[EL] ELB News and Commentary 5/31/18

[Rick Hasen]

“Trump to appear at fundraiser for allied super PAC”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=99259>
Posted on May 30, 2018 8:52 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=99259> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Politico:<https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/29/trump-fundraiser-super-pac-611594>
President Donald Trump is plunging into the big-donor game, planning an appearance at a six-figure-a-head fundraiser benefiting his allied super PAC.

Trump is expected to address America First Action’s leadership summit, according to the super PAC’s president, Brian Walsh. The president is slated to speak on the second night of the two-day conference, to be held June 18-19 at Trump International Hotel in Washington.
Getting in won’t come cheap. Donors will need to pony up at least $100,000 to attend; VIP status will be at least $250,000.

While the president has lent his support to the group and appeared at benefit dinners for America First Action’s backers, he has yet to appear at a fundraiser for it. Under federal law, Trump can only ask for donations of up to $5,000 for any super PAC, though he can appear at the event.
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Posted in campaign finance<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, campaigns<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>


Partisan Gerrymandering of Judicial Election Districts Coming to North Carolina?<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=99257>
Posted on May 30, 2018 8:50 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=99257> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

This can’t be good.<http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/article212132559.html>

The way Mecklenburg County voters choose judges would change dramatically under a bill that passed the North Carolina Senate Wednesday and appears to be moving quickly through the General Assembly.

The county’s eight Superior Court judges, now elected from three districts, would run in eight under the bill. And the county’s 21 District judges, now elected countywide, also would be elected from those eight districts<https://dashboard.ncleg.net/CalendarItem/2017/S/0/2018-05-30/21020>….

The legislation is the latest in a string of actual and proposed changes to state courts by the Republican-controlled General Assembly.

Lawmakers have shrunk the state court of appeals, put party labels on judicial races, eliminated public financing for court elections and done away with this year’s judicial primaries. They’ve also talked about appointing rather than electing judges, redrawing districts across the state and shrinking judicial terms — now as long as eight years — to two.

One national analyst said nowhere in America were so many changes coming to courts in such a relatively short time.

Bishop and Tarte point to the disparity in size of Superior Court districts.
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Posted in judicial elections<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=19>


“ACLU challenges Nebraska’s high bar for independents to get on ballot”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=99255>
Posted on May 30, 2018 8:39 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=99255> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Lincoln Journal-Star reports.<http://journalstar.com/news/state-and-regional/govt-and-politics/aclu-challenges-nebraska-s-high-bar-for-independents-to-get/article_eacf256a-c10a-5fd7-8d71-db3b23ac967c.html>
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Posted in Uncategorized<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“Maine GOP must use ranked-choice voting in primary, judge rules”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=99253>
Posted on May 30, 2018 8:20 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=99253> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Bangor Daily News:<https://bangordailynews.com/2018/05/29/politics/maine-gop-must-use-ranked-choice-vote-in-primary-judge-rules/>

 A federal judge on Tuesday threw out the Maine Republican Party’s last-ditch bid to decide its primaries by a plurality of votes, ensuring that both parties will use ranked-choice voting<http://bangordailynews.com/topic/ranked-choice-voting/> in four different races in the June election.

The 20-page decision<https://drive.google.com/file/d/18lvv53DnLuYVlOwPd3GfmGIzFY9Q1dA4/view?usp%3Dsharing> from U.S. District Court Judge Jon D. Levy was the last legal hurdle that Maine’s voter-approved ranked-choice voting system had to clear before the June 12 primaries, where an open governor’s seat attracted seven Democratic candidates and four Republicans.

After a vote at their state convention in early May, Republicans sued Secretary of State Matt Dunlap<https://bangordailynews.com/2018/05/04/politics/maine-republicans-take-defiant-stand-against-ranked-choice-voting/> to prevent the method from use in their primaries, saying it infringed on the party’s association rights. But state attorneys representing Dunlap called the lawsuit disruptive.

Levy agreed with the state on Tuesday, saying that Maine’s reasons for regulating primaries “are rational and survive constitutional scrutiny” and that if he adhered to Republicans’ stance, the state would have to “permit each political party to dictate how its primary ballots will be constructed and counted.”
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Posted in alternative voting systems<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=63>


“SCOTUS Ends One Partisan Gerrymandering Battle; More Remain”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=99251>
Posted on May 30, 2018 8:18 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=99251> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Bloomberg reports.<https://biglawbusiness.com/scotus-ends-one-partisan-gerrymandering-battle-more-remain/>
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Posted in redistricting<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>, Supreme Court<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>


“Voter ID lawsuit: Civil rights group, ISU student to sue Iowa secretary of state”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=99249>
Posted on May 30, 2018 8:15 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=99249> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Des Moines Register:<https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/crime-and-courts/2018/05/30/iowa-voter-id-lawsuit-lulac-civil-rights-group-isu-student-sue-iowa-secretary-state-paul-pate/652649002/>

A civil rights organization and an Iowa State University student is suing Iowa’s secretary of state over a voter ID law they say infringes on Iowans’ ability to fairly cast a ballot.

