[EL] ELB News and Commentary 3/11/19

[Rick Hasen]

“Everyone involved in the 2016 hush-money payments says they were campaign-related — except Trump”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104103>
Posted on March 11, 2019 8:16 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104103> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Philip Bump<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/03/11/everyone-involved-hush-money-payments-says-they-were-campaign-related-except-trump/?utm_term=.88ae0e250016> for WaPo.
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Posted in campaigns<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>, chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>


American Law Institute: “Richard L. Hasen to Serve as Reporter on Restatement Third, Torts: Remedies”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104101>
Posted on March 11, 2019 8:12 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104101> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Release<https://www.ali.org/news/articles/richard-l-hasen-serve-reporter-restatement-third-torts-remedies/>:

Richard L. Hasen of UC Irvine School of Law has been added as a Reporter to one of ALI’s newest project, Restatement of the Law Third, Torts: Remedies<https://www.ali.org/news/articles/four-restatement-projects-launch/>. He will be joining Douglas Laycock of The University of Texas School of Law and UVA School of Law.

This project will address tort damages and other remedies. It will include issues related to identifying the types of recoverable damages, such as past and future lost wages, medical expenses, disfigurement, and pain and suffering, as well as measuring damages, including discounting future earnings to present value, the effect of taxes, and structured settlements.

Professor Hasen is a nationally recognized expert in election law and campaign finance regulation, writing as well in the areas of legislation and statutory interpretation, remedies, and torts. He is coauthor of leading casebooks in election law and remedies.
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Posted in Remedies<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=57>


“Deny, defy, disdain: Georgia election chief adopts familiar voting security strategy”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104099>
Posted on March 11, 2019 8:06 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104099> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Politico<https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/09/brad-raffensperger-georgia-election-1214370>:

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp is no longer the state’s chief election official — but his combative style in defending its insecure voting technology lives on.

Fellow Republican Brad Raffensperger, Kemp’s successor as secretary of state, has been pursuing the same approach to the job since taking over in January: Ignore election security experts and malign any advice coming from Washington.

Raffensperger and his staff are pushing ahead with a $150 million plan to switch the state to new voting machines that an array of experts warn would be susceptible to hacking. He’s dismissed critics of the devices — including the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine — as fringe figures. And his deputy recently scolded the tea party-aligned group FreedomWorks, which also opposes the machines, by saying its Georgia-born and -based top policy executive doesn’t understand how things work in the state.

For activists and security experts, Georgia’s rush to buy the machines reflects a disheartening consistency. Many critics of the state’s approach to election security had hoped for a fresh start after the past few years, when Georgia gained national attention for rebuking federal officials over cybersecurity concerns.

As secretary of state, Kemp consistently blasted<https://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/election-cyber-security-georgia-227475> the Obama administration for its approach to the issue and falsely alleged that first the Department of Homeland Security<https://www.ajc.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/malicious-intent-homeland-security-alleged-georgia-probing/66iZYiOt1U8sJtkkY8Yy1L/> and then the Georgia Democratic Party<https://www.ajc.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/how-brian-kemp-turned-warning-election-system-vulnerability-against-democrats/iLOkpHK3ea39t8Eh4PCGxM/> tried to hack his office.

Raffensperger’s Kemp-like posture has infuriated election security experts.


AJC<https://www.ajc.com/blog/politics/the-jolt-the-unspoken-costs-associated-with-new-voting-machines/datoNsXiEUeYpcA31xH8BI/>:

With Crossover Day hoopla past, look for Republicans in the state Capitol to accelerate passage of House Bill 316,<https://legislativenavigator.myajc.com/#bills/HB/316> the measure that would authorize $150 million for the purchase of a new touch-screen voting machine system.

The bill passed out of the Senate Ethics Committee on Wednesday,<https://www.ajc.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/bill-for-new-georgia-voting-machines-clears-senate-committee/au9H9ftivrRUSRS9BMZjWI/> and could quickly come up for a floor vote. Senate Republicans have two reasons for greasing the skids. First, there are the logistics associated with getting an entirely new system up and running in time for the 2020 election cycle.

