[EL] ELB News and Commentary 9/3/19

Mon Sep 2 19:51:23 PDT 2019

“The 2020 electoral map could be the smallest in years. Here’s why.”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107167>
Posted on September 2, 2019 7:47 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107167> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Dan Balz’s analysis.<https://beta.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-2020-electoral-map-could-be-the-smallest-in-years-heres-why/2019/08/31/61d4bc9a-c9a9-11e9-a1fe-ca46e8d573c0_story.html>
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

“Congressional Democrats plan to launch inquiry into Trump’s alleged role in scheme to silence affair accusations”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107165>
Posted on September 2, 2019 4:47 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107165> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WaPo<https://beta.washingtonpost.com/politics/congressional-democrats-plan-to-launch-inquiry-into-trumps-alleged-role-in-scheme-to-silence-affair-accusations/2019/09/02/d5075548-c9ad-11e9-8067-196d9f17af68_story.html>:

House Democrats plan to make President Trump’s alleged involvement in a 2016 scheme to silencetwo women who claimed they had affairs with him a major investigative focus this fall, picking up where federal prosecutors left off in a case <https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/07/18/trumps-denial-knowing-about-stormy-daniels-payment-suffers-fatal-blow/?tid=lk_inline_manual_1> legal experts say could have led to additional indictments.

The House Judiciary Committee is preparing to hold hearings and call witnesses involved in hush-money payments to ex-Playboy model Karen McDougal and adult-film star Stormy Daniels<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/03/11/everyone-involved-hush-money-payments-says-they-were-campaign-related-except-trump/?tid=lk_inline_manual_2> as soon as October, according to people familiar with the plans who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions.

Democrats say they believe there is already enough evidence to name Trump as a co-conspirator in the episode that resulted in his former attorney, Michael Cohen, pleading guilty to two campaign-finance charges.
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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>

“The Influence of Technology on Presidential Primary Campaigns”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107163>
Posted on September 2, 2019 2:36 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107163> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Tony Gaughan has posted this draft<https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3443086> on SSRN (forthcoming in  Eugene Mazo and Michael Dimino (eds.), The Best Candidate: Presidential Nomination in Polarized Times (2020)). Here is the abstract:

There is no doubt that the American people object to the high cost of election campaigns. For example, a 2018 Pew poll found that 77 percent of Americans would support laws to restrict the total amount of campaign spending. Support for spending caps crosses partisan lines. The idea of legal restraints on campaign spending receives the support of 85 percent of Democrats and 71 percent of Republicans.

Many blame the high cost of American elections on the Supreme Court’s decisions in Buckley v. Valeo and Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which deregulated aspects of federal campaign finance law. Ultimately, however, the origins of skyrocketing campaign costs long predate Buckley and Citizens United. More than any other single factor, innovations in communication technology have shaped presidential campaign spending since 1912. First radio, then television, and more recently the internet emerged as indispensable means of political communication. But the technological innovations have come with a high price for candidates and campaigns, driving costs relentlessly higher.

This chapter examines how technology has shaped the presidential nomination process, making the pursuit of the White House an ever more expensive proposition. This work is a chapter in a forthcoming 2020 book entitled The Best Candidate: Presidential Nomination in Polarized Times.
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Posted in campaigns<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>

“As FEC Nears Shutdown, Priorities Such As Stopping Election Interference On Hold”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107161>
Posted on September 1, 2019 1:23 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107161> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NPR reports.<https://www.npr.org/2019/08/30/755523088/as-fec-nears-shutdown-priorities-such-as-stopping-election-interference-on-hold>
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Posted in federal election commission<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=24>

“Preparing for a Disputed Presidential Election: An Exercise in Election Risk Assessment and Management”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107159>
Posted on August 31, 2019 7:23 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107159> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Ned Foley has posted this very important draft<https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3446021> on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

Congress could face a disputed presidential election triggered, not necessarily by foreign interference, but by the ballots counted after Election Night that cause the initial apparent winner to fall behind. If Congress receives conflicting submissions of electoral votes from the same state, the existing statutory and constitutional provisions for handling this conflict are ambiguous and vulnerable to partisan posturing. Bicameral deadlock, in which the Senate claims one presidential winner while the House claims the other, would resemble the disputed Hayes-Tilden election of 1876 in a way that Bush v. Gore in 2000 did not. This kind of bicameral deadlock, if it lasted until noon on January 20, 2021, would cause serious difficulties in the capacity of the nation to transition from one presidential term to the next pursuant to the rule of law. It is in the nation’s best interest to confront this vulnerability now, in order to be in the best possible position to handle this kind of situation if it should arise.

