from districts unfairly constructed to benefit their candidates; that was a time when that party controlled more levers at the state level where new districts are drawn. Now the tables have turned. Perhaps both sides can agree that the gerrymandering process is corrosive for all.
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Posted in Uncategorized<http://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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