But there’s another reason: Democrats as well as others who demand a system auditable by human eye-sight rather than machines are beginning to coalesce in opposition.
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Posted in chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>, election administration<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>, voting technology<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=40>


“It Doesn’t Matter If They Voted By Mistake. A Trump Appointee In North Carolina Doesn’t Care”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104097>
Posted on March 11, 2019 7:59 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104097> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Sam Levine for HuffPo:<https://www.huffpost.com/entry/robert-higdon-north-carolina-illegal-voting_n_5c82d221e4b0ed0a00136103>

Most of the cases receiving sentencing hearings, it appears, were misunderstandings and mistakes made by voters and poll workers. But in February, during a sentencing hearing for Juan Francisco Landeros-Mireles, a Mexican immigrant who has been a lawful permanent resident since 1990, Kielmanovich voiced another concern.

Kielmanovich said he was alarmed by a poll worker who appeared to ask Landeros-Mireles which party he intended to vote for in the 2016 presidential election, something poll workers are not supposed to do.
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Posted in chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>, election administration<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>


Attorney Who Negotiated with Michael Cohen Over Stormy Daniels Payments Said Payments “Done for Political Reasons”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104095>
Posted on March 11, 2019 7:56 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104095> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

ABC News interview<http://abcnews.go.com/US/hes-taking-washington-michael-cohen-furious-snub-stormy/story?id=61598443>:

Keith Davidson, the former attorney for adult-film star Stormy Daniels and Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal, detailed his role in negotiating hush-money deals<http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/feds-recommend-substantial-term-imprisonment-michael-cohen-trumps/story?id=59677788> to keep both women quiet about alleged affairs with Donald Trump<https://abcnews.go.com/alerts/donald-trump>, claiming a $130,000 payment to Daniels was “done for political reasons.”
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that's what makes it a crime, folks http://abcnews.go.com/US/hush-money-deals-alleged-trump-affairs-political-reasons/story?id=61598443 …<https://t.co/ErhVqDvxKH>
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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>


“Campaign Finance Group to 2020 Dems: Disavow and Shut Down All Super PACs”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104092>
Posted on March 10, 2019 7:43 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104092> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Daily Beast:<https://www.thedailybeast.com/campaign-finance-group-to-2020-dems-disavow-and-shut-down-all-super-pacs>

The fight over big money in the 2020 Democratic primary is reaching a new pitch on Friday with an open letter from advocates aimed at presidential candidates benefiting from a single-candidate Super PAC.
End Citizens United, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, and a coalition of other groups are set to release the letter which will call on candidates to disavow and shut down any such PACs, The Daily Beast has learned. While candidates are legally not permitted to coordinate with Super PACs, the concern with single-candidate Super PACs stems from the fact that they are often run by close political or personal allies, effectively becoming a campaign booster.

Thus far, the campaigns for Sen. Elizabeth Warren<https://www.thedailybeast.com/elizabeth-warren-swears-off-high-dollar-fundraisers> (D-MA), Sen. Kamala Harris<https://www.thedailybeast.com/kamala-harris-2020-launch-is-the-best-by-far> (D-CA) and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)  have all said they don’t want support from Super PACs. And unlike Booker—who has said he too doesn’t want that support—there are no Super PACs backing their candidacies. But Warren, in explaining that she would forgo both Super PACS and high-dollar fundraisers during the primary, notably left open the possibility that her stance could change in the general.

“By then we’ll be up against a Republican machine that will be hell-bent on keeping the White House,” she wrote in a Medium post. “They will have PACs and Super PACs and too many special interest groups to count, and we will do what is necessary to match them financially.”

The view from some experienced Democratic operatives is that Warren’s caveat is driven by practicality; that shunning any Super PAC in the general election would be a fool’s errand, effectively leaving the Democratic nominee a significant money disadvantage.

