"Governor cashing in on Rolling Stones; For $100,000, you can watch concert with Schwarzenegger"

The SF Chronicle offers this report. One wonders if the Stones will perform "Sweet Neo-Con" that night.

"Defoxing the Chicken Coop"

The New York Times offers this editorial, which begins: 'President Bush has a rare opportunity to fight the greed-driven abuses of national politics by naming dedicated professionals to the four open slots on the Federal Election Commission, a supposed watchdog that serves more as a lapdog of party bosses addicted to big-money power brokering. A bipartisan conspiracy of sorts is already being tried by Congressional leaders, who are proposing that President Bush name the same sort of party retainers who reduced commission regulation to a mockery in recent years. But a cleanup movement, led by Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican, suggests filling the commission with independent members dedicated to defending the interests of voters." Bob Bauer responds.

"The Shrinking Battleground: The 2008 Election and Beyond"

FairVote has issued this report. According to this summary, "The Shrinking Battleground uses a model of 'state partisanship' to explain why the United States has experienced a decrease in the number of competitive battleground states in presidential elections, how these partisan divisions are hardening and what impact they have on American democracy. The fundamental reality is that fewer and fewer Americans play a meaningful role in electing the president – and that the major party campaigns act on that understanding with utter disregard for the interests and views of most voters outside of swing states. The result is a two-tiered system for voters, with damaging impact on voter turnout, racial fairness, political equality and the future of American democracy. The mounting evidence makes it clear that the solution is to establish a direct election of the president so that all votes count equally and the principles of majority rule and one person, one vote are respected."

More on Judge Roberts and the Voting Rights Act

In today's Los Angeles Times, Abigail Thernstrom writes this oped. Thernstrom's views of Roberts' role in the 1982 VRA amendment process is pretty similar to my own, though she of course has a different view of whether Roberts' should be commended for his effort.

Meanwhile, the National Archives has issued 500 more pages of Roberts papers (see here). Some of these papers relate to the 1982 VRA process (see, for example, here and here). >From my early perusal, I did not see much material that is new or different on voting rights than what has already been released. One interesting tidbit is this November 6, 1981 memo early in the VRA process, in which Judge Roberts tells the attorney general that the effects test proposed in the House bill "would make challenges to a broad range of voting practices much easier, and give courts far broader license to interfere with voting practices across the country. In particular, such widely accepted practices as at-large voting would be subject to attack, since it is fairly easy to demonstrate that such practices have the effect of diluting black voting strength. For Congress and the President to invite such judicial remaking of the political system through an effects test is sharply inconsistent with the thrust of your Federal Legal Council speech."

In the Election Law Mailbag

I have just received a review copy of Andrew Rehfled, The Concept of Constituency: Political Representation, Democratic Legitimacy, and Institutional Design (Cambridge, forthcoming October 2005). The book description:

Every ten years United States congressional districts are drawn, physically constructing political representation based on where citizens live. Why is it done this way? Is territorial representation consistent with the broader normative ends of political representation for any large nation? And if not, how might random assignment provide a justifiable alternative to group representation? Using the case of the founding period of the United States and classic sources in western political theory to illustrate the argument, this book describes the conceptual, historical and normative features of the electoral constituency. Based on uncontroversial features of political legitimacy (like the idea that a representative should be accountable to those who elected him) it argues in favor of single member, electoral constituencies, each of which look like the nation they collectively represent. It argues that randomly assigning voters into permanent, national electoral constituencies would be worth considering in any large democratic nation.


• A novel thought experiment: assign all citizens into 435 random, national and permanent electoral constituencies for US Congress


• All politics is not local, it only appears that way because we elect our representatives based on where we live


• The standard of ‘one person one vote’ is overrated and leads us to endorse electoral systems that are contrary to broader aims of political representation

I met Andrew last winter and look forward very much to reading this book.

I also just received a reprint of Abner Greene's, Is There a First Amendment Defense for Bush v. Gore?, 80 Notre Dame Law Review 1643 (2005). I read this piece in draft and highly recommend it for those interested in the jurisprudence of Bush v. Gore (not that I agree with Abner's reading of the case).

Also, the Southern California Law Review symposium, "Symposium on the Impact of Direct Democracy," Volume 78, Number 4 (May 2005), is now available on Lexis and Westlaw.

"High-tech voting accessory: Paper"

USA Today offers this report, with the subhead, "More states requiring printouts as backup."

-- 
Rick Hasen
William H. Hannon Distinguished Professor of Law
Loyola Law School
919 Albany Street
Los Angeles, CA  90015-1211
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rick.hasen@lls.edu
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http://electionlawblog.org