Ned tells me this is still very much a draft in progress and that he welcomes comments.
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Posted in electoral college<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=44>

Ohio Democrats File New Lawsuit Against Voter Purges<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107154>
Posted on August 30, 2019 2:15 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107154> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Fresh off a settlement<https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/ohio-voter-purge-settlement> involving Ohio’s voter purge process comes a new lawsuit<https://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/Purge-Complaint-FINAL.pdf> and request for TRO<https://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/TRO-Memo-Final.pdf> from the Ohio Democratic Party.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

“DNC recommends scrapping Iowa’s virtual caucuses, Iowa Democratic Party chair insists Iowa will still be first”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107151>
Posted on August 30, 2019 2:08 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107151> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Des Moines Register:<https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2019/08/30/iowa-caucus-dnc-reject-virtual-plan-cyber-security-threat-2020-president-election-nevada-democratic/2163632001/>

Democratic National Committee officials said Friday they will recommend scrapping Iowa’s plan to hold virtual caucuses in 2020, citing substantial security threats.

“We concur with the advice of the DNC’s security experts that there is no tele-caucus system available that meets our standard of security and reliability given the scale needed for the Iowa and Nevada caucuses and the current cyber-security climate,” DNC Chair Tom Perez and Rules and By-Laws Committee Co-Chairs Lorraine Miller and Jim Roosevelt said in a joint statement. “For these reasons, we are recommending to the committee that virtual caucus systems not be used in the Iowa and Nevada 2020 caucus processes, and unless compliance can be met through other means, that the committee consider a waiver.”

In a news release, the DNC cited <https://democrats.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/08/DNC-Technology-and-Cybersecurity-Recommendation-regarding-Iowa-and-Nevada-Delegate-Selection-Plans-.pdf> a July report of the Senate Intelligence Committee <https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/read-the-senate-intelligence-committee-s-report-russian-efforts-against-election-infrastructure-volume-one/ff61b4d1-930b-486b-a728-586ce8ad0c45/> which outlined Russian interference in U.S. elections.

Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Troy Price told reporters that while he didn’t know the path forward he was confident Iowa’s first-in-the-nation place will not be shaken.

“Iowa will be a caucus. And Iowa will be first,” Price said multiple times when he met with the media Friday afternoon.

But Price gave no timeline for how the party will proceed with allowing people who cannot attend in-person caucus locations to cast their preferences next year or a timeline on a solution.
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Posted in election administration<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>, primaries<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=32>

“Democrats cry foul as GOP group solicits voters at Texas driver’s license offices”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107148>
Posted on August 30, 2019 2:06 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107148> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Houston Chronicle<https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/politics/texas/article/Democrats-cry-foul-as-GOP-group-solicits-voters-14381959.php?t=6f74c40fdb>:

As people filed in and out of the massive driver license office in Southwest Houston on Tuesday morning, two workers at a tent affiliated with a conservative advocacy group asked if the passersby would sign a petition or register to vote.
A follow-up question as two women filled out the forms: Are you conservative or liberal?
“Conservative means you believe in less government and less taxes,” one of the workers – wearing a lime green T-shirt with the group’s name, Engage Texas — asked them. “Liberal means you believe in more government and more taxes.”
State Rep. Chris Turner, who leads the Democratic Caucus in the Texas House, said he witnessed something similar Monday outside Department of Public Safety driver license offices in Fort Worth and in Hurst, a suburb of Dallas, where people who signed a petition to ‘ban late-term abortion’ were asked to register to vote.

