[EL] ELB News and Commentary 3/31/21

[Rick Hasen]

“Democrats Splinter Over Strategy for Pushing Through Voting Rights Bill”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121391>
Posted on March 31, 2021 7:23 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121391> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/30/us/politics/democrats-voting-rights-bill.html>:

Democrats in Congress are quietly splintering over how to handle the expansive voting rights bill<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/30/us/politics/voting-rights-law.html> that they have made a centerpiece of their ambitious legislative agenda, potentially jeopardizing their chances of countering a Republican drive to restrict ballot access in states across the country.

President Biden and leading Democrats have pledged to make the elections overhaul a top priority, even contemplating a bid to upend bedrock Senate rules if necessary to push it through over Republican objections. But they are contending with an undercurrent of reservations in their ranks over how aggressively to try to revamp the nation’s elections and whether, in their zeal to beat back new Republican ballot restrictions moving through the states<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/25/us/politics/georgia-voting-law-republicans.html>, their proposed solution might backfire, sowing voting confusion and new political challenges.

The hand-wringing demonstrates how urgent the voting issue has become for both parties since November, when President Donald J. Trump spread false claims of voter fraud that many Republicans believed. In the months since, Republican-led statehouses have advanced a wave of new laws clamping down on ballot access.

Democrats have coalesced around the idea that pushing back on such measures is a modern-day civil rights battle that the party cannot afford to lose. “Failure,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, said last week, “is not an option.”

But while few Democrats are willing to publicly say so, the details of the more than 800-page bill — which would radically reshape the way elections are run and make far-reaching changes to campaign finance laws and redistricting — have become a point of simmering contention. Some proponents argue that Democrats should break off a narrower bill dealing strictly with protecting voting rights to prevent the legislation, known as the For the People Act, from collapsing amid divisions over other issues.

“Democrats have a narrow opportunity. There is a window here that could close anytime,” said Richard L. Hasen, an election law expert at the University of California, Irvine. “I worry the kind of fights necessary to keep even the Democratic coalition together could blow up the whole thing and lose the chance to get anything done.”…

The most visible hurdle to date is the apparent opposition of Mr. Manchin, who said last week that he opposed allowing the federal government to wade into election law, which is typically left to the states. He signaled that he would be unwilling to vote for any elections bill that was not bipartisan, much less provide the 50th vote needed to change the Senate rules to get past an all-but-certain Republican filibuster….

Behind the scenes, two election lawyers close to the White House and congressional Democrats said Mr. Manchin was not the only one on their side with reservations about the measure. They insisted on anonymity to discuss the concerns because few Democrats want to concede that there are cracks in the coalition backing the measure or incur the wrath of the legion of liberal advocacy groups that have made its enactment their top priority.

Black House members, for instance, are deeply uneasy over the bill’s shift to independent redistricting commissions, which they fear could cost them seats if majority-minority districts are broken up, particularly in the South. Before the bill passed the House, its authors spent significant time reassuring members of the Congressional Black Caucus that there were adequate protections in place to preserve their districts. But a prominent committee chairman, Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, remained so concerned that he voted against the bill, despite having sponsored it.

Some fixtures of the party establishment believe the small-dollar public financing plan, which sets a six-to-one matching program for donations under $200, could incentivize and turbocharge primary challenges, particularly from the far left, by allowing them to cut into incumbents’ usual fund-raising edge more quickly.

Then there is a more vexing political concern, voiced most clearly by Mr. Manchin but shared by others, that after Mr. Trump spent months falsely claiming that Democrats were cheaters trying to rig the 2020 election against him, some independent voters — fairly or not — will view the legislation as an attempt to do just that and punish the party in the 2022 midterms.

State elections administrators have raised their own complaints, too, quietly lobbying their senators to modify national voting requirements they say would be onerous or impossible to put in place by 2022. Some have complained they were simply not consulted on a major federal rewrite of the system they believe they have overseen effectively.

