[EL] ELB News and Commentary 3/21/18

Wed Mar 21 08:41:31 PDT 2018

“Elections Security Officials Head to Capitol Hill Amid Warnings of Russian Meddling”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98270>
Posted on March 21, 2018 8:39 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98270> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT:<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/21/us/politics/senate-intelligence-hearing-elections-security.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fpolitics&action=click&contentCollection=politics&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=3&pgtype=sectionfront>

A day after urging elections officials<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/20/us/politics/senate-intelligence-election-security-midterms.html> to shore up their systems ahead of the midterm voting, the Senate Intelligence Committee planned to call top federal and state elections security officials to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to explain how they are trying to protect ballots from being hacked.

It is already proving to be an exceedingly difficult challenge. America’s intelligence agencies are still grappling<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/27/us/politics/michael-rogers-nsa-cyber-command-russia-election-meddling.html> with how to neutralize Russian disinformation campaigns more than a year after concluding that Moscow sought to meddle in the 2016 presidential election. And federal and state officials are struggling to close obvious gaps in the country’s election infrastructure, such as requiring the use of voting machines that leave a trail of paper ballots and more secure logins to voting databases.

Such practical matters were the focus of a set of recommendations that the Senate committee released on Tuesday, and were to be a central subject at Wednesday’s hearing. The main witnesses scheduled to appear were Kirstjen Nielsen, the secretary of homeland security, and Jeh Johnson, who served in the post under President Barack Obama during the 2016 election.
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Posted in election administration<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>, The Voting Wars<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>

“Thousands Lose Right to Vote Under ‘Incompetence’ Laws”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98268>
Posted on March 21, 2018 8:37 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98268> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Stateline:<http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2018/03/21/thousands-lose-right-to-vote-under-incompetence-laws>

Laws in 39 states and Washington, D.C., allow judges to strip voting rights from people with mental disorders ranging from schizophrenia to Down syndrome who are deemed “incapacitated” or “incompetent.” Some of those states use archaic language like “idiots” or “insane persons” in their statutes.

The states that do not have similar restrictions are Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Vermont.

Not only is there no agreement among legal and psychological experts over whether certain people with disabilities should be disenfranchised, but there is also no set standard for measuring the mental capacity needed to vote. There is a tension between protecting the integrity of the electoral process and the civil rights of a person under guardianship, said Dan Marson, a professor emeritus at the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s department of neurology.

“What should we require as a minimal standard?” he said. “There is not a clear answer.”
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Posted in election administration<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>

“Controversy Swirls as Lawmakers Eye Campaign Finance Changes”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98265>
Posted on March 21, 2018 8:33 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98265> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Kate Ackley<https://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/controversy-swirls-lawmakers-eye-campaign-finance-changes> for Roll Call:

Lawmakers continue to debate major changes to political money regulations as part of a year-end spending package, despite opposition from numerous congressional Democrats and campaign finance watchdog groups.

Even with congressional primaries already underway, the proposals could play out in the November midterm elections if enacted, campaign finance experts on both sides of the debate say.

The two most contentious matters deal with loosening the spending limits on coordination between political parties and their candidates as well as a possible rollback of the longstanding Johnson Amendment, which prohibits churches and charities from endorsing political candidates.
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Posted in campaign finance<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>

“Dunlap offers unflattering account of Trump’s voter fraud commission”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98263>
Posted on March 21, 2018 8:31 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98263> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Ellsworth-American:<https://www.ellsworthamerican.com/maine-news/political-news/dunlap-offers-unflattering-account-of-trumps-voter-fraud-commission/>

The whole affair began when he received a call from Kobach asking if he’d join the commission. At first, he said, he had no intention to help. But friends and colleagues advised him that he could play a regulating role within the commission, helping to ensure it relied on sound research.

He eventually agreed. Early on, he ran into trouble. He’d promised a CNN reporter that he’d let her know if there were any developments with the commission. When he fulfilled that promise, calling to tell the reporter that an initial meeting date had been set, he then got a call from Vice President Mike Pence’s counsel.

“If I’m going to give you information and you’re going to call CNN, we’re going to have a problem,” the lawyer told him….

Only a few months later, multiple issues began to boil over. In October, a researcher working for the commission was arrested on a child pornography charge. Dunlap didn’t even know who he was and couldn’t get anyone on the commission to answer questions about what had happened.

