[EL] ELB News and Commentary 11/26/19

Mon Nov 25 20:46:57 PST 2019

Does anyone know what election system Hong Kong used.  Looked to be paper

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________________________________
From: Law-election <law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu> on behalf of Rick Hasen <rhasen at law.uci.edu>
Sent: Monday, November 25, 2019 10:41:29 PM
To: Election Law Listserv <law-election at uci.edu>
Subject: [EL] ELB News and Commentary 11/26/19

Senator John Kennedy Backs Away from Ridiculous Statement That Ukraine Not Russia Interfered in 2016 Elections<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108202>

Posted on November 25, 2019 8:37 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108202> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

CNN:<https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1199167338702086145?utm_source=CNN+Media%3A+Reliable+Sources&utm_campaign=c371eea1a8-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_09_11_04_47_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e95cdc16a9-c371eea1a8-82746257>

<https://twitter.com/CNN>

CNN<https://twitter.com/CNN>

✔@CNN<https://twitter.com/CNN>

<https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1199167338702086145>

"I was wrong," says GOP Sen. John Kennedy, backtracking after he repeated a debunked conspiracy theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 US election. "It was Russia who tried to hack the DNC computer. I’ve seen no indication that Ukraine tried to do it." http://cnn.it/34mQtJd <https://t.co/3N1KZi3r9A>

<https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1199167338702086145>

[Embedded video]<https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1199167338702086145>

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959<https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=1199167338702086145>

7:25 PM - Nov 25, 2019<https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1199167338702086145>

Twitter Ads info and privacy<https://support.twitter.com/articles/20175256>

<https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1199167338702086145>

566 people are talking about this<https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1199167338702086145>

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Posted in campaigns<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>, chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>

“Supreme Court Acts in Campaign Finance and Libel Cases”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108200>

Posted on November 25, 2019 8:30 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108200> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/politics/supreme-court-campaign-finance-libel.html> reports. My earlier coverage is here<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108184>.

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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, Supreme Court<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>

“Benson appoints new elections head to replace outgoing director”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108198>

Posted on November 25, 2019 8:10 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108198> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Detroit News:<https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2019/11/25/benson-appoints-new-elections-head-replace-outgoing-director/4297370002/>

Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson has elevated her legal policy director to become Michigan’s next elections director.

Jonathan Brater will replace Director Sally Williams when she retires at the end of the year, Benson said in a Monday statement.

He is also the former counsel the Brennan Center for Justice’s Democracy Program, a liberal group at New York University. At the Brennan Center, he focused on “modernizing elections in partnership with secretaries of state around the country,” Benson’s office said.

Brater, the department’s legal policy director, has worked alongside Williams since Benson, a Democrat, appointed him early this year. He is former executive editor of the University of Michigan’s Michigan Law Review.

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Posted in election law biz<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=51>

“Judge: Michigan GOP redistricting challenges unlikely to succeed”; 46-Page Opinion Available<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108194>

Posted on November 25, 2019 6:20 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108194> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Detroit News:<https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2019/11/25/judge-gop-michigan-redistricting-legal-challenges-unlikely-succeed/4303152002/>

Groups hoping to upend Michigan’s new redistricting commission faced a setback as a judge said they weren’t likely to succeed in arguing the commission violated their constitutional rights.

U.S. District Court Judge Janet Neff denied the Republican groups’ push for an immediate pause on the redistricting commission and countered their arguments that certain conditions for serving on the commission were unconstitutional.

Those conditions ban political party officials, lobbyists, consultants and their relatives from being on the commission that will begin drawing Michigan’s legislative district lines after the 2020 election.

“The eligibility provisions at issue do not impose severe burdens on plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights,” Neff wrote in her opinion released Monday. “There is no right to state office or appointment.”

This is no surprise (the only surprise is why the Republicans did not raise the stronger argument about the meaning of “Legislature.”)