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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, campaigns<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>


“Trump’s massive reelection campaign has 2016 themes — and a 2020 infrastructure”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104090>
Posted on March 10, 2019 7:36 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104090> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WaPo<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-massive-reelection-campaign-has-2016-themes--and-a-2020-infrastructure/2019/03/10/5f44109c-4124-11e9-a0d3-1210e58a94cf_story.html?utm_term=.ea0ac531982e>:

President Trump and his advisers are launching a behemoth 2020 campaign operation combining his raw populist message from 2016 with a massive data-gathering and get-out-the-vote push aimed at dwarfing any previous presidential reelection effort, according to campaign advisers, White House aides, Republican officials and others briefed on the emerging strategy.
Trump’s advisers also believe the Democratic Party’s recent shift to the left on a host of issues, from the push for Medicare-for-all to a proposed Green New Deal, will help the president and other Republicans focus on a Trumpian message of strong economic growth, nationalist border restrictions and “America First” trade policies. Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan will become, in signs and rally chants, “Keep America Great!”
The president’s strategy, however, relies on a risky and relatively narrow path for victory, hinged on demonizing Trump’s eventual opponent and juicing turnout among his most avid supporters in Florida, Pennsylvania and the Upper Midwest — the same areas that won him the White House but where his popularity has waned since he was elected. Some advisers are particularly concerned about the president’s persistent unpopularity among female and suburban voters, and fear it will be difficult to replicate the outcome of 2016 without former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton as a foil.
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Posted in campaigns<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>


“How Tea Partiers Fueled Texas’ Latest ‘Voter Fraud’ Freakout”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104088>
Posted on March 10, 2019 7:31 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104088> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Interesting Texas Observer piece.<https://www.texasobserver.org/how-tea-partiers-fueled-texas-latest-voter-fraud-freakout/>
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Posted in The Voting Wars<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>


“Exaggerating Voting Issues May Juice A Base — But It Also ‘Undermines Our Democracy”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104086>
Posted on March 10, 2019 7:26 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104086> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Pam Fessler reports<https://www.npr.org/2019/03/10/701547133/exaggerating-voting-issues-may-juice-a-base-but-it-also-undermines-our-democracy> for NPR.
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Posted in The Voting Wars<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>


Shenkman’s Next California Voting Rights Act Challenge: City of Orange At-Large Elections<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104084>
Posted on March 10, 2019 7:23 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104084> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Voice of OC<https://voiceofoc.org/2019/03/orange-sued-for-allegedly-violating-state-election-law/>:

“The imposition of at-large elections by the City of Orange has resulted in vote dilution for the Latino residents and has denied them effective political participation in elections to the five-member Orange City Council,” reads the Feb. 13 court filing by attorney Kevin Shenkman.

Shenkman is representing the Southwest Voter Education Representation Project (SVREP), a nonprofit that tries to increase Latino and other minority political participation through voter registration, networking and promote upcoming elections. The SVREP has also sued multiple cities across the state over at-large elections, including Mission Viejo.

Latinos make up 39 percent of Orange’s population<https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=CF>, according to 2017 estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Orange city officials said they won’t comment on the case because it the suit hasn’t been served to the city yet.

“Them not commenting and using the complaint hasn’t been served yet as an excuse is nonsense. This is not something that pops up all of a sudden … we tried to get them to switch their election system nearly two years ago. So, they know what the issues are, they know this is coming, not a surprise,” Shenkman said.

The city was sent a letter April 2017 by Shenkman, warning the at-large voting could be disenfranchising Latino voters and violating California Voting Rights Act.
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Posted in Voting Rights Act<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=15>


“The lengthy legal fight over Utah election law is over as U.S. Supreme Court refuses to accept GOP appeal”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104082>
Posted on March 10, 2019 7:20 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104082> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Salt Lake Tribune<https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2019/03/04/long-legal-battles-over/>:

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ended five years of legal battles by the Utah Republican Party to quash a 2014 election law that allows candidates to qualify for the ballot by collecting signatures and/or through the caucus-convention system.

