[EL] ELB News and Commentary 9/17/19

Mon Sep 16 20:54:47 PDT 2019

“NC Senate passes new political maps. Democrats are divided in their support.”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107353>
Posted on September 16, 2019 8:52 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107353> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

News and Observer:<https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article235159817.html>

Raleigh Sen. Dan Blue, the top Democrat, vouched for the maps as well as Hise. Blue, a former N.C. Speaker of the House, has been involved in numerous redistricting efforts in past decades in North Carolina and was in the thick of this one as well.

“I think it was a remarkable experience, especially when you consider the current political climate,” he said.

Of the state Senate’s 50 members, 21 are Democrats. Most followed Blue’s lead and joined their Republican colleagues to support the new maps. But eight voted against the maps. A common refrain from the opponents was that they simply don’t think politicians should be able to draw their own maps in the first place.

“These are the fairest maps, and this was the fairest process, in North Carolina in my lifetime,” Charlotte Democratic Sen. Jeff Jackson said.
Still, Jackson said he was voting against the maps because “independent redistricting would look just like the process we just went through, except it wouldn’t be politicians doing it.”…

Two Democrats on the redistricting committee, where the map-making work happened on a video feed streamed live online, alluded to attempts by politicians to rig the new districts that they said they caught and shot down.

“I believe we shut down attempts to re-gerrymander districts,” said Charlotte Democratic Sen. Natasha Marcus.

Marcus voted for the maps. But voting against them was Guilford County Democrat Michael Garrett, who also spoke of lawmakers tweaking the lines — and had previously voiced displeasure with how his own district looks in the new maps.
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Posted in redistricting<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>

“New Report Highlights Arizona as a Model for Redistricting Reform Nationwide”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107351>
Posted on September 16, 2019 8:33 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107351> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Ash Center:<https://ash.harvard.edu/news/arizona-redistricting-policy-brief>

Today, the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, a research center at Harvard Kennedy School released “The Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission: One State’s Model for Gerrymandering Reform<https://ash.harvard.edu/files/ash/files/az_redistricting_policy_brief.pdf>,” a new report detailing the lessons learned from Arizona’s innovative approach to legislative redistricting.

 The report’s authors, Colleen Mathis<https://www.azredistricting.org/About-IRC/Commissioners.asp>, the current chair of the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission (AIRC); Daniel Moskowitz<https://harris.uchicago.edu/directory/daniel-moskowitz>, Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy; and Benjamin Schneer<https://www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty/benjamin-schneer>, Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and Ash Center faculty affiliate, argue that independent redistricting commissions such as Arizona’s have been successful at fostering increased competition in individual legislative districts and promoting partisan fairness in the state as a whole.
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Posted in citizen commissions<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=7>, redistricting<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>

“Checkers Explains Corruption”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107349>
Posted on September 16, 2019 8:30 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107349> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

New documentary video series<https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=tvcPS6TFRbM> from Ciara Torres-Spelliscy<https://www.cskllc.net/checkers-explains-corruption>.
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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>

“Canada Does Elections Right”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107345>
Posted on September 16, 2019 1:53 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107345> by Richard Pildes<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=7>

That’s the title of an op-ed today<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/16/opinion/canada-election-prime-minister.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage> in the NY Times, by David Shribram of McGill University, with the subtitle: “The campaign for prime minister just started. And it’s almost over.”

The piece points out many ways in which Canadian elections [and those in most democracies, I would add] differ from American elections. One reason the piece highlights is the absence of American style primaries. As the op-ed says:

And though the competition for party leader can be bitter and divisive, there is no need for a parade of primaries or for the retail politics that chews up so much time in places like Iowa or New Hampshire.

Of course, concise campaigns come at a cost. A candidate like Mr. Delaney — or like Gov. Jimmy Carter or Senator Barack Obama, both of whom were polling low before campaigning in Iowa and winning the caucuses there — would have no chance north of the 49th parallel. Lesser known candidates have a shot in the United States; in Canada, it’s usually a battle of the elites.

Most Americans, I think, don’t realize how differently other democracies structure the process of choosing their country’s leaders. As those who know my work are aware, I’m particularly interested in the various consequences that have followed since we moved, in the 1970s, to the use of primaries (and caucuses) to determine who the presidential nominees would be from the major parties. This populist system of selection is far different from the way many other Western democracies select their equivalent to our nominees, as this op-ed on Canada makes clear. The piece is also candid in acknowledging some of the costs and tradeoffs with the way countries like Canada structure their elections.

For my views on these issues, for a popular audience, see this<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/05/25/two-myths-about-the-unruly-american-primary-system/> Washington Post piece. For a fuller and more academic study of these issues, see here.<https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3064938>
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

“Colorado becomes first state to ban barcodes for counting votes over security concerns”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107343>
Posted on September 16, 2019 9:38 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107343> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

CNN reports.<https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/16/politics/colorado-qr-codes-votes/index.html>
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Posted in election administration<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>, voting technology<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=40>

--
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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