[EL] ELB News and Commentary 6/17/20
Rick Hasen
rhasen at law.uci.edu
Tue Jun 16 21:17:06 PDT 2020
“Now You Can Opt Out of Seeing Political Ads on Facebook”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=112321>
Posted on June 16, 2020 9:14 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=112321> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
NYT:<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/16/technology/opt-out-political-ads-facebook.html>
For months, Facebook has weathered criticism for its willingness to show all types of political advertising<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/17/business/zuckerberg-facebook-free-speech.html> to its billions of users, even if those ads contained lies.
Now the company is changing tack — sort of.
On Tuesday, the social network said it would allow people in the United States to opt out of seeing social issue, electoral or political ads from candidates or political action committees in their Facebook or Instagram feeds. The ability to hide those ads will begin with a small group of users, before rolling out in the coming weeks to the rest of the United States and later to several other countries.
“Everyone wants to see politicians held accountable for what they say — and I know many people want us to moderate and remove more of their content,” Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of Facebook, wrote in an op-ed piece in USA Today on Tuesday. “For those of you who’ve already made up your minds and just want the election to be over, we hear you — so we’re also introducing the ability to turn off seeing political ads. We’ll still remind you to vote.”
Recode<https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/6/16/21293672/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-voting-registration-elections-usa-today-political-misinformation-trump>: “Facebook still won’t take down politicians’ misleading posts, but it’s trying to register 4 million new voters”
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>
Minnesota Settles Case Over Absentee Ballot Rules to Be Used in the Fall<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=112319>
Posted on June 16, 2020 4:24 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=112319> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Details here<https://www.democracydocket.com/2020/06/statement-another-mn-victory/>.
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Posted in absentee ballots<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=53>
California: “Legislature asks Supreme Court to delay redistricting”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=112317>
Posted on June 16, 2020 3:21 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=112317> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
At the Lectern:<http://www.atthelectern.com/legislature-asks-supreme-court-to-delay-redistricting/>
In yet another case on the Supreme Court’s pandemic docket<http://www.atthelectern.com/pandemic-docket-update/>, California’s Legislature wants the court to order a four-month delay of the deadline for the state Redistricting Commission to submit Congressional, state legislative, and Board of Equalization district maps for the 2022 election. According to the emergency original writ petition<https://www.horvitzlevy.com/R5FD3S351/assets/files/Documents/Emergency%20Writ%20Petition.%20%20Petition-MPA%20(00411081-10xAEB03).pdf> in Legislature of the State of California v. Padilla<https://appellatecases.courtinfo.ca.gov/search/case/dockets.cfm?dist=0&doc_id=2319759&doc_no=S262530&request_token=NiIwLSEmXkw5WyBVSCNdSEhIUFQ0UDxTJSI%2BUzlTMCAgCg%3D%3D>, the extension is necessary because the federal Census Bureau has asked<https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2020/statement-covid-19-2020.html> Congress for the same amount of extra time to deliver to California and other states the data needed to draw the maps.
So far, the Legislature’s request in quite popular. The court asked the respondent Secretary of State to submit a preliminary opposition, but he instead filed a “response<https://www.horvitzlevy.com/R5FD3S351/assets/files/Documents/Preliminary%20Response.%20%20SOS%20(00412126xAEB03).pdf>” joining the petition’s request for relief. The Commission itself filed a similar document, and former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, California Common Cause, and the League of Women Voters of California submitted an amici curiae letter<https://www.horvitzlevy.com/R5FD3S351/assets/files/Documents/Legislature-v.-Padilla-Amici-Ltr-Stamped-2020.06.15.pdf> supporting the petition.
A possible impediment to the court granting the petition is that the Legislature could itself takes steps to change the deadline. But that would involve putting a constitutional amendment on this November’s ballot, a process with a July 26 deadline. The timing for that is tight, the Legislature says, with the Assembly and Senate scheduled to be in recess from June 19 and July 2, respectively, until July 13.
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Posted in redistricting<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>
Upcoming Webinars: Global Legislative Responses to Coronavirus<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=112314>
Posted on June 16, 2020 1:40 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=112314> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Announcement via email:
The Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law and the journal Theory and Practice of Legislation are happy to invite you to a series of three webinars on Global Legislative Responses to Coronavirus.
