Reformers question Blackwell's motives"

The Toledo Blade offers this report on an initiative to change the method of election administration in Ohio.

WaPo Editorial on the Supreme Court's New Term

The editorial includes the following paragraph:

Last week the court agreed to hear a pair of campaign finance cases that invite it to rewrite settled law on the regulation of money in politics. In one, Vermont is trying to enforce campaign spending limits of the type the court struck down in the landmark case of Buckley v. Valeo , while plaintiffs are challenging the type of contribution limits that the court has repeatedly upheld. In the other, a group of Wisconsin antiabortion activists is seeking to carve a yawning loophole into the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, which the court only recently upheld. Either of these cases could be enormously destabilizing to election law, which is working pretty well and doesn't need a judicial overhaul.

The last sentence made me chuckle.

"Justice Department ratifies redrawn congressional map"

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution offers this report.

"Vote yes on Proposition 77"

The San Jose Mercury News offers this editorial. For a contrary view, see this LA Times oped by Ethan Rarick. You have to like Rarick's intellectual honesty, whether or not you agree with his opinion:

In most districts in California nowadays, it really doesn't matter who you vote for in the general election; the registration figures are so lopsided in favor of one party or the other that the winner already has been effectively decided. So, yes, it makes sense in theory to put some distance between the people who write the electoral map and the people who run for office. Allowing working politicians to pick and choose the voters they represent, rather than the other way around, is a particularly blatant form of self-dealing.

Despite that, I'm going to vote against the proposition. In fact, I would vote against any nonpartisan redistricting plan that applies to congressional as well as legislative districts, as Proposition 77 does.

Here's why. I'm a Democrat, and while I don't think that the nonpartisan redistricting would have much of an effect on the legislative majorities in the California statehouse (where Democrats are likely to keep control of both the Assembly and the Senate), I do think a nonpartisan redistricting could reduce the number of Democrats in California's congressional delegation, lessening the chances that Democrats will ever be able to regain control of the House of Representatives....
I'm all for fairness, but I'm not so noble that I'm willing to lay down my Democratic sword here in California while Tom DeLay and his henchmen disembowel my soul-mates on the dusty plains of the Lone Star State, all the while swinging the federal government further and further to the right.

"VRA, All of It, Forever?"

George Will offers this Newsweek column, with the subhead: "The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was the noblest law of the 20th century. Some of its provisions, however, are now weird—and worse."

Bauer on the Politics of Internet Regulation

See these very perceptive comments at More Soft Money, Hard Law.

"No on 77" White Paper

I have just received a copy of this white paper from a committee opposing the passage of Prop. 77. The Chairman of "No on 77" is Dan Lowenstein and the committee's campaign consultant is Berman & D'Agostino Campaigns.

I should add that I have not taken a position on 77 and I'm not sure how I will vote on it. Though Dan and I have a lot of projects together (a casebook, the election law listserv, and the Election Law Journal), we often disagree about both political and legal issues.

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