“I’ve been saying that no election administrators were harmed in the making of this bill,” quipped Charles Stewart III, a leading expert on elections at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Running elections is detail-intensive, and it’s not just shifting stuff around. You’re adding new features and adding complexity, not just shifting complexity from one place to another.”
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Posted in election administration<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>


“The bogus claim that Democrats seek to register ‘illegal aliens’ to vote” (Heritage Earns 4 Pinocchios)<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121389>
Posted on March 31, 2021 7:16 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121389> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WaPo Fact Checker:<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/03/31/bogus-claim-that-democrats-seek-register-illegal-aliens-vote/>

In this ad, Heritage Action has taken a somewhat remote possibility that undocumented immigrants would be registered as voters under AVR and turned it into a Democrat desire — that they “want to register illegal aliens.”

First of all, it’s against the law for noncitizens to vote. Second, the proposed law contains numerous safeguards to prevent that from happening — safeguards that would not be in place if Democrats really planned to enlist noncitizens as voters.

Heritage Action can point to only one example when an AVR system inadvertently signed up people not eligible to vote — a computer glitch in 2018 that was quickly discovered and corrected, with the registrations canceled. Since then, no other such problems have emerged in California.

If Heritage had made the case that undocumented immigrants might inadvertently be registered, despite the proposed safeguards, this might have been a Three Pinocchio claim. Errors are always possible with new systems. But claiming, without evidence, that Democrats want to enlist illegal voters tips this claim to Four Pinocchios.
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Posted in fraudulent fraud squad<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>


Politifact on Whether the New Georgia Law Bans Giving Food and Water to People Waiting on Line to Vote (Yes It Does)<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121387>
Posted on March 31, 2021 7:14 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121387> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Here.<https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/mar/29/josh-holmes/facts-about-georgias-ban-food-water-giveaways-vote/>
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


Trump Sued for Directing Assault, Battery, and Intentional Inflection of Emotional Distress Brought By Two Capitol Police Officers Injured in Jan. 6 Riot; Chances of Success Slim<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121385>
Posted on March 31, 2021 7:09 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121385> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

You can find the complaint here.<https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/20534394/cops-v-trump.pdf>

As a regular teacher and scholar of Torts, I am quite skeptical that the officers would be able to prove either the intent necessary for these intentional torts and get around proximate cause problems.

For battery, for example, one generally must intend (at least) to cause a contact with the person of another, which means that one acts with that purpose or with knowledge to substantial certainty that such contact will occur to plaintiffs or a third person. Trump’s actions in encouraging the riot, while despicable and impeachable, probably do not rise to the intent necessary to prove intent to cause a contact.

Here’s NYT’s coverage.<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/31/us/politics/capitol-police-lawsuit-trump.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20210331&instance_id=28676&nl=the-morning&regi_id=117282&segment_id=54559&te=1&user_id=73afc232b34fb48763946ae71c55eb73>
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“House GOP memo: Embrace of Trump agenda is only option for comeback”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121382>
Posted on March 31, 2021 6:48 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121382> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Jonathan Swan<https://www.axios.com/house-gop-memo-trump-embrace-only-option-for-comeback-4cc95492-0c86-4fe5-b592-84ff12b7e5d0.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top> for Axios:

On a flight Tuesday from Indianapolis to Fort Wayne, Ind., two leaders in the House Republican conference discussed a memo<https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20534328-banks-working-class-memo> that argues that their party’s future demands they “embrace our new coalition” because “President Trump’s gift didn’t come with a receipt.”

Why it matters: The document, titled “Cementing GOP as the Working Class Party,” leaves no doubt that Republicans — at least in the House of Representatives — will be doubling down on Donald Trump for the foreseeable future….

When it comes to fundraising, Banks argues that members should effectively embrace their pariah status in corporate America and campaign against corporate fundraising.

“Members should use corporations’ preference for the Democrat [sic] Party to drive individual donations,” he writes. “It worked for me.”

