[EL] FW: Breaking Census Decision/ELB News and Commentary 1/15/19
Rick Hasen
hasenr at gmail.com
Tue Jan 15 07:16:49 PST 2019
From: Rick Hasen
Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2019 7:13 AM
To: Election Law Listserv <law-election at uci.edu>
Subject: Breaking Census Decision/ELB News and Commentary 1/15/19
B <https://electionlawblog.org/?p=103182> reaking: Federal District Court
Holds that Adding Census Question to Citizenship Violates Administrative
Procedure Act, But is Not Unconstitutional; May Moot Issues in SCOTUS Case
Posted on <https://electionlawblog.org/?p=103182> January 15, 2019 7:11 am
by <https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3> Rick Hasen
The Court's 277-page opinion is
<http://www.nysd.uscourts.gov/cases/show.php?db=special&id=678> here. Given
the court's findings of no unconstitutional purpose on the part of Secretary
Ross, it is not clear to me if this moots issues in the portion of this case
being argued next month at the Supreme Court.
But the holding under the Administrative Procedure Act is significant; I've
long said that this seemed to me to be a much stronger basis for attacking
the question than the constitutional question.
<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp
%3D103182&title=Breaking%3A%20Federal%20District%20Court%20Holds%20that%20Ad
ding%20Census%20Question%20to%20Citizenship%20Violates%20Administrative%20Pr
ocedure%20Act%2C%20But%20is%20Not%20Unconstitutional%3B%20M>
Posted in <https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1> Uncategorized
<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=103180> "With New Voting Laws, Democrats
Flex Newfound Power in New York"
Posted on <https://electionlawblog.org/?p=103180> January 15, 2019 7:06 am
by <https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3> Rick Hasen
<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/14/nyregion/democrat-ny-albany-control.html
> NYT:
After years of lagging behind other states, New York radically overhauled
its system of voting and elections on Monday, passing several bills that
would allow early voting, preregistration of minors, voting by mail and
sharp limits on the influence of money.
The bills, which were passed by the State Legislature on Monday evening,
bring New York in line with policies in other liberal bastions like
California and Washington, and they would quiet, at least for a day,
complaints about the state's antiquated approach to suffrage.
<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp
%3D103180&title=%E2%80%9CWith%20New%20Voting%20Laws%2C%20Democrats%20Flex%20
Newfound%20Power%20in%20New%20York%E2%80%9D>
Posted in <https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18> election administration
<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=103178> H.R. 1 and Public Financing
Posted on <https://electionlawblog.org/?p=103178> January 14, 2019 9:19 pm
by <https://electionlawblog.org/?author=12> Nicholas Stephanopoulos
I <https://electionlawblog.org/?p=103123> mentioned the other day that H.R.
1 would revolutionize American redistricting by requiring congressional maps
to be designed by independent commissions. The bill would spark equally
radical change in how congressional campaigns are financed, by creating two
separate public financing programs. The first of these, dubbed "small dollar
financing," would match private contributions up to $200 with six times more
public funds. A $200 donation to a candidate, for example, would trigger the
release of another $1200 to that candidate. To qualify for the program, a
candidate would first have to receive 1000 small dollar contributions or
$50,000 in such contributions. A qualifying candidate could be disbursed no
more than half of the average expenditures of the twenty winning House
candidates who spent the most money in the previous election.
H.R. 1's second public financing scheme, called "my voice vouchers," would
be a pilot program in three states for two elections. Every eligible voter
would be able to request a $25 voucher. The voter would then be able to
allocate portions of that voucher in $5 increments to congressional
candidates. At the conclusion of the trial period, the FEC would submit a
report to Congress evaluating the program's operation and effectiveness.