Then, Dunlap began to feel he was being deliberately left out of discussions for future commission meetings. He got a Facebook message from a congressional staffer, who asked Dunlap to call a cell phone number. The staff member told him he should retain outside lawyers, assuring him that Washington, D.C., was “rooting for” him, but the White House was going to go after him.

The staff member put him in touch with a former Obama Department of Justice lawyer.

“That was the only time in this process where I got a little bit scared and thought, ‘What have I stepped into?’” Dunlap said.

He ultimately sued.

“What I got was, ‘I’ll see you in court,’” he said of the reply from the White House. “I’m like, ‘I’m asking for the schedule, man.’”
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Posted in fraudulent fraud squad<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>, The Voting Wars<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>

“Trump’s claims of voter fraud are on trial in Kansas and Kris Kobach is losing”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98261>
Posted on March 21, 2018 8:28 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98261> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Daniel Nachanian oped for NBC Think.<https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-s-claims-voter-fraud-are-trial-kansas-kris-kobach-ncna858266>
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Posted in fraudulent fraud squad<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>, The Voting Wars<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>

Watch Archived Video of My Conversation at UCI Law with Adam Winkler About Our Books, And the Supreme Court’s Past, Present, and Future<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98259>
Posted on March 21, 2018 8:26 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98259> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

This was loads of fun.<https://livestream.com/accounts/867536/events/8039313/videos/172035205>

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Posted in Scalia<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=123>, Supreme Court<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>

“U.S. companies are pressuring their workers on how to lobby and vote”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98257>
Posted on March 21, 2018 8:17 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98257> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Alexander Hertel-Fernandez for The Monkey Cage<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/03/21/u-s-companies-are-pressuring-er-educating-their-workers-on-how-to-lobby-and-vote/?utm_term=.1c8ab911e3da&wpmk=MK0000200>:

.S. businesses are cultivating a new political resource: their own workers. When Republicans wrote their tax bill late last year, many companies pushed<https://www.wsj.com/articles/businesses-push-workers-to-mobilize-before-tax-revamp-1509278403> their employees to support specific policy provisions and to let their lawmakers in Washington know. UPS, for instance, hosted<https://www.wsj.com/articles/companies-promote-corporate-tax-overhaul-1503441184>employee town halls with Republican politicians to advocate for the bill. Vice President  Pence even urged<https://www.c-span.org/video/?437316-7/wall-street-journal-ceo-council-vice-president-mike-pence> a group of CEOs to visit their companies’ cafeterias to get employees to help lobby for the bill.

Episodes like this one have become much more common across companies large and small in recent years. Why do businesses try to turn their employees into lobbyists? And does it work?…
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Posted in campaigns<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>

Foley: Originalism and Election Law (or, The Difference between Reynolds and Benisek)<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98255>
Posted on March 21, 2018 8:14 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98255> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

The following is the third in a series of guest posts on Benisek v. Lamone<http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/benisek-v-lamone/?wpmp_switcher=desktop> by Ohio State’s Ned Foley<http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/faculty/professor/edward-b-foley/>.

Edward B. Foley

Originalism and Election Law (or, The Difference between Reynolds and Benisek)

This blog essay is the third in a series derived from a contribution<https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3128936> to a University of Georgia Law Review symposium, building upon the first installment<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98187> and the second<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98219>.

Election Law as a distinct field of study was founded on decidedly “non-originalist” premises.  The seminal case, after Baker v. Carr set aside the “political question doctrine” as an obstacle to the judicial entry to this field, was Reynolds v. Sims.  Decided in 1964, during the heyday of Warren Court activism, Reynolds declared that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment required equally populated districts for a state’s legislative chamber.  The Warren Court made no effort to derive this “one-person, one-vote” requirement from the original meaning of the Equal Protection Clause.

Indeed, the Court obviously could not do so, since the Fourteenth Amendment (in its second section) explicitly acknowledged that states were entitled to deny equal voting rights to their citizens, the only consequence being that states would lose strength in their share of congressional seats nationwide to the extent that they denied voting rights to adult males 21 or older (except for reason of a felony or participation in the Civil War on the side of Confederacy).  Moreover, it was necessary to add the Fifteenth Amendment in order to protect the right to vote from race-based discrimination.  The Fifteenth Amendment, however, was mere surplusage if the Fourteenth already guaranteed each adult citizen an equal right to vote.  In his Reynolds dissent, Justice John Marshall Harlan (one of the jurisprudential giants in the Court’s history) excoriated the majority opinion for abandoning all pretense of fidelity to the Constitution’s actual language and original meaning.

