I am in Ashland, Oregon, which is somewhat less than halfway around the world away, but far enough.  The hearing in the Court of Appeals was this morning.  From what I have heard, Presiding Judge Scotland, a Republican reportedly very interested in being elevated to the Cal. Supreme Court by Gov. Schwarzenegger, seemed strongly in favor of restoring 77 to the ballot.  Judge Blease, a Democrat (and personal friend of mine) was strongly in favor of keeping 77 off the ballot (where it belongs), and Judge Butz, a Democrat, was quiet.  Scotland indicated a decision is likely Tuesday morning.  Whichever side loses is likely to seek review in the Cal. Supreme Court.  Whether they will grant review remains to be seen (I think they should, whichever side loses), but the election officials say things need to be resolved by August 15, meaning there is time for Supreme Court review if they want to provide it.
 
 
          Best,
 
          Daniel Lowenstein
          UCLA Law School
          405 Hilgard
          Los Angeles, California 90095-1476
          310-825-5148

________________________________

From: Eric [mailto:ewooten@mycingular.blackberry.net]
Sent: Fri 8/5/2005 2:32 PM
To: owner-election-law_gl@majordomo.lls.edu
Subject: Re: news of the day 8/5/05



What's the word on prop 77 - I'm half way around the world.
-----Original Message-----
From: Rick Hasen <Rick.Hasen@lls.edu>
Date: Fri, 05 Aug 2005 09:44:04
To:election-law <election-law@majordomo.lls.edu>
Subject: news of the day 8/5/05

"Suit targets effort by group seeking election reform"
See this news from Ohio.



 "Clinton rips Georgia's voter ID bill"
Cox News Service offers this report. A snippet: "'All over America there are efforts to restrict access to the vote under the guise of preventing voter fraud. And I say guise  look at this Georgia bill, all the ID you've got to produce to register to vote,' [former President] Clinton said at the opening session of the National Association of Black Journalists convention at the downtown Hyatt Regency hotel."




 Retrospectives on the Voting Rights Act
Sunday marks the 40th anniversary of the passage of the Voting Rights Act. Many news outlets are doing retrospectives. Here is a sampling: NPR; San Francisco Chronicle; and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.



 Prop. 77 Hearing to Begin Momentarily Before Court of Appeal
NPR's Morning Edition offers this preview. If anyone is aware of an audio feed of the oral argument (several news organizations requested permission for the feed), please pass it on.



 "Judge refuses to dismiss lawsuit against Vilsack"
The Des Moines Register offers this report, which begins: "A judge on Wednesday rejected a request to dismiss a lawsuit challenging Gov. Tom Vilsacks order to restore voting rights to convicted felons who have finished their sentences."



 Whelan on Judge Roberts and the Future of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act
Ed Whelan (who may not remember that his office was next to mine when he was an associate and I was a summer associate many years ago at Munger, Tolles and Olson) writes in response to my oped that there is good reason to believe that Judge Roberts would be more hospitable to a renewed section 5 of the Voting Rights Act than he was to the proposed section 2: "The answer, as it happens, is provided in the very documents that Hasen has been reviewing. As Roberts explained in 1982, section 2 and section 5 'are addressed to different problems. It makes sense to have an effects test [in section 5] for election law changes in certain areas which suffer from a history of election law discrimination. Section 2 is not so limited.'"
 The problem is that Judge Roberts wrote those words in 1982, when there was still ample evidence that jurisdictions covered under section 5 were engaged in intentional race discrimination in voting, and before the "New Federalism" revolution on the Rehnquist Court, making it much harder for Congress to impose requirements (like preclearance) on the states. In part, the problem is that the Voting Rights Act has been so effective that it is hard to find evidence of intentional state discrimination on the basis of race in voting, even if it would reemerge if section 5 were allowed to sunset. I term this the "Bull Connor is Dead" problem in my forthcoming article, Congressional Power to Renew the Preclearance Provisions of the Voting Rights Act after Tennessee v. Lane, 66 Ohio State Law Journal ___ (forthcoming 2005). An updated and revised version of the article will appear in the book, The Future of the Voting Rights Act, edited by Epstein, O'Halloran, Pildes and de la Garza.

 -- 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