Justices refused to hear the party’s challenge of that law, called SB54, rejecting the party’s arguments that it unconstitutionally interferes with its right to choose how to select its own nominees.

I really expected the Court to bite on this one. This is a question the Court has not squarely faced.
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Posted in political parties<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=25>, primaries<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=32>


“California’s independent redistricting rules could offer some hope for Republicans”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104079>
Posted on March 10, 2019 5:15 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104079> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

John Myers<https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-road-map-california-republicans-redistricting-2020-rules-20190310-story.html> for the LAT:

California government auditors will begin accepting applications in June from citizens who would like to help redraw the state’s congressional and legislative maps, a task with enormous political consequences.

The once-a-decade redistricting process will also offer a rare chance for the dwindling ranks of Republicans to get equal billing with Democrats. When complete, the maps will offer the GOP its best — perhaps only — chance at launching an electoral comeback.

Not that independent redistricting was designed to favor any political group. It is instead meant to ensure districts aren’t divvied up by lawmakers in Sacramento in ways that make an election’s outcome a foregone conclusion.

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Posted in citizen commissions<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=7>, redistricting<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>


“The Massage Parlor Owner Peddling Access to Trump Has Ties to Chinese Government-Linked Groups”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104077>
Posted on March 10, 2019 3:15 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104077> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Mother Jones:<https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/03/the-massage-parlor-owner-peddling-access-to-trump-has-ties-to-chinese-government-linked-groups-cindy-yang/>

Li Yang, the Florida massage parlor entrepreneur who created and operated a business that sold<https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/03/a-florida-massage-parlor-owner-has-been-selling-chinese-execs-access-to-trump-at-mar-a-lago/> Chinese business executives access to President Donald Trump and his family at Mar-a-Lago, has yet another intriguing line of work. She is an officer of two groups with ties to China’s Communist government. And she founded a Miami-based nonprofit that promotes<http://search.sunbiz.org/Inquiry/CorporationSearch/ConvertTiffToPDF?storagePath=COR%5C2015%5C0813%5C10926991.tif&documentNumber=N15000007847> “economic and cultural exchange” between China and the West in coordination with “senior…Chinese leaders” in the United States, according to a profile <https://freewechat.com/a/MzAxMjYyODEwMQ==/2649461795/1> of Yang posted on a Chinese social media platform.

After Mother Jones on Saturday revealed that Yang, who goes by Cindy, had been peddling entrée to the Trump family, the Trump White House, and assorted GOP powerbrokers, national security experts noted that this situation could pose a threat, presenting opportunities for espionage or blackmail<https://www.thedailybeast.com/cindy-yang-affair-from-hand-jobs-to-grip-and-grins-with-donald-trump-should-not-obscure-the-huge-national-security-risks> targeting the president and his inner circle. They expressed concern the Yang’s efforts to broker interactions with Trump and his clan could be exploited by Chinese intelligence. “Guess who else has 100% known about this from the beginning?” tweeted<http://susan%20hennessey/> Susan Hennessey, a Brookings Institution fellow who previously worked as a National Security Agency lawyer. “Chinese intelligence services.” Samantha Vinograd, a CNN national security analyst who worked for the National Security Council during the Obama administration, noted:<https://twitter.com/sam_vinograd/status/1104414392425291777> “Our intel community has said China poses one of the most significant counterintelligence challenges—my money is on the Chinese Govt having at least picked up on [Yang’s] access if they didn’t direct it.”
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Posted in conflict of interest laws<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=20>


“How Congress Is Weaponizing a Series of Hot-Button Votes”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104075>
Posted on March 10, 2019 12:24 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104075> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Carl Hulse NYT column:<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/09/us/politics/congress-symbolic-votes.html>

 Members of Congress like to say that governing is not a game, but they are increasingly playing round after round of gotcha.