Nor has academic defense of Reynolds endeavored to square its “one-person, one-vote” doctrine with the original meaning of the Equal Protection Clause.  On the contrary, the leading scholarly treatment of Reynolds is the one offered by the late (and great) John Hart Ely, who candidly justified Reynolds as a “non-interpretivist” (not merely “non-originalist”) exercise of judicial review warranted by the overarching objective of making American government more democratic in nature.  Dubbed a “representation-reinforcing” theory of judicial review, and invoking the famous Footnote Four of the old (and otherwise inconsequential) Carolene Products case, Ely argued that the Supreme Court could retain legitimacy for rulings untethered to specific constitutional clauses as long as those rulings enhanced democratic procedures (while protecting “discrete and insular minorities” from the pathologies of majoritarian tyranny) and scrupulously refrained from imposing substantive policy choices not expressly necessitated by constitutional text.

But Reynolds is over a half-century old, and the progressive activism of the Warren Court is long since over.  Nor has Ely’s theory, for all its elegance, fared well as an explanation of the Court’s animating philosophy during the Chief Justiceships of Warren Burger, William Rehnquist, and now John Roberts.  During the last several decades, under the energetic influence of Justice Antonin Scalia,<https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300228649/justice-contradictions> the Court has become increasingly originalist in its overall interpretative approach to previously unresolved constitutional questions.  And Ely’s idea that the Court could ever be justified in being altogether “non-interpretivist” in the exercise of its power of judicial review under Marbury v. Madison has become entirely untenable.  Thus, Reynolds sits uneasily in the canon of contemporary constitutional jurisprudence, a fact made evident when the Court was forced to reexamine the basic premises of the “one-person, one-vote” doctrine in the recent Evenwel case.  Was it equal number of voters, or residents, that was constitutionally required by Reynolds, or may a state choose whichever theory of electoral equality it prefers?  The answer remains unsettled, except that the Court rejected the claim that an equal number of voters is required if a state prefers to equalize population. (It also doesn’t help that Reynolds was the jurisprudential predicate for the Court’s controversial recount-terminating ruling in Bush v. Gore—a decision more easily justified on Due Process grounds<https://lawreview.uchicago.edu/publication/due-process-fair-play-and-excessive-partisanship-new-principle-judicial-review-election>, insofar as Florida improperly changed the rules for counting ballots after they had been cast.)

Continue reading →<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98255#more-98255>
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Posted in redistricting<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>, Supreme Court<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>

DNC Sells “I Will Vote” Shirt to Wear to the Polls: Would It Violate Minnesota’s Ordinance in Mansky Case Pending Before SCOTUS?<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98252>
Posted on March 21, 2018 8:09 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98252> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Would this count as illegal political apparel?

[http://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/Screen-Shot-2018-03-21-at-8.06.38-AM.png]<http://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/Screen-Shot-2018-03-21-at-8.06.38-AM.png>
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Posted in campaigns<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>

“McKinney set to defend controversial voting ordinance”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98250>
Posted on March 21, 2018 8:05 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98250> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Dallas Morning News:<https://www.dallasnews.com/news/mckinney/2018/03/20/mckinney-set-defend-controversial-voting-ordinance>

State law requires campaign workers stay 100 feet away from a polling location. But McKinney’s new ordinance — approved last October — creates designated areas beyond that 100-foot zone where people can post or pass out political information outside some polling places.

Grimes said the Council passed the ordinance after receiving complaints from residents following its local election last May, specifically taking issue with electioneering at the John and Judy Gay Public Library.
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Posted in Uncategorized<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

“Federal judge scolds Kobach for violating her trust at contempt hearing”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98248>
Posted on March 21, 2018 8:01 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98248> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

KC Star:<http://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article206025749.html>

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach could be facing a contempt order from a federal court after a judge on Tuesday tore into the Kansas Republican about repeatedly skirting her orders.