You can find the district court’s 46-page opinion at this link.<https://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/daunt.pdf>

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Posted in redistricting<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>

“How Bernie’s Small Donors Are Making Credit Card Companies Rich”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108192>

Posted on November 25, 2019 12:58 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108192> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Politico:<https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2019/11/25/small-dollar-online-donors-politics-credit-card-processing-072949>

“It’s important that people realize that the more transactions they engage in, the more credit card companies are making money,” said Jonathan Zucker, the co-founder of Democracy Engine and former CEO of ActBlue, the nonprofit payment-processing behemoth catering to Democratic campaigns. “While it may only be a matter of cents, those pennies pile up.”

A Newsy analysis of Federal Election Commission data found that since the start of the 2008 election cycle, federal political campaigns have paid more than $220 million to credit card-processing companies including American Express, Bank of America and PayPal, among dozens of others.
Between the 2008 and 2016 election cycles, the amount nearly doubled, from $28.2 million to $51.5 million. The 2020 cycle is on pace to shatter that record: Through October, the 2020 campaigns spent more than $23.8 million in processing fees—more than a year before the election.

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

“Democrats sue over SC’s Social Security number requirement for voter registration”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108190>

Posted on November 25, 2019 12:51 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108190> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Post & Courier:<https://www.postandcourier.com/politics/democrats-sue-over-sc-s-social-security-number-requirement-for/article_eef51dae-0f22-11ea-9648-a3c9665f5c89.html>

The S.C. Democratic Party and two national Democratic campaign organizations filed a federal lawsuit Monday against the state Election Commission over a longstanding state law that requires prospective voters to submit their full Social Security number in order to register.
The groups argue the requirement has an unconstitutional chilling effect on potential voters who are concerned about sharing Social Security numbers, which is only mandated in four states nationwide. Most states only ask for the last four digits of voters’ Social Security numbers or other identifying information.

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

“Putin’s Revenge: The Foreign Threat to American Campaign Finance Law”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108188>

Posted on November 25, 2019 12:46 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108188> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Tony Gaughan has posted this draft<https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3485831> on SSRN (Howard Law Journal). Here is the abstract:

When Congress established federal contribution limits in 1974, it also instituted a complete ban on foreign campaign contributions. In adopting the post-Watergate reforms, Congress acted on the presumption that it could create a closed campaign finance system limited exclusively to Americans.

It was a reasonable conclusion to draw at the time. After all, the means of global communication in the mid-1970s were quite limited. There was no internet, no email, no cellphones, and no 24/7 news channels. Mail from Europe or Asia took a week to arrive and newspapers and magazines took even longer. Accordingly, as long as Congress prohibited Americans from accepting direct financial contributions from foreign sources, it could effectively limit campaign activity to Americans in the 1970s.

But as the 2016 election demonstrated, the days of a closed system of campaign finance — one in which campaign-related speech and expenditures come exclusively from American sources — are long over. The internet empowered the Russian government to intervene in the American presidential election on an unprecedented scale. Russian President Vladimir Putin directed his intelligence services to use computer hacking and social media to promote Donald Trump and undermine Hillary Clinton. The success of the Russian influence campaign demonstrated in stunning fashion the extent to which foreign governments can use the internet to shape public opinion in the United States.

The thesis of this article is that modern technology has created a global electronic village that empowers foreign actors to intervene in American elections like never before. In the internet age, the most significant form of foreign influence comes not in the shape of a direct cash payment to candidate campaigns, but rather in the form of less tangible but far more potent “in kind” contributions and expenditures. Computer hacking, political propaganda, staged photo opportunities, and the instantaneous global dissemination of opposition research and fake news offer foreign governments a way to advance their national interests by shaping public opinion in the United States during election campaigns. The upshot is our 1970s-era campaign finance laws have become woefully antiquated in the internet age.

The growing threat of foreign interference is compounded by the fact that legislative solutions are much more elusive than is commonly understood. Laws that purport to ban foreign influence on our elections will not stop governments from posting on the internet information that advances their strategic interests. The federal “ban” on foreign campaign activity thus promises more than Congress can actually deliver.

