[EL] ELB News and Commentary 4/9/19

Tue Apr 9 07:04:05 PDT 2019

“Devin Nunes Sues McClatchy Newspaper Chain, Alleging ‘Character Assassination’”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104606>
Posted on April 9, 2019 7:02 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104606> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/09/us/politics/devin-nunes-fresno-bee-lawsuit.html>:

Less than a month after suing Twitter for allowing its users to insult him<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/19/us/politics/devin-nunes-twitter-lawsuit.html?module=inline>, Representative Devin Nunes, a Republican from California, said he was suing the McClatchy Company, a newspaper chain, over what he called “character assassination.”

The defamation lawsuit seeks $150 million and the deletion of an article in The Fresno Bee<https://www.fresnobee.com/news/business/article210912434.html>, a McClatchy newspaper, about Alpha Omega Winery, a company that Mr. Nunes partially owns. The article, published last May, described a lawsuit by a server who was aboard a San Francisco Bay cruise in 2015 attended by some of the winery’s top investors, which she said included drugs and prostitution.

The article said it was “unclear” whether Mr. Nunes “was aware of the lawsuit or was affiliated with the fund-raiser” at which the cruise was auctioned.

The lawsuit filed by Mr. Nunes, a loyal ally of President Trump and former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, says he was not involved in the incident on the yacht and that he considers the article part of a politically motivated scheme to “destroy his reputation” and derail the committee’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
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Posted in campaigns<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>

Douglas: Vote for US – The People<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104599>
Posted on April 9, 2019 6:51 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104599> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

The following is the first of three guest posts by University of Kentucky Law Professor Josh Douglas <http://law.uky.edu/directory/joshua-a-douglas> about his new book, Vote for US: How to Take Back Our Elections and Change the Future of Voting:<https://www.amazon.com/Vote-US-Elections-Change-Future/dp/1633885100/>

Thanks to Rick for allowing me to guest blog this week about my new book, out today, on positive voting rights reforms.

The book is called Vote for US: How to Take Back Our Elections and Change the Future of Voting<https://www.amazon.com/Vote-US-Elections-Change-Future/dp/1633885100/>. It tells some truly inspiring stories of everyday Americans who are working in communities all over the country to fix our election system. In the process, the book advocates for various reforms to our democracy that are already seeing success in numerous local and state elections. And it highlights lot of amazing organizations that are taking on these efforts.

Today I’ll focus on a few of the people I profile in the book – the Democracy Champions in communities all over who are at the forefront of improvements to state and local democracy.

Some of these people are election officials or regular policy advocates – readers of this blog who many of you know well. But more exciting, I think, are the people I interviewed who are doing this work quietly, during nights and weekends, and without much fanfare.

For example, I open the book with the story of West Powell of Covington, Kentucky. West was 18 years old when he stole a car radio from an auto salvage yard. He was convicted of a felony, served his time, and lost his right to vote for life. Over twenty-five years later, the Kentucky legislature was considering a bill to allow some low-level felons to seek an expungement of their records. West went to testify, telling his story about how he had cleaned up his life, married, became a father to five kids, and opened his own computer repair shop.

Republican Whitney Westerfield listened to West Powell’s testimony. Westerfield was initially opposed to the felony expungement bill and told me that he thought nothing would change his mind. But something about West’s story altered his views. He immediately became a champion for the expungement bill, which eventually passed with bipartisan support.

West Powell regained his right to vote and now never misses an election.

There are tons of individual Democracy Champions just like West Powell who are working in their local communities to improve the election process, making it more inclusive and convenient. Joshua Cardenas of San Francisco, then 16 years old, advocated to lower the voting age to 16 for local elections, which came very close to passing in 2016 and likely will win enough support in the near future. Scott Doyle, a baseball loving Republican county clerk in Larimer County, Colorado, found a way to make the voting process more convenient through countywide Vote Centers. Alison Smith of Maine became a public champion for public financing. Jenifer Hitchcock, a social studies teacher in Virginia, has crafted innovative ways to engage her students in civics education.

Ultimately, this is a book of stories about inspiring Americans who are working to promote positive changes to our democracy. Fighting voter suppression is important, of course, but it can’t be the only strategy to fix our electoral system. We also must promote positive voting rights reforms. That’s what the Democracy Champions I profile in the book are all about.

Tomorrow I’ll highlight in some more detail the reforms that these inspiring individuals are championing.

By the way, I’ll be speaking about the book all over the country this spring and summer. I hope to see ELB readers at these events<https://joshuaadouglas.com/book-tour/>!
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Posted in voting<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=31>

“Stacey Abrams gives a graduate school class on voter suppression”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104597>
Posted on April 8, 2019 8:31 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104597> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Jennifer Rubin WaPo column<https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/04/08/stacey-abrams-gives-graduate-school-class-voter-suppression/?utm_term=.ef13ba655e3d>.
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Posted in The Voting Wars<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>

“Deal reached on lawsuit over Mich. ballot selfie ban”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104595>
Posted on April 8, 2019 8:29 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104595> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Detroit News:<https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2019/04/08/deal-reached-lawsuit-mich-ballot-selfie-ban/39317179/>

Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson has agreed to settle a lawsuit over a ban on so-called ballot selfies.
Joel Crookston, a voter in the Kalamazoo area, sued in 2016 to try to stop Michigan’s ban on taking photos of marked ballots or publicly exposing them.
Lawyers won’t talk about the deal until details are filed in federal court on May 8. But a court filing last week suggests there will be an easing of the ban. The state said it wanted to avoid “any confusion” in polling places and wait until after local elections are held on May 7.
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Posted in campaigns<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>

“The Danger of the National Popular Vote Compact”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104593>
Posted on April 8, 2019 11:18 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104593> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Norman Williams has this post<https://blog.harvardlawreview.org/the-danger-of-the-national-popular-vote-compact/> at the Harvard Law Review blog.
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Posted in electoral college<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=44>

--
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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