The League of United Latin American Citizens of Iowa and ISU student Taylor Blair announced Wednesday morning that they are filing a lawsuit in Polk County District Court….

Pate released a statement defending the law against what he called a “baseless and politically motivated lawsuit,” which he alleged was “apparently timed to disrupt the June 5 primary elections.” He said the law has adequate safeguards to protect voters’ rights.

The plaintiffs also are seeking a preliminary injunction to block most provisions of the law from taking effect while the lawsuit is ongoing — potentially halting its enforcement during next week’s June 5 primary election….

In Facebook advertisements, the suit alleges Pate has said “Iowa voters will be asked to show a form of valid identification,” implying that such identification will be required to vote in 2018.

In fact, the law is in a “soft rollout” phase. Through the end of this year, eligible voters who do not have a valid form of ID will be asked to sign a form swearing to their identity. They can then cast a normal ballot.

And the plaintiffs accuse Pate of omitting some forms of identification allowed under the law, like an out of state driver’s license or an Iowa student identification presented with proof of address, on an FAQ page on the secretary of state’s website<https://sos.iowa.gov/elections/voterinformation/voterIDfaq.html>.

The information promoted by the secretary of state’s office will discourage voters who mistakenly believe they cannot vote this year unless they possess a valid form of identification, and add to poll-worker error that could disenfranchise voters, the suit argues.
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Posted in election administration<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>, The Voting Wars<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>


“What Starts in Texas Doesn’t Always Stay in Texas: Why Texas’s Systematic Elimination of Grassroots Voter Registration Drives Could Spread”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=99247>
Posted on May 30, 2018 1:17 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=99247> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

ACS Issue Brief<https://www.acslaw.org/whathappensintexas> by Mimi Marziani and Robert Landicho.
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Posted in voter registration<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=37>


“With election days away, California’s top political ethics cop abruptly quits”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=99245>
Posted on May 30, 2018 9:02 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=99245> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

SacBee:<http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article212123574.html>

The head of California’s campaign watchdog agency resigned her position on Tuesday.

Jodi Remke, who Gov. Jerry Brown appointed in 2014, stepped down as the chair of the Fair Political Practices Commission amid ongoing turmoil.

She often verbally sparred at public meetings with other commissioners, who were leading an effort to reduce her leadership role. The five-member commission was expected to vote next week to finalize a new power structure….

Wierenga said Remke accepted a new position as the presiding administrative law judge for appellate operations for the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board.
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Posted in election administration<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>, election law biz<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=51>


“An Empirical Bayesian Framework for Assessing Partisan Bias in Redistricting Plans”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=99242>
Posted on May 30, 2018 8:33 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=99242> by Nicholas Stephanopoulos<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=12>

An interesting new study<https://github.com/ColinMcAuliffe/UnburyTheLead/raw/master/ELJ/EmpiricalBayes/EmpiricalBayes.pdf> by Kevin Baas and Colin McAuliffe:

There are several legal and technical challenges to the establishment of a standard for limiting partisan gerrymandering, and a few methods have been proposed thus far. All methods for examining gerrymandering use observations of the results of one or more elections to make inferences about the tendency of a given redistricting plan to lead to biased outcomes. Here we propose an empirical Bayesian framework which allows an analyst to make such inferences accurately by using all available election results for the redistricting plan in question in a robust and consistent statistical model. The framework can be used with any gerrymandering metric.

Additionally, we propose a new measure of gerrymandering called the specific asymmetry which we believe will stand up better to judicial and technical tests than any other measure proposed thus far. The specific asymmetry does not rely on proportionality of seats and votes, is applicable to any level of statewide partisanship, does not require national results as a baseline, and measures bias at the popular vote that actually occurred as opposed to some other hypothetical popular vote. All other available metrics fall short in at least one of these aspects, which leaves them vulnerable to criticism and manipulation by those seeking to gerrymander or to defend an existing gerrymander.

We analyze the magnitude and persistence of partisan bias under a particular districting plan by using the empirical Bayesian model to compute the expected value of the specific asymmetry. This analysis technique is applied to the United States congressional elections from 1972-2016 to examine the total and net effects of partisan bias in recent history. We also examine the Act 43 map for the Wisconsin State Assembly, which is the subject of Whitford v. Gill.
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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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