“When Eli Lilly and several other corporate PACs blacklisted me” for objecting to the certification of President Biden’s victory on Jan. 6, “I reached out to individual donors, explained the situation, and asked for their support.”

“Once my supporters learned that liberal corporations blacklisted me because I refused to cave to their demands on January 6th, they were happy to make up the difference,” he writes. “That’s how, in the first quarter of this year, I regained every penny of the $241,000 I lost in corporate money through individual donations.
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Posted in campaigns<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>, chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>


“Georgia voter limits take root amid weakened Justice Department”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121380>
Posted on March 31, 2021 6:46 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121380> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

John Kruzel and Rebecca Beitsch in The Hil<https://thehill.com/regulation/545671-georgia-voter-limits-take-root-amid-weakened-department-of-justice>l:

Biden said during the campaign he would “make voter protection a foundation of my administration” and added Friday that the White House and the Department of Justice (DOJ) are reviewing the Georgia law.

But his promise comes with a caveat. The DOJ over the past decade has seen its menu of legal options whittled down, leaving Biden with diminished authority to test whether new Republican voting rules impermissibly harm people of color, as racial and partisan tensions coalesce around GOP voting rules now under discussion. And those powers went largely unused under former President Trump<https://thehill.com/people/donald-trump>.

Given the heavy legal burden of proving a voting law was motivated by race, said Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School, the DOJ faces roadblocks in mounting a case, even if some parts of the Georgia bill are “needlessly cruel.”

“There’s a big difference between feeling in your heart that you know why a bill was passed and being able to prove in court it was passed in order to discriminate based on race,” said Levitt, who served as deputy assistant attorney general in the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division during the Obama administration.

For nearly five decades, the DOJ had a powerful weapon in the fight against voting proposals that raised questions of racial bias. Derived from Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the department possessed a kind of veto power over state voting laws it deemed racially discriminatory.

In Georgia alone, federal authorities drew on Voting Rights Act powers to review legislative proposals in more than 180 instances, according to a recent lawsuit filed against the latest Georgia law.

But the DOJ’s authority to screen racially suspect voting laws under this so-called preclearance process was eliminated by a 2013 ruling by the Supreme Court. As a result, voting rights groups say the task has now fallen to minority voters themselves to test whether the laws in fact make it harder for them to vote in an actual election….

Georgia already faces three legal challenges from advocacy groups like the NAACP, with one lawsuit alleging that the new law leaves it “to Black [voters] and other voters of color to demonstrate which of these changes have discriminatory purpose or effect.”

But those suits brought by private groups raise legal issues that are generally thought to lie outside DOJ’s scope, arguing that the Georgia law violates not only the Voting Rights Act, but also the First and 14th Amendments, which protect voting rights and grant “equal protection of the laws.” DOJ, for its part, has been limited by courts to exercise only voting rights enforcement powers given to it by Congress, Levitt said, which excludes constitutional provisions that apply to voting.

“There are other private entities that have a lot more tools even if the tools that the DOJ has are pretty big and robust. There’s a more expansive tool kit available to private agencies being able to bring these claims directly under the Constitution,” he said.

“I think the things that people are most upset in the Georgia bill about are things that are much more natural claims under the Constitution than under the Voting Rights Act.”
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Posted in Department of Justice<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=26>, voting<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=31>


“The Fate of Biden’s Agenda Hangs in the Balance”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121378>
Posted on March 31, 2021 6:41 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121378> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Tom Edsall NYT column <https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/31/opinion/house-senate-2022-2024.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20210331&instance_id=28676&nl=the-morning&regi_id=117282&segment_id=54559&te=1&user_id=73afc232b34fb48763946ae71c55eb73> on the upcoming round of redistricting and concerns about voter suppression:

All of the above suggests that continued Democratic control of the House in 2022 and 2024 may hinge on passage of HR1 — the For the People Act <https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/1/text> — which in turn requires the Senate to either eliminate the legislative filibuster or agree on a rule change making voting rights measures exempt from the filibuster.