“The taxpayers of Texas have a right to expect that their hard-earned dollars are not subsidizing political activity, as is the case here,” Turner wrote Tuesday in a letter to DPS. “And Texans who are trying to renew their driver licenses, already forced to wait hours – sometimes outside in the heat – are enduring enough already without having to deal with political operatives while stuck in line.”

But DPS said in a statement that public spaces outside driver license offices are available for “political speech,” and it appears that Engage Texas is just beginning to ramp up its efforts to register voters ahead of the 2020 elections in which the GOP faces more competitive races than it has in over a decade.

Engage Texas, a super PAC backed by many of the state’s top Republican contributors, has already accumulated nearly $10 million<https://www.texastribune.org/2019/07/31/engage-texas-raises-nearly-10-million-register-new-republican-voters/> since it was created about a month ago with the goal of registering more Texans to vote. The group’s executive director Chris Young was the former national field director for the Republican National Convention in 2016.

Rather than complain, Democrats should be setting up their own tables.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

“Advocates push Census Bureau to prepare for security breaches, disinformation ahead of 2020 count”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107146>
Posted on August 30, 2019 1:59 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107146> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

San Antonio Express-News<https://www.expressnews.com/news/politics/texas_legislature/article/Advocates-push-Census-Bureau-to-prepare-for-14390519.php?t=e86520a96c>:

As the first U.S. census to be conducted mainly online gets underway in the coming months, warnings from the Government Accountability Office about “substantial cybersecurity challenges” and disinformation campaignsraise concerns about how such a massive operation – collecting the names, addresses and birth dates of more than 300 million people – could be undermined by malicious actors on social media.
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Posted in census litigation<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=125>

“Florida Supreme Court Set To Clarify Voting Rights For Felons”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107144>
Posted on August 30, 2019 1:56 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107144> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

AP<https://miami.cbslocal.com/2019/08/29/florida-supreme-court-set-to-clarify-voting-rights-for-felons/>:

Florida’s high court waded into the legal wrangling over the voting rights of felons, agreeing Thursday to examine whether the state can continue restricting voting privileges to felons who have unpaid fines and fees.
Voters last year overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment restoring voting rights to as many as 1.4 million felons who have completed their sentences.

But the Republican-controlled Legislature then stipulated that to complete sentences, felons must pay all fines and fees before getting their voting rights restored. DeSantis signed the bill into law.

Voting rights groups immediately sued in federal court and likened the requirement to an illegal poll tax.

Gov. Ron DeSantis then asked the state Supreme Court for an advisory on the issue, which the court has agreed to consider….To be clear, the governor’s request does not ask the state’s justices to determine the constitutionality of the legislatively enacted law. Instead, the governor is asking the court to make a determination as to the meaning of a key phrase in the voter-approved measure known as Amendment 4.
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Posted in felon voting<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=66>

Moderating Event on Supreme Court’s Upcoming Term at the Hammer Museum Sept. 19<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107142>
Posted on August 30, 2019 8:28 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107142> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Looking forward to this:<https://hammer.ucla.edu/programs-events/2019/09/supreme-court-preview/>

HAMMER FORUM
Supreme Court Preview
THURSDAY SEP 19, 2019 7:30PM
The Supreme Court’s new term begins Monday, October 7 and promises to be a momentous one.  Not only does the term overlap with a presidential election year, the court is also expected to review the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, a New York City gun control law, and cases involving workplace rights of LGBTQ employees. Abortion cases and voting rights may also be on the docket. Loyola Law School professor Kimberly West-Faulcon, Pepperdine law professor Derek T. Muller, and UCLA law professor Jennifer Chacon join moderator Rick Hasen, UC Irvine political science and law professor, to preview the potential cases.

ATTENDING THIS PROGRAM?
Ticketing: Free tickets are required and available at the Box Office one hour before the program. One ticket per person; first come, first served.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

“Andrew Yang’s speaking fees, including from JPMorgan, raise campaign finance questions: Experts”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107140>
Posted on August 30, 2019 8:24 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107140> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

ABC News reports.<https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/andrew-yangs-speaking-fees-including-jpmorgan-raise-campaign/story?id=65216883>
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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>

--
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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