[EL] ELB News and Commentary 10/4/18

Wed Oct 3 22:06:08 PDT 2018

“Outside Money Fuels Court Fight Amid Calls for Kyl Not to Vote”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=101379>
Posted on October 3, 2018 10:04 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=101379> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Roll Call<https://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/outside-money-fuels-court-fight-amid-calls-kyl-not-vote>:

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh denounced the “millions of dollars in money from outside left-wing opposition groups” during his testimony Thursday about sexual assault allegations, but he didn’t mention the millions spent by groups backing him.

The Judicial Crisis Network, the leading conservative nonprofit that is running advertisements in support of Kavanaugh’s confirmation, has spent about $12 million on the effort, according to sources familiar with the group — already more than the $10 million it spent in last year’s confirmation of Justice Neil Gorsuch.

The Judicial Crisis Network, as a 501(c) (4) tax-exempt social welfare organization, does not need to publicly disclose its donors. It does, however, report its federal lobbying, which last year included paying Sen. Jon Kyl<https://www.rollcall.com/members?27&utm_source=memberLink?utm_source=memberLink>, R-Ariz., who was a lobbyist at Covington & Burling until he returned to the chamber, replacing the late Sen. John McCain<https://www.rollcall.com/members?26&utm_source=memberLink?utm_source=memberLink> in September.
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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, Supreme Court<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>

“A plea to end all partisan gerrymandering challenges”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=101377>
Posted on October 3, 2018 4:33 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=101377> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Lyle Denniston:<https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/a-plea-to-end-all-partisan-gerrymandering-challenges?nocache>

Reopening a deeply divisive controversy that has troubled the Supreme Court for 32 years, four state legislators from North Carolina have urged the Justices to bar all constitutional challenges to partisan gerrymandering.

The decades-long search for a way to judge the constitutionality of election maps that give one party’s candidates a clear advantage at the polls has been “an exercise in futility,” the state lawmakers argued.  The time has come to end that search altogether, according to the appeal in the case of <https://www.supremecourt.gov/Search.aspx?FileName=/docket/docketfiles/html/public\18-422.html> Rucho v. Common Cause<https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/17-1295.html>.  The document has just become available publicly<https://www.supremecourt.gov/Search.aspx?FileName=/docket/docketfiles/html/public\18-422.html>.

If the Court were to do as asked, legislators with control of their chambers would have no limit on how far they could go to create for their party an enduring domination of seats in state legislatures and even in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The only realistic remedy would be for the people of a state to take the task of drawing new districts away from the legislature, or — ultimately — for the nation to amend the Constitution.
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Posted in redistricting<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>

“Ongoing Denial of Voting Rights in U.S. Territories Incompatible With Our Founding Values”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=101373>
Posted on October 3, 2018 4:12 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=101373> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

This post by <http://harvardcrcl.org/ongoing-denial-of-voting-rights-in-u-s-territories-incompatible-with-our-founding-values/> Geoffrey Wyatt and Neil Weare is online at the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review blog.

See also Pamela Colon’s post at Latino Rebels. <http://www.latinorebels.com/2018/10/03/usterritoriesvoting/>

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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

“The Good News from the Voting Wars”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=101371>
Posted on October 3, 2018 4:07 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=101371> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Miles Rapoport and Cecily Hines<http://prospect.org/article/good-news-voting-wars-0> for TAP.
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Posted in The Voting Wars<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>

“Election Security: The Fight to Secure the Vote”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=101369>
Posted on October 3, 2018 4:04 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=101369> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

William Roberts has this article<http://washingtonlawyer.dcbar.org/october2018/index.php#/14> in Washington Lawyer.
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Posted in election administration<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>, voting technology<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=40>

Michigan: “GOP pressure shaped state’s district maps, court records show”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=101367>
Posted on October 3, 2018 7:50 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=101367> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Detroit News:<https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2018/10/02/republican-pressure-shaped-michigan-district-maps-according-court-records/1444408002/>

Republican mapmakers who drew Michigan’s current political districts were pressured to appease lawmakers and made changes to help gain legislative approval, according to documents and depositions in a federal lawsuit.

The documents show mapmakers in 2011 gave top party officials the partisan vote history breakdowns of new districts, shared proposed maps with an interest group linked to the DeVos family, entertained suggestions from at least one GOP donor and faced backlash from incumbents vexed at how their districts were redrawn.
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Posted in redistricting<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>

--
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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