| Subject: news of the day 5/21/04 |
| From: Rick Hasen |
| Date: 5/21/2004, 7:34 AM |
| To: election-law |
A.P. offers this
report.
A snippet: "The suit claims Rhode Island's plan to redraw state
boundaries made it harder for voters in the newly-mapped District 2 to
elect a black candidate in South Providence. The Senate map created a
district that pitted Rhode Island's first and only black senator,
Charles Walton, against Juan Pichardo, who was elected the state's
first and only Hispanic senator. The proposed settlement would change
the configuration of 12 Senate districts while putting Walton and
Pichardo in different districts, according to senators and plaintiffs."
See also this
report from the Providence Journal.
This case, which made it all the way to an en banc court of the First
Circuit, raised some very interesting and unresolved issues under
section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
The Miami Herald offers this
report,
with the following subhead: "A circuit judge didn't accept the argument
that the state should save its unused punch card ballots from the
disputed 2000 election to help historians and researchers."
You can find the Commissioners' statements, as well as a report on
the hearing, at Bob Bauer's website.
The New York Times offers this
report.
The New York Times offers this
report on Fundrace.org.
Thanks to David Ettinger for the pointer.
My earlier discussion of Fundrace.org is here.
-- 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