Accordingly, this article proposes a modest but significant reform to current law by focusing on one area where legislation can be effective: the regulation of communications between American candidates and foreign governments. Congress should require candidates to inform the Federal Election Commission of all foreign government contacts that their campaigns have within 48 hours of the communications. Such reports should be made immediately available to the public and posted on the FEC website. In addition, Congress should empower the FEC to alert the public to foreign efforts to influence American elections. Although we cannot prevent foreign governments from seeking to influence our election campaigns, we can ensure that the public is made aware of those efforts. In the internet age, a fully informed public is the best defense against foreign meddling.

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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>

Giuliani Being Investigated for Illegal Foreign Campaign Contributions and Illegal Conduit Contributions<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108186>

Posted on November 25, 2019 12:43 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108186> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Among other things, per WSJ<https://www.wsj.com/articles/federal-subpoenas-seek-information-on-giulianis-consulting-business-11574712722>:

The subpoenas offer the clearest indication yet that federal prosecutors are examining Mr. Giuliani’s consulting work. Among the entities named in the subpoenas are Giuliani Partners, a security-consulting firm founded by Mr. Giuliani in 2002 that had multiple foreign clients, including a city in Ukraine. The subpoenas also sought information on a company co-founded by Mr. Parnas that paid Mr. Giuliani for business and legal advice.

Mr. Giuliani said in an interview that he hadn’t been contacted by prosecutors and has denied wrongdoing.

Subpoenas described to The Wall Street Journal listed more than a half dozen potential charges under consideration: obstruction of justice, money laundering, conspiracy to defraud the United States, making false statements to the federal government, serving as an agent of a foreign government without registering with the Justice Department, donating funds from foreign nationals, making contributions in the name of another person or allowing someone else to use one’s name to make a contribution, along with mail fraud and wire fraud.

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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>

Breaking: Supreme Court, Ducking Major Confrontation Over Campaign Finance Limits for Now, Reverses 9th Circuit Ruling Upholding Alaska Campaign Contribution Limits<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108184>

Posted on November 25, 2019 7:00 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108184> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

I’ve been keeping my eye on Thompson v. Hebdon v. Hebdon for a long time. In this case, leading Supreme Court attorney Paul Clement filed a petition for the Supreme Court to take a case challenging Alaska’s campaign contribution limits as unconstitutionally low. As I explained last summer at The Atlantic<https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/campaign-finance-supreme-court/594751/>, the Court could have used the case to all into question all campaign contribution limits, including the current federal law that limits contributions to federal candidates to $2800.

This morning the Supreme Court in a per curiam (unsigned) opinion <https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/112519zor_8mj9.pdf> reversed the Ninth Circuit opinion upholding the limits, but did so in a way that avoided making a major change in the law. (In this way, the case is a victory for supporters of reasonable campaign finance regulation, even though it was a loss.)

The Court held that the Ninth Circuit erred in failing to apply the Supreme Court’s 2006 precedent, Randall v. Sorrell (and particularly Justice Breyer’s opinion for three Justices) to the case. The Ninth Circuit had failed to apply that precedent because no opinion for the Court commanded a majority. Today, the Supreme Court indicated that Justice Breyer’s opinion is the operable test, and remanded the case for reconsideration by the Ninth Circuit in light of Randall. In doing so, the Court avoided deciding, for example, that contribution limits should be judged under strict scrutiny.

This is not good news for supporters of the Alaska regulation, because along the way the Court gave reasons to suggest that under the Randall test, the limits were so low as to violate the First Amendment. Justice Ginsburg concurred separately, accepting the remand but saying that under the Randall test Alaska’s limits could still survive. This seems quite doubtful should the case make it back to the Supreme Court, and the Ninth Circuit is likely to get that message.

But as Justice Kagan (when she was solicitor general) explained at oral argument in the Citizens United case, there are better and worse ways for campaign finance reformers to lose at the current Supreme Court, which has not upheld a challenge to a campaign finance limit in a published opinion since Justice Alito replaced Justice O’Connor in 2006. And the way the state of Alaska lost today is the least bad way it could lose.

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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, Supreme Court<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>

--

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

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rhasen at law.uci.edu<mailto:rhasen at law.uci.edu>

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http://electionlawblog.org<http://electionlawblog.org/>

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