U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson chastised Kobach, a candidate for governor, at a contempt hearing for suggesting that her previous orders have left any room for ambiguity.

“I’ve had to police this over and over and over again,” Robinson said with frustration during the hearing in Kansas City, Kan….

She scolded Kobach for initially informing the voters covered by her order that they were registered only for the 2016 election and for failing to ensure that they receive the same postcard notifications about their registration as other voters.

“I made it clear they’re fully registered voters,” she said, pounding her desk with her hand.

Robinson told Kobach during a 2016 telephone conference<https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ksd.110435/gov.uscourts.ksd.110435.232.0.pdf> that she would hold him responsible for directing counties to send out these postcards. He promised to do his best and narrowly dodged a contempt hearing in 2016 because of this agreement.

“I honored and trusted what you told me, Mr. Kobach,” Robinson said Tuesday, reminding Kobach of his ethical obligation as an attorney to tell the truth.
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Posted in chicanery<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>, fraudulent fraud squad<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>

“10th Circuit Court rules against Utah Republican Party’s attempt to overturn signature-gathering election law”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98245>
Posted on March 21, 2018 7:54 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98245> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Salt Lake Tribune:<https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2018/03/20/10th-circuit-court-rules-against-utah-republican-partys-attempt-to-overturn-signature-gathering-election-law/>

The Utah Republican Party lost a big legal battle Tuesday in its attempt to overturn a 2014 Utah election law that allows candidates to qualify for the ballot through the caucus-convention system and/or by collecting signatures.

A panel of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver upheld the law, called SB54, in a 2-1 decision<https://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/opinions/16/16-4091.pdf>, saying “states must have flexibility to enact reasonable, common-sense regulations designed to provide order and legitimacy to the electoral process.”

Republicans had argued that the law interfered with the party’s constitutional right of association to select nominees as it chooses — and it preferred to use only the traditional caucus-convention system….

Chief Judge Timothy Tymkovich, in a scathing dissent, said the law “attempts to change the substance of the Republican Party under the guise of the state’s authority to regulate electoral procedure.”

He compared it to a California case where the state intentionally tried to reshape the party’s message and favor nominees with “moderate positions.”

Utah’s official reasons for imposing the hybrid nominating system “are vague and even impermissible,” Tymkovich wrote.

Describing SB54 as a “collateral attack on party rules,” he warned, “This case should caution us as to the perils of allowing states to impose procedural changes of this magnitude on unwilling political parties … by force of law.”
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Posted in Uncategorized<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

“FEC Wrong to Drop Nondisclosure Case, Judge Rules”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98243>
Posted on March 21, 2018 7:51 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98243> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Bloomberg BNA:<http://news.bna.com/mpdm/MPDMWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=130133555&vname=mpebulallissues&jd=000001624514dcf7a77ef597a7210002&split=0>
The Federal Election Commission should have pursued enforcement action against the American Action Network, a conservative nonprofit, for failing to disclose funding sources for millions of dollars in television ads supporting Republican congressional candidates, a federal judge ruled<https://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?2016cv2255-48> March 20.
The court case focused on ads run by AAN in the 2010 elections, when Republicans won the House majority. It could impact strategies for AAN and other nonprofits gearing up for advertising campaigns in the 2018 midterm elections.
“This is a very important decision that will make it much more difficult for front organizations to run political ads while avoiding registering with the FEC as political committees” and reporting their donors, said election law attorney Brett Kappel of the firm Akerman LLP.
The nonprofit Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), which filed the court case in 2016, said the decision would have a major impact on disclosure by “dark money groups,” because the FEC can no longer ignore the organizations’ spending on campaign-related ads disguised as “issue ads.” CREW Executive Director Noah Bookbinder said his group hoped to see “a major change in the way the FEC approaches investigations of nonprofit organizations engaged in politics.”
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Posted in campaign finance<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, federal election commission<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=24>
Sixth Circuit Rejects First Amendment Challenge to Ohio’s Single Subject Rule for Initiatives<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98241>
Posted on March 21, 2018 7:47 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98241> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Opinion.<http://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/18a0055p-06.pdf>
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Posted in direct democracy<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=62>

“Shouldn’t It Be Up to the Voters?”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98239>
Posted on March 20, 2018 3:01 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98239> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Jerry Goldfeder:<https://www.stroock.com/siteFiles/Publications/ShouldntItBe.pdf>

