"Regional Primary System Won't Fix Presidential Woes"

R. Lawrence Butler offers this Roll Call commentary (paid subscription required), which begins: "Former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker III, co-chairmen of the Commission on Federal Election Reform, are right to decry the frontloading of the presidential primary system ('Time to Reform the Presidential Primary System,; Dec. 5, 2005). Unfortunately, their proposed solution of four regional primaries at one-month intervals after Iowa and New Hampshire would only institutionalize the problem, not fix it."

"Four states reach election agreement"

A.P. offers this report, which begins: "Election officials in four Midwestern states have reached an agreement aimed partly at making sure people aren't registered to vote in multiple states. The agreement among secretaries of state in Missouri, Kansas, Iowa and Nebraska calls for the creation of a task force to study ways of cross-checking voter registration rolls in the various states. The task force also is to study joint training of election officials, testing of election systems and ways to improve election security procedures, as well as the creation of standard rules for international election observers." The agreement itself is here. Thanks to Doug Chapin for the links.

Silencing of Irvine City Council Critics?

See this very interesting report in the OC Weekly, which begins: "When we last visited Larry Agran's crusade to quash the First Amendment, Irvine's lapsed progressive politician had proposed a so-called 'Ethics Ordinance' that might have sent to jail any City Council colleague who criticized him or delved too closely into his alleged cronyism. But after the scheme was exposed by the Weekly and labeled 'Orwellian' by The Orange County Register, Agran has devised a new tactic--discrimination against an entire worker class--which could be passed by his council majority on Tuesday Dec. 13. Titled 'Incompatible Employment or Service,' the new paragraph states: 'Because of their uniquely important, visible, and elevated status and responsibilities as elected officials, the mayor and members of the City Council, and by extension their executive assistants, shall not engage in compensated employment or service for the purpose of lobbying for any private person or organization before any government agency.'" For more on Agran's original proposal, see here.

Texas Redistricting Media Coverage and Commentary

See reports in the New York Times; Washington Post; Los Angeles Times; A.P. Howard Bashman collects more links here.

Lyle Denniston seeks to gain some insight into the Court's direction by looking at why the Court granted a hearing in only four of the seven cases. He reasons:

A closer analysis than was available earlier in the day Monday of the questions the Court will be hearing in the Texas cases suggests strongly that the Court is seeking to refine its review of so-called "mid-decade redistricting." That is the question of whether a state, once it had a lawful congressional boundary lines plan in effect, can adopt a replacement plan before there is a new ten-year national Census.

That question, of course, involves both the braoder question of whether mid-decade redistricting is ever allowed constitutionality, when a valid plan is already in effect, and the more particularized question of whether mid-decade redistricting is allowed when it is done for purely partisan purposes.

In one of the two cases the Court did not agree to hear -- docket 04-10649, Henderson v. Perry -- the broader question is the only one raised. The Court was asked in that case to decide whether, once a valid map had been ordered by a federal court, congressional boundaries could be changed before a new Census "in the absence of any substantial shift in population, a politicallly neutral change in circumstances, or some other event evincing a legitimate regulatory purpose?" Equally broadly, the case of Lee v. Perry (05-460) -- also not granted -- raised the question of whether the Constitution's "silence" allows a state "to engage in repeated reapportionment (more than every ten years)."

By contrast, one of the granted cases, Jackson v. Perry (05-276), for example, asked whether it violates the Constitution for a state to redraw "lawful districting plans in the middle of the decade, for the sole purpose of maximizing partisan advantage." (emphasis added) Other granted cases phrase that issue in a similarly refined form.

Perhaps this is reading too much into things. If the Court really wanted to narrow things to mid-decade redistricting, why would it agree to consider the voting rights and racial gerrymandering claims as well, which the three judge lower court treated as no longer at issue in the case?
By the way, Findlaw has now posted the lower court decision.

-- 
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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