“If the filibuster remains,” Stephanopoulos, the Harvard law professor, wrote by email,

the next round of redistricting will be a dogfight. It won’t be as bad for Democrats as the 2010 round, because numerous states that had egregious Republican gerrymanders back then now have some sort of impediment to that happening again” (commissions, Democratic governors, interventionist courts).

“My best guess,” Stephanopoulos continued,

is that the congressional playing field will be a little more tilted in a Republican direction than it currently is, but significantly less skewed than in the early 2010s.
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Posted in redistricting<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>
“Hyperbole aside, Georgia’s new rules go against global principles for election fairness”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121373>
Posted on March 30, 2021 9:10 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121373> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Larry Garber and Kevin Johnson<https://thefulcrum.us/voting/georgia-voting-rights>:

Georgia, having just emerged from close presidential and Senate elections, is ground zero in the voting rights debate. Last week Gov. Brian Kemp signed an election law overhaul passed by his fellow Republicans in charge of the General Assembly. Proponents see it as essential for ensuring ballot integrity. Voting rights activists see it as harkening to the spirit of the Jim Crow era.

While there has been an element of hyperbole in the vehement reaction of the law’s critics, their response is understandable in light of the measure’s origins in the highly partisan and baseless allegations of fraud in the November election. Those claims reflect a well-organized disinformation campaign and the conspiratorial delusions of a sore loser, former President Donald Trump, who is now under investigation in Georgia for possibly committing an election-related felony.

Furthermore, the new law falls short of international standards and democratic principles in several important ways.
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Posted in chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>, election administration<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>


“Judge rules against Georgia’s limits on third-party House candidates”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121371>
Posted on March 30, 2021 9:05 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121371> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

AJC:<https://www.ajc.com/politics/judge-rules-against-georgias-limits-on-third-party-house-candidates/56S6YA2IJFFU5IXA4Z437DXLTA/>

Georgia’s steep requirements for Libertarian and other third-party candidates to run for Congress are “overbroad,” shutting them out of the political process, a federal judge ruled Monday.

BAN<http://ballot-access.org/2021/03/29/u-s-district-court-invalidates-georgia-5-petition-for-minor-parties-for-u-s-house/>:

On March 29, U.S. District Court Judge Leigh Martin May, an Obama appointee, issued an opinion<https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.gand.244357/gov.uscourts.gand.244357.159.0.pdf> in Cowen v Raffensperger, n.d., 1:17cv-4660. It invalidates the 5% petition for minor party and independent candidates for U.S. House, combined with the filing fee, which is 3% of the office’s annual salary. The opinion suggests that because Georgia has a 1% petition for non-presidential statewide petitions, the state would be hard-pressed to justify requiring a petition greater than 1%.

All of these petition percentages are based on the number of registered voters.

The opinion asks both sides to submit further briefs by the next three weeks, to discuss what the interim remedy should be. The legislature adjourns for the year on March 31, so obviously the legislature can’t write a new law this year.
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Posted in ballot access<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=46>


“California’s election rules could make a Newsom recall a wild ride”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121369>
Posted on March 30, 2021 7:25 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121369> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

John Myers<https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-03-29/california-election-rules-could-make-gavin-newsom-recall-race-wild-ride> for the LAT:

In a gubernatorial recall, replacement candidates would likely have to file their paperwork — along with a fee of almost $4,200 or, in lieu of a fee, submit at least 7,000 voter signatures — no later than 59 days before election day. The final decision on ballot access requirements is left to Weber, who may have broad discretion on filing fees and the signature threshold under a California Supreme Court ruling from the 2003 gubernatorial recall.

But here’s where things get interesting: The election could be held as soon as 60 days after the recall measure has been certified by the secretary of state. That would give hopefuls just 24 hours to decide.

In 2003, then-Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante set the marker at 76 days after certification, giving replacement candidates 17 days to join the contest. Bustamante, much to the dismay of some fellow Democrats<https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-sep-02-me-analysis2-story.html>, announced his own candidacy two days before the deadline.

