| Subject: news of the day 2/25/04 |
| From: Rick Hasen |
| Date: 2/25/2004, 7:46 AM |
| To: election-law |
I
received an e-mail from Andrew C. Simpson, a lawyer representing white
and Latino voters who are challenging at-large voting in the Virgin
Islands legislature under the Voting Rights Act. According to this website,
"The lawsuit alleges that the system of electing senators to the Virgin
Islands legislature using multi-member, at-large districts is a
violation of the Voting Rights Act. The plaintiffs, representatives of
Latino and white minorities in the Territory, claim that this system
prevents them from electing a candidate who represents the interests of
minority groups in the Virgin Islands. The plaintiffs seek a court
order creating geographic districts for the election of the 14 senators
who are elected from multi-member districts. If such a system is
adopted, every voter in the Territory, regardless of race or
ethnicity, will have a representative who is answerable to him or her
and the other voters in the same geographic district."
Roll Call offers An
Honest Man,
which begins: "Amid Democratic hypocrisy and GOP cynicism over campaign
finance reform, a principled actor has emerged — and, in the view of
some reformers, an unlikely one at that: Federal Election Commission
Chairman Brad Smith, a Republican who last week denounced his own party
for trying to stop the opposition from speaking."
See this
Sun-Sentinel report,
which begins: "Pompano Beach voters will elect a mayor for the first
time on March 9, after a Broward County judge on Tuesday rejected
arguments that the vote should be halted because an African-American
almost certainly could not win a citywide election."
See this
Los Angeles Times report on independent expenditure
committees in state races.
-- Rick Hasen Professor of Law and William M. Rains Fellow Loyola Law School 919 South Albany Street Los Angeles, CA 90015-1211 (213)736-1466 (213)380-3769 - fax rick.hasen@lls.edu http://www.lls.edu/academics/faculty/hasen.html http://electionlawblog.org