The first webinar will take place on June 30, 2020 at 14.00 – 16.00 BST, featuring:
Chair: Professor Helen Xanthaki Dean of PGLaws, University of London, President of the International Association of Legislation
Speakers:
· Emergency Legislation in Belgium at the crossroads of a political and a health crisis
Professor Patricia Popelier, University of Antwerp
· Quasi-State of Emergency: Assessing the Constitutionality of Ghana’s Legislative Response to Covid-19
Maame Efua Addadzi-Koom, Faculty of Law, KNUST, Ghana
· Legislative Response to Coronavirus Switzerland
Professor Felix Uhlmann , University of Zurich
· COVID-19 Legislation in the Light of the Precautionary Principle
Professor Klaus Messerschmidt, Humboldt University of Berlin and Friedrich-Alexander-Universitär Erlangen-Nürnberg
· The Impacts of the COVID-19 Crisis on the Brazilian Legal System – A Report on the Functioning of the Branches of the Government and on the Legal Scrutiny of Their Activities
Dr Marcelo Ilarraz, Victor Pinheiro and Melissa Terni Mestrine
· COVID-19 in Hungary and Poland: extraordinary situation and illiberal constitutionalism
Professor Tímea Drinóczi, University of Pécs and Dr Agnieszka Bień-Kacała, Uniwersytet Mikołaja Kopernika w Toruniu
Participation in the event is free, but requires registration.
For further details and registration, please see:
https://www.biicl.org/events/11401/global-legislative-responses-to-coronavirus
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>
New ELB Tag: “Court Decisions”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=112312>
Posted on June 16, 2020 12:13 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=112312> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
I’ve just taken up a suggestion to include a new tag, Court Decisions<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=129>, on #ELB. We will use it when the post includes a link to a new court decision (not to commentary on court decisions or other information about filings in court). This will make it easier, going forward, to locate recent court decisions in election law.
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Posted in court decisions<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=129>
Iowa: “Kim Reynolds confirms she will sign felon voting rights executive order”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=112310>
Posted on June 16, 2020 12:11 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=112310> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Des Moines Register:<https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/2020/06/16/iowa-governor-kim-reynolds-will-sign-felon-voting-rights-executive-order/3199033001/>
Gov. Kim Reynolds told reporters Tuesday that she will sign an executive order restoring voting rights to people with past felony convictions, a move that will address Iowa’s status as the last state in the country with a lifetime ban on felon voting.
“We’re working on that right now, sitting down with various groups, listening to what they think is important, what is contained in that executive order,” Reynolds told Radio Iowa<https://www.radioiowa.com/2020/06/16/governor-reynolds-will-issue-order-on-felon-voting-rights/> in Osage on Tuesday morning, “and then I’ve got my legal team working on it.”
Iowa is the only state in the country that bans all felons from voting unless they apply individually to the governor’s office to have their rights restored. More than 60,000 Iowans, including nearly one in 10 African American adults<https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/6-million-lost-voters-state-level-estimates-felony-disenfranchisement-2016/>, are barred from voting in the state due to a prior felony conviction.
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Posted in felon voting<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=66>
“As COVID-19 Delays Census, Fmr Gov Schwarzenegger, Common Cause and League of Women Voters CA Urge Extending Redistricting Deadlines”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=112308>
Posted on June 16, 2020 12:05 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=112308> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Release<https://www.commoncause.org/california/press-release/as-coronavirus-delays-census-gov-schwarzenegger-and-voting-rights-experts-ask-ca-supreme-court-to-extend-redistricting-deadlines/>.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>
In Risky Move, Texas Democrats Appeal 5th Circuit Absentee Voting Decision to Supreme Court, Claiming 26th Amendment Violation<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=112304>
Posted on June 16, 2020 11:07 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=112304> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
You can find the cert petition here<https://www.texasdemocrats.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/TDP_Garcia_cert_petition_FINAL.pdf> and application to vacate the 5th circuit’s stay of the district court order here<https://www.texasdemocrats.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/19A-___Application_to_Vacate.pdf>. Here is the question presented: “Does Texas’s limitation of the right to cast a no-excuse mail-in ballot to only voters who are ’65 years of age or older on election day,’ Tex. Election Code
§ 82.003, violate the Twenty-Sixth Amendment’s directive that the right to vote ‘shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age’?”
I say this is risky because it could turn a bad precedent about the scope of the 26th Amendment in the 5th Circuit to one that would apply nationwide. Even if one believes (as I do) that litigation to expand the scope of the 26th Amendment makes sense, this is coming up from a terribly drafted district court opinion and this case has the potential to make very bad law at the Supreme Court. I find the chances of getting relief from this Court on this issue with this record to be very, very small.
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Posted in absentee ballots<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=53>, 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
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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