In short, the central question is whether voters should retain the choice of voting for a candidate with a checkered past, or even a “carpetbagger.” One of our nation’s illustrious founders, John Adams, when composing the Massachusetts constitution in 1780, started the trend of residency requirements, bucking the existing standard exemplified by New York’s 1777 constitution, which required only that gubernatorial candidates be “wise and discreet.” See J. Goldfeder, “A period of adjustment: Have residency requirements for governors overstayed their welcome?” Albany Times Union, Sept. 14, 2014. It was up to New York voters to decide if a candidate satisfied that standard. The voters of Lackawanna’s First Ward knew full well about Mohamed Albanna’s criminal past. They were familiar with the details of his wrongdoing, and knew he had been imprisoned. J.K. Radlich, “He did 5 years in federal prison, now wants 4 years on Lackawanna council,” The Buffalo News, June 7, 2017. Nevertheless, a majority voted for him to serve as their Councilman. Shouldn’t the voters’ choice outweigh imposed standards that restrict eligible candidates?
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Posted in Uncategorized<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

“Landmark Supreme Court case could make gerrymandering worse”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98237>
Posted on March 20, 2018 2:59 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98237> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Ian Millhiser for Think Progress<https://thinkprogress.org/supreme-court-gerrymandering-2b30e15f4b00/> on the Benisek case.
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Posted in Uncategorized<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

“Philadelphia-Area Political Consultant Charged in Superseding Indictment With Obstructing Investigation of Federal Election Commission”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98235>
Posted on March 20, 2018 2:54 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98235> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

DOJ Release:<https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/philadelphia-area-political-consultant-charged-superseding-indictment-obstructing>

A federal grand jury sitting in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania returned a superseding indictment today adding charges in a pending criminal case against a Philadelphia-area political consultant, announced Acting Assistant Attorney General John P. Cronan of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Louis D. Lappen for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

The original indictmenz, returned on Oct. 24, 2017, charged Kenneth Smukler, 57, of Villanova, Pennsylvania, with causing unlawful campaign contributions, causing the filing of false reports to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), and causing false statements to the Federal Election Commission in connection with a 2012 congressional campaign.  The superseding indictment charges Smukler with these same offenses, as well as making conduit contributions to a federal campaign committee and obstructing an FEC investigation in connection with the 2014 congressional campaign of a different candidate.

According to the indictment, Smukler made and caused to be made excess and conduit contributions and engaged in a falsification and obstruction scheme involving a candidate for the Democratic Party’s nomination for Member of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2014.  According to the indictment, the excess contributions came from associates of Smukler and were funneled through two of Smukler’s consulting companies.  The conduit contributions were routed through another political consultant and the candidate.
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Posted in campaign finance<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, chicanery<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>

“Pa. Republican state legislator moves to impeach four state Supreme Court justice”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98233>
Posted on March 20, 2018 2:53 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98233> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Philly Inquirer:<http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/state/pennsylvania-congressional-map-impeachment-supreme-court-justices-20180320.html?mobi=true>

One day after federal courts declined to block the new congressional map<http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/state/pennsylvania-congressional-map-federal-lawsuit-dismissed-gerrymandering-20180319.html> from taking effect, a Republican state representative introduced resolutions to impeach the four Democrats on Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court who ruled to impose the map in time for the May 15 primary.
Rep. Cris Dush, of Jefferson County, introduced the measures against Justices Christine Donohue, Kevin Dougherty, Debra Todd, and David Wecht.

The justices, along with fellow Democrat Max Baer, voted to strike down the old map of congressional districts, ruling they were unconstitutionally drawn <http://www.philly.com/philly/news/pa-supreme-court-strikes-down-congressional-map-as-unconstitutional-orders-change-before-may-primary-20180122.html> to favor Republicans. But a second vote by the four imposed a new map for the May 15 primary. Baer dissented on that second plank in the ruling; Republican Justices Sallie Updyke Mundy and Thomas Saylor dissented on both decisions.
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Posted in redistricting<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>

--
Rick Hasen
Chancellor's Professor of Law and Political Science
UC Irvine School of Law
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http://electionlawblog.org<http://electionlawblog.org/>

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