Should the Newsom recall qualify for the ballot, Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis must schedule the election within 60 to 80 days. And if she decides on a short filing season, it could scramble the field of viable replacement candidates, perhaps boosting Newsom’s chances of political survival.

Stracener said a decision like that could produce a backlash.

“Any time you’re doing something that potentially constrains access to the ballot, you have to be concerned,” he said.
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Posted in recall elections<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=11>


“Opinion: Everyone is against gerrymandering — until they’re the ones with the power to do it”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121367>
Posted on March 30, 2021 7:22 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121367> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Dan Morain WaPo oped<https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/03/29/everyone-is-against-gerrymandering-until-theyre-ones-with-power-do-it/>.
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Posted in redistricting<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>


“Opinion: Democrats have a chance to expand voter access. But they’re focusing on the wrong bill”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121365>
Posted on March 29, 2021 12:59 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121365> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Ned Foley <https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/03/29/democrats-have-chance-expand-voter-access-theyre-focusing-wrong-bill/> for WaPo:

The unwieldy menu of mandates known as H.R. 1 is not the electoral reform legislation that Congress should enact. Among other problems, the bill represents an intrusive and unnecessary federal overreach into state management of elections.

Make no mistake: Congress definitely needs to adopt democracy-protecting reforms, especially after the Jan. 6 insurrection. Voting should be made easier, not harder, and the array of voting restrictions being proposed in states across the country is alarming.

The other bill<https://civilrights.org/2021/03/25/congress-must-pass-the-john-lewis-voting-rights-advancement-act-to-stop-state-anti-voting-measures/> Congress is considering, named for civil rights icon John Lewis, is the better way, because it hews to the federal government’s essential role in protecting the franchise from racial discrimination. Yes, Congress has the constitutional power to make all the rules for congressional elections, but that’s never been done, and now is not the time to start. Instead, Congress should define the floor below which no state can go, to satisfy the basic standard of giving all citizens a sufficient opportunity to vote.

The Senate even should contemplate modifying the filibuster for the purpose of passing a law that protects voting rights — it’s that important — although it would be far preferable to pick up 10 Republicans for landmark voting legislation.

But Democrats should not move forward with the measure, known as S. 1 in the Senate, as is. Republicans have legitimate objections to multiple parts of this gargantuan bill, and those concerns can be addressed without sacrificing the need to protect ballot access.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“Inside the Koch-Backed Effort to Block the Largest Election-Reform Bill in Half a Century”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121363>
Posted on March 29, 2021 8:37 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121363> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Jane Mayer<https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/inside-the-koch-backed-effort-to-block-the-largest-election-reform-bill-in-half-a-century?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=onsite-share&utm_brand=the-new-yorker&utm_social-type=earned> for The New Yorker:

In public, Republicans have denounced Democrats’ ambitious electoral-reform bill, the For the People Act, as an unpopular partisan ploy. In a contentious Senate committee hearing last week, Senator Ted Cruz, of Texas, slammed the proposal, which aims to expand voting rights and curb the influence of money in politics, as “a brazen and shameless power grab by Democrats.” But behind closed doors Republicans speak differently about the legislation, which is also known as House Resolution 1<https://www.newyorker.com/news/current/with-hr-1-democrats-announce-a-new-program-for-electoral-reform> and Senate Bill 1. They admit the lesser-known provisions in the bill that limit secret campaign spending are overwhelmingly popular across the political spectrum. In private, they concede their own polling shows that no message they can devise effectively counters the argument that billionaires should be prevented from buying elections.

