Catching Up Department

Subject: Catching Up Department

From: Rick Hasen

Date: 4/24/2004, 8:43 PM

To: election-law

Catching Up Department

Here are some developments occurring while I was traveling:

Second Circuit Holds Felon Disenfranchisement Law Does Not Violate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Howard Bashman has the details here, including a note that the three judge panel, noting a circuit split, urged the Supreme Court to resolve the issue.

California Secretary of State Concludes Two Days of Hearings on Possible Decertification of Electronic Voting. Dan Tokaji links to the relevant articles and offers his take here.

Smith and Hayward on 527s FEC Commissioner Brad Smith and Allison Hayward from Smith's office have written "Boomerang! Republicans Should Not Try to Beat Democrats at their Own Campaign Finance Game," appearing in the May 3 National Review. (Thanks to James Cooper for the pointer). The article does not appear to be available online. Here is a snippet of this must-read piece:

If the FEC adopts a broad rule regulating interest groups, including 527s, that decision will significantly expand the regulatory regime, and capture liberal and conservative groups alike. When it comes to campaign finance, Republicans should go back to their deregulatory roots. Republicans thrive when the intellectual climate supports greater freedom and smaller government. Campaign-finance reform passed Congress, and was upheld by the Supreme Court, because groups hostile to freedom spent hundreds of millions of dollars to create an intellectual climate in which free political participation was viewed as a threat to democracy. To even hope to restore these lost freedoms, the case must be made that political speech is good and proper — even when remarkably unfair in its allegations, even when funded by George Soros. The party of political liberty and limited government should not contribute to an anti-freedom, pro-big-government intellectual environment for some uncertain political gain.

Responses to My L.A. Times oped See these letters to the editor published today.

MoveOn.Org to Limit Donations to $5,000 This Seattle Times article is not clear on whether Moveon will be phasing out its 527 or exactly what it plans to do with the donations it has already received. It is an interesting move given the strong possibility that the 527s will not be treated as political committees subject to the $5,000 contribution limit during this election cycle.

-- 
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