Dan Weintraub on Why Gov. Schwarzenegger Should Not Canel the Special Election

See here.

Roll Call Editorial on FEC Commissioner Replacements

Pick Four (paid subscription required) appears in today's issue. A snippet:

But while Congress has been quick to criticize the FEC (and this editorial page has certainly taken its fair share of shots at it as well), leaders of both parties have given short shrift to the one area in which they can have the greatest impact on making the body effective. Right now, four of the six current commissioners are serving on expired terms. And even if, as some in the reform community were wringing their hands about last week, President Bush offered nominations to the six-member panel as the Senate wound down its business before the August recess, in anticipation of making recess appointments to the body, even that move would miss the point. Not surprisingly, the names that have made the rounds in campaign finance circles as potential nominees are closely associated with either their respective parties’ political committees or their interest group allies.

"Parties Strategize on Renewing Voting Rights Act"

Roll Call offers this report (paid subscription required). A snippet:

While Democrats and their allies want to see Section 5 reauthorized, they don’t want to see it reauthorized permanently — and they’re staking out that position preemptively. While making Section 5 permanent may seem attractive, doing so would make it vulnerable to court challenge, said Ted Shaw, president of the NAACP’s legal defense fund.

In order for Section 5 to withstand strict scrutiny by the courts, it must be narrowly tailored to address the harms it is designed to cure. Shaw questioned whether the courts would find a permanent Section 5 — rather than one periodically revisited by Congress — to be narrowly tailored.

“Even though it may be confusing, we oppose permanent extension of the Voting Rights Act because it’s a Trojan Horse,” Shaw said.

Shaw identified Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (Tenn.) and Sen. George Allen (R-Va.), both of whom are considering White House bids in 2008, as Members who have mentioned that they are interested in permanent extension.

This is a must-read article for those interested in this issue. It is too bad it is behind the paid-subscription wall.

"Lockyer Is Accused of Stacking Deck Against Initiatives"

The Los Angeles Times offers this front-page report, another argument for nonpartisan administration of elections.

"Some fear Voting Rights Act could change as provisions expire"

See this article, originally appearing in the Chicago Tribune.

"Blumner: Gerrymandering and the demise of competitive elections"

Robyn Blumner offers this opinion column.

"City said no to remedies in voting bias case"

The Boston Globe offers this report, which begins: "Municipal officials say federal authorities proposed remedies for election law violations that allegedly discriminated against Hispanic and Asian-American voters, but the city has decided to fight the matter in court."

Interesting Post on Campaign Signs and the First Amendment

See this post at Sneaking Suspicions.

Corrected Election Law Teacher Database Now Posted

You can find it here.

Wice on Thernstrom on VRA

Following up on this post, Jeff Wice has written a letter to the editor responding to Abigail Thernstrom's recent oped on the Voting Rights Act (article available here without a subscription). In his letter, Wice writes:

Re: "Emergency Exit," Abigail Thernstrom, Opinion, July 29, 2005. As counsel to the New York State Assembly speaker and later to the New York City Council Redistricting Committee, I helped guide the 1992 state congressional and the 2003 City Council plan through the Justice Department approval process for Queens, New York, and Bronx counties. The Justice Department, under the first and second Bush administrations, never once interfered with the line-drawing processes. In fact, the Justice Department approved both plans without a question raised.

The Justice Department never "demanded" that New York create "racially gerrymandered" congressional or City Council districts. Both plans were a product of local deliberations. Moreover, Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act remains today an effective enforcement tool for the protection of minority voting rights. Section 5's mandate goes no further than to prevent the retrogression, or weakening, of effective minority voting strength when new plans are required by decennial census data.

Revised Version of My Paper on Election Administration Reform

I'll be presenting the latest version of my forthcoming paper, Beyond the Margin of Litigation: Reforming U.S. Election Administration to Avoid Electoral Meltdown, 62 Washington and Lee Law Review (2005), at the APSA meetings in September. Here is the new version, which includes the updated data on public attitudes about the fairness of the elections process and data on the number of election challenge cases in the lower courts from 1996-2004. Comments are still welcome as this piece goes through the editing process at the law review.

Rick Hasen 
William H. Hannon Distinguished Professor of Law
Loyola Law School 
919 Albany Street 
Los Angeles, CA  90015-1211 
(213)736-1466 - voice 
(213)380-3769 - fax 
rick.hasen@lls.edu 
http://www.lls.edu/academics/faculty/hasen.html 
http://electionlawblog.org