| Subject: Electionlawblog news and commentary 1/26/06 |
| From: Rick Hasen |
| Date: 1/26/2006, 7:48 AM |
| To: election-law |
Capitol Weekly offers this
report on what appears to be progress toward reaching a legislative
deal on taking redistricting away from the California legislature.
Roll Call offers Obey
Seeks Public Financing Debate (paid subscription required). It
begins: "For the record, Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.) doesn't have anything
nice to say about Jack Abramoff: 'He’s a leech and a parasite on the
system, and for the life of me I don’t even know what he delivered
for anyone.' But Obey, a Capitol Hill veteran who’s played a
prominent role in four decades worth of debates over Congressional
ethics, thinks the legislative response to the Abramoff scandal is
missing the point entirely. 'Right now, this is going to come down to
who's got the tighter limits on trips, or who's got the tighter limits
on meals. With all due respect, I don’t care what happens with either
one of those,' he said. The real issue, Obey says, is the source of
campaign funds. 'In general elections, there should not be a dime of
private money," he said."
Apparently,
the city of Dixon, California is telling petition circulators they need
to stick with the official reasons for the recall listed on the recall
petitions. This seems of dubious constitutionality to me.
The Monterey County Herald reports:
"The referendum over