A recording obtained by The New Yorker of a private conference call on January 8th, between a policy adviser to Senator Mitch McConnell<https://www.newyorker.com/tag/mitch-mcconnell> and the leaders of several prominent conservative groups—including one run by the Koch brothers’<https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/01/25/new-koch> network—reveals the participants’ worry that the proposed election reforms garner wide support not just from liberals but from conservative voters, too. The speakers on the call expressed alarm at the broad popularity of the bill’s provision calling for more public disclosure about secret political donors. The participants conceded that the bill, which would stem the flow of dark money from such political donors as the billionaire oil magnate Charles Koch<https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/ivanka-trump-and-charles-koch-fuel-a-cancel-culture-clash-at-wichita-state>, was so popular that it wasn’t worth trying to mount a public-advocacy campaign to shift opinion. Instead, a senior Koch operative said that opponents would be better off ignoring the will of American voters and trying to kill the bill in Congress.

Kyle McKenzie, the research director for the Koch-run advocacy group Stand Together, told fellow-conservatives and Republican congressional staffers on the call that he had a “spoiler.” “When presented with a very neutral description” of the bill, “people were generally supportive,” McKenzie said, adding that “the most worrisome part . . . is that conservatives were actually as supportive as the general public was when they read the neutral description.” In fact, he warned, “there’s a large, very large, chunk of conservatives who are supportive of these types of efforts.”
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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>


Sixth Circuit, on 2-1 Vote, Strikes Down Michigan Rules for Independent Candidates to Qualify to Appear on the Statewide Ballot as Too Burdensome<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121361>
Posted on March 29, 2021 8:14 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121361> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Opinion<https://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/21a0072p-06.pdf> by Judge Moore with a dissent by Judge Griffin.
[Share]<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D121361&title=Sixth%20Circuit%2C%20on%202-1%20Vote%2C%20Strikes%20Down%20Michigan%20Rules%20for%20Independent%20Candidates%20to%20Qualify%20to%20Appear%20on%20the%20Statewide%20Ballot%20as%20Too%20Burdensome>
Posted in ballot access<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=46>


“What responsibility do corporations have to weigh in on voting rights?”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121359>
Posted on March 29, 2021 8:06 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121359> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Marketplace reports.<https://www.marketplace.org/2021/03/29/georgia-corporations-voting-law-election-rules/>
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“On Google Podcasts, a Buffet of Hate; The platform’s tolerance of white supremacist, pro-Nazi and conspiracy theory content pushes the boundaries of the medium.”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121357>
Posted on March 29, 2021 8:05 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121357> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT:<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/25/arts/google-podcasts-extremism.html>

But even in the world of podcasting, Google Podcasts — whose app has been downloaded more than 19 million times, according to Apptopia — stands alone among major platforms in its tolerance of hate speech and other extremist content. A recent nonexhaustive search turned up more than two dozen podcasts from white supremacists and pro-Nazi groups, offering a buffet of slurs and conspiracy theories. None of the podcasts appeared on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Stitcher.

Google Podcasts is also one of the few remaining homes of Alex Jones, the “Infowars” broadcaster, who was banned in 2018 <https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/06/technology/infowars-alex-jones-apple-facebook-spotify.html> from Apple, Spotify and Stitcher for repeated violations of their policies on hate speech and harassment. Google, citing its own policies, terminated Mr. Jones’s YouTube account. Last year, it removed the Infowars app from the Google Play store for spreading misinformation about the coronavirus.

But Mr. Jones’s programs are still available on Google Podcasts.

Told of the white supremacist and pro-Nazi content on its platform and asked about its policy, a Google spokeswoman, Charity Mhende, compared Google Podcasts to Google Search. She said that the company did not want to “limit what people are able to find,” and that it only blocks content “in rare circumstances, largely guided by local law.”

That hands-off approach to moderation recalls the original position of social networks like Facebook and Twitter, which have become more vigilant in recent years in their attempts to rein in the spread of harmful content.
[Share]<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D121357&title=%E2%80%9COn%20Google%20Podcasts%2C%20a%20Buffet%20of%20Hate%3B%20The%20platform%E2%80%99s%20tolerance%20of%20white%20supremacist%2C%20pro-Nazi%20and%20conspiracy%20theory%20content%20pushes%20the%20boundaries%20of%20the%20medium.%E2%80%9D>
Posted in cheap speech<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=130>



--
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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