As a watershed election looms next year and little of real significance is happening on the legislative front, lawmakers are consumed with trying to trap one another with hot-button votes that don’t have much to do with real legislative business.

Whether such show votes really matter when it comes to actual voters is another issue entirely. It is hard to find a case in which an incumbent senator or representative was knocked off solely because of an ill-considered decision in a postmidnight vote-a-rama in the Senate or on a particularly devious motion to recommit in the House.
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Posted in legislation and legislatures<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=27>


“A Florida Massage Parlor Owner Has Been Selling Chinese Execs Access to Trump at Mar-a-Lago”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104073>
Posted on March 10, 2019 11:57 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104073> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Mother Jones<https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/03/a-florida-massage-parlor-owner-has-been-selling-chinese-execs-access-to-trump-at-mar-a-lago/>:

The latest Trump political donor to draw controversy is Li Yang, a 45-year-old Florida entrepreneur from China who founded a chain of spas and massage parlors that included the one where New England Patriots owner Bob Kraft was recently busted for soliciting prostitution. She made the news this week when the Miami Herald reported<https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article227186429.html> that last month she had attended a Super Bowl viewing party at Donald Trump’s West Palm Beach golf club and had snapped a selfie with the president during the event. Though Yang no longer owns the spa Kraft allegedly visited, the newspaper noted that other massage parlors her family runs have “gained a reputation for offering sexual services.” (She told the newspaper she has never violated the law.) Beyond this sordid tale, there is another angle to the strange story of Yang: She runs an investment business that has offered to sell Chinese clients access to Trump and his family. And a website for the business—which includes numerous photos of Yang and her purported clients hobnobbing at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s private club in Palm Beach—suggests she had some success in doing so.

Yang, who goes by Cindy, and her husband, Zubin Gong, started GY US Investments LLC in 2017. The company describes itself on its website, which is mostly in Chinese, as an “international business consulting firm that provides public relations services to assist businesses in America to establish and expand their brand image in the modern Chinese marketplace.” But the firm notes that its services also address clients looking to make high-level connections in the United States. On a page displaying a photo of Mar-a-Lago, Yang’s company says its “activities for clients” have included providing them “the opportunity to interact with the president, the [American] Minister of Commerce and other political figures.” The company boasts it has “arranged taking photos with the President” and suggests it can set up a “White House and Capitol Hill Dinner.” (The same day the Herald story about Yang broke, the website<https://gyusinvest.com/> stopped functioning.)
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Posted in conflict of interest laws<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=20>


“A mysterious payment to Paul Manafort’s lawyer reveals a hidden chapter of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104071>
Posted on March 10, 2019 11:23 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104071> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

A lot going on<https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/10/paul-manafort-lawyer-mysterious-payment-hidden-chapter-of-trump-2016-campaign.html> in this CNBC story by Christina Wilkie.
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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, campaigns<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>, chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>


“Disinformation in the 2018 U.S. Midterm Elections: Identifying Misattributed Photos and Visual Propaganda against the October 2018 Migrant Caravan”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104069>
Posted on March 10, 2019 11:11 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104069> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

This post<https://thefreeinternetproject.org/blog/disinformation-2018-us-midterm-elections-identifying-misattributed-photos-and-visual-propaganda> appears at the Free Internet Project.

Don’t miss the Ginni Thomas cameo.
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Posted in campaigns<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>, chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>, social media and social protests<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=58>


Thanks to Dan Tokaji and Justin Levitt<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104067>
Posted on March 10, 2019 11:07 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104067> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Thanks to Dan and Justin for guest blogging while I was on my spring break week. I finished the first draft of a major writing project (more on that at a later date) and had some other things to deal with. As much as I love this blog, it is a ton of work so it was good to have a short hiatus to focus on other things.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“Reexamination of an all-in-one voting machine”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104065>
Posted on March 10, 2019 11:05 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104065> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Andrew Appel<https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2019/03/08/reexamination-of-an-all-in-one-voting-machine/> at Freedom to Tinker.
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Posted in voting technology<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=40>

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