[EL] ELB News and Commentary 5/6/19

[Daniel Tokaji]

“Desperate drive to make the debate stage shakes Dem campaigns”
<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105029>
Posted on May 6, 2019 7:03 am <https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105029> by Dan
Tokaji <https://electionlawblog.org/?author=5>

Politico
<https://www.politico.com/story/2019/05/06/2020-democrats-debates-1302646>:

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand sank a ping-pong ball into a cup of water — a spin
on the drinking game, beer pong — and turned the moment into a digital ad
urging $1 donations to her presidential campaign. Washington Gov. Jay
Inslee is hawking bumper stickers for $1 donations and used his recent CNN
town hall to make a televised plea for more campaign contributions. Former
Rep. John Delaney promised to give $2 of his own money to charity for each
of the next 100,000 individual donors who gave to his campaign.

The unconventional, often gimmicky fundraising arms race is part of a
desperate scramble to make it past a new threshold set by the Democratic
National Committee, 65,000 individual donors, to the first primary debates
in June and July.

[image: Share]
<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D105029&title=%E2%80%9CDesperate%20drive%20to%20make%20the%20debate%20stage%20shakes%20Dem%20campaigns%E2%80%9D>
Posted in campaign finance <https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>
Lessig: “American democracy is broken. We must demand 2020 candidates
commit to a fix” <https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105027>
Posted on May 6, 2019 6:59 am <https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105027> by Dan
Tokaji <https://electionlawblog.org/?author=5>

In The Guardian
<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/05/american-democracy-is-broken-we-must-demand-2020-candidates-commit-to-a-fix>
:

[P]erhaps surprisingly, given that she is among the most successful
political fundraisers in America today, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has set the
only meaningful bar. HR1, the reform package that she passed in the House,
was extraordinary not just because of the incredible range of reform packed
into that single bill… It was also extraordinary because it recognized that
reform must happen first. “Fix democracy first” has become the slogan of
many in this movement. And the essential question that we should be asking
candidates now is not whether their campaign cash is pure, but whether
their commitment to fixing democracy is real.

[image: Share]
<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D105027&title=Lessig%3A%20%20%E2%80%9CAmerican%20democracy%20is%20broken.%20We%20must%20demand%202020%20candidates%20commit%20to%20a%20fix%E2%80%9D>
Posted in campaign finance <https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>
“How Americans — And Democratic Candidates — Feel About Letting Felons Vote”
<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105025>
Posted on May 6, 2019 6:54 am <https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105025> by Dan
Tokaji <https://electionlawblog.org/?author=5>

538
<https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-americans-and-democratic-candidates-feel-about-letting-felons-vote/>
:

In a March 2018 poll
<http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/tabsHPRestorationofvotingrights20180316.pdf>
for
HuffPost, YouGov found that 24 percent of U.S. adults supported restoring
felons’ voting rights while they are in prison and 58 percent opposed it,
including 41 percent who were “strongly” opposed….

But the public is more likely to support restoring the right to vote for
felons who have been released from prison, even if they are on probation or
parole — 38 percent of adults supported the idea in the HuffPost/YouGov
poll, while 44 percent were opposed….

[T]he easiest proposal to pass might be one that simply returns the ballot
to felons after they have completed all parts of their sentence, as a
plurality of states currently do…. [C]rucially, it is downright popular as
a policy: 63 percent of adults told HuffPost/YouGov that they supported
restoring the vote to felons who had completed their sentences. Just 20
percent were opposed.

[image: Share]
<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D105025&title=%E2%80%9CHow%20Americans%20%E2%80%94%20And%20Democratic%20Candidates%20%E2%80%94%20Feel%20About%20Letting%20Felons%20Vote%E2%80%9D>
Posted in felon voting <https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=66>
Stay Request in Michigan Redistricting Case
<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105023>
Posted on May 6, 2019 6:31 am <https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105023> by Dan
Tokaji <https://electionlawblog.org/?author=5>

Gongwer
<https://mitechnews.com/politics/republicans-request-emergency-stay-on-redistricting-ruling/>
:

Michigan Republicans have asked the three-judge panel that ruled last week
the Legislature must redraw maps for Michigan’s 14 U.S. House seats, the
Michigan Senate and the Michigan House for an emergency stay of the ruling.

The motion for an emergency stay and immediate consideration was filed
Friday by most of the state’s Republican members of Congress and several
Republicans in the Legislature who have intervened in the case.

As expected <https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104949>.
[image: Share]
<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D105023&title=Stay%20Request%20in%20Michigan%20Redistricting%20Case>
Posted in redistricting <https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>
“Have court rulings in Michigan and Ohio turned the tide on partisan
gerrymandering?” <https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105021>
Posted on May 6, 2019 6:26 am <https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105021> by Dan
Tokaji <https://electionlawblog.org/?author=5>

David Daley in Salon
<https://www.salon.com/2019/05/06/have-court-rulings-in-michigan-and-ohio-turned-the-tide-on-partisan-gerrymandering/>
:

Since November 2016, federal courts and state supreme courts nationwide,
exhausted by districts crafted with such surgical partisan intent that they
become impervious to shifts in the electorate, have also struck down entire
maps in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and North Carolina…. Courts have
additionally overturned individual districts in Maryland, Virginia and
Florida as either unconstitutional racial or partisan gerrymanders….

Regardless of how the U.S. Supreme Court rules later this spring, it will
take years, even a generation, to repair the damage to our civic fabric
from this decade’s cynical and corrosive festival of partisan
gerrymandering that has heightened and accelerated polarization, extremism
and our dysfunctional politics….

[image: Share]
<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D105021&title=%E2%80%9CHave%20court%20rulings%20in%20Michigan%20and%20Ohio%20turned%20the%20tide%20on%20partisan%20gerrymandering%3F%E2%80%9D>
Posted in redistricting <https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>
“California lawmakers again protect the loophole of unlimited political
cash” <https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105019>
Posted on May 6, 2019 6:20 am <https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105019> by Dan
Tokaji <https://electionlawblog.org/?author=5>

LA Times
<https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-road-map-california-ballot-measure-committees-legislature-20190505-story.html>,
on a state senate committee’s rejection of a bill that would limit
contributions to candidate-controlled ballot measure campaign committees.
[image: Share]
<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D105019&title=%E2%80%9CCalifornia%20lawmakers%20again%20protect%20the%20loophole%20of%20unlimited%20political%20cash%E2%80%9D>
Posted in campaign finance <https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>
“Debate over constitutional clause could delay Collins’ trial”
<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105017>
Posted on May 6, 2019 6:12 am <https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105017> by Dan
Tokaji <https://electionlawblog.org/?author=5>

Buffalo News reports
<https://buffalonews.com/2019/05/05/debate-over-constitutional-clause-could-delay-collins-trial/>
on
the Speech or Debate Clause issue in Rep. Chris Collins’s insider trading
trial.
[image: Share]
<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D105017&title=%E2%80%9CDebate%20over%20constitutional%20clause%20could%20delay%20Collins%E2%80%99%20trial%E2%80%9D>
Posted in Speech or Debate Clause <https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=36>

Daniel P. Tokaji
Associate Dean for Faculty | Ebersold Professor of Constitutional Law
The Ohio State University | Moritz College of Law
55 W. 12th Ave. | Columbus, OH 43210

614.292.6566 | tokaji.1 at osu.edu
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20190506/9499b519/attachment.html>