I think H.R. 1 is right not to mandate publicly financed vouchers
nationwide. Only one jurisdiction has adopted such vouchers-Seattle-and for
only one election to date. More information about how many voters use
vouchers, to whom they allocate the funds, and how candidates solicit
contributions, would plainly be helpful. I also think the vouchers should be
made substantially larger (say $100) and provided automatically to voters
(not upon request). Bigger vouchers would do a better job crowding out
private campaign funds-and with them the corruption and policy distortion
they produce. Opt-out rather than opt-in vouchers would serve the same goal:
making it more likely the vouchers would be used, and thus reducing
candidates' dependence on private financing.
While H.R. 1 seeks more data before imposing vouchers throughout the
country, it's ready to implement small dollar financing at once. But here
too, I think some caution would be advisable. Only a few jurisdictions have
experimented with multiple-match public financing (most notably, New York
City). Small donors may also be preferable as funding sources to very rich
individuals or corporations, but they're far from ideal. They're older,
whiter, wealthier, more ideologically extreme, and more male than the
electorate as a whole. They thus threaten to skew policy away from the views
of the median voter. And if H.R. 1 makes small dollar financing permanent
and nationally applicable, while vouchers are relegated to a pilot program,
then it's likely the former will become the default and the latter will end
up a mere curiosity. This might be the best approach-but it might not be. To
avoid prejudging the debate, H.R. 1 should limit the duration and geographic
scope of small dollar financing as well. Then both it and vouchers could be
assessed at the end of the trial period.
And while I'm on the subject of public financing pilot programs, let me
throw out one more idea: providing parties with large grants (say $25 per
eligible voter in a state, multiplied by a party's share of the presidential
vote in that state in the last election), which could then be spent directly
or distributed to congressional candidates. Giving parties access to public
funds on this scale would significantly increase their influence. To the
extent that parties are more responsible and moderate than other campaign
funders (like individual donors and corporations), this greater clout could
be salutary. Making parties the key actors would also solve the "Goldilocks"
problem of enabling publicly funded candidates to run viable campaigns
without wasting the government's money. Parties would have every incentive
to deploy their resources efficiently to win as many seats as possible.
The risk with a series of pilot programs, of course, is that after they have
run their course, the political will to make any of them permanent will have
disappeared. This concern certainly applies to H.R. 1; if it ever becomes
law, it will be in a reformist moment that is highly unlikely to endure for
a subsequent decade (the length of the bill's trial period for the
vouchers). A potential solution is for Congress to tie its hands in advance:
to commit to nationalizing whichever policy shows the most promise during
the experimental stage. The FEC could evaluate each pilot program along
criteria like ease of use, popularity, reduction in corruption, and
reduction in policy distortion. The policy with the strongest record could
then go into effect nationwide without any further congressional action. A
single reformist moment could thus be leveraged first to gain information
about different public financing options and then to adopt the best of them.
<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp
%3D103178&title=H.R.%201%20and%20Public%20Financing>
Posted in <https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1> Uncategorized
<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=103175> "Congress ignored its election
duties for years. That ends now"
Posted on <https://electionlawblog.org/?p=103175> January 14, 2019 2:25 pm
by <https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3> Rick Hasen
<http://www.rollcall.com/news/opinion/congress-ignored-election-duties-years
-ends-now> Matt Weil in Roll Call:
House Democrats have waited eight years to regain the speakership, and now
that they hold the gavel, they will clearly seek to move on pent-up
priorities. For their first act out of the gate, they rolled several into
one.
The "For the People Act" - or H.R. 1 - runs just over 500 pages and includes
proposals the Democrats have pursued during their time in the minority, such
as ethics reforms, campaign finance changes, and a well-publicized section
requiring presidential candidates to hand over their tax returns.
But the bill also lays out a vision for election administration in 2020 and
beyond, putting the voter at the center of the process instead of focusing
on what is easier for government. Congress taking the lead could cause some
heartburn at the state level.
<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp
%3D103175&title=%E2%80%9CCongress%20ignored%20its%20election%20duties%20for%
20years.%20That%20ends%20now%E2%80%9D>
Posted in <https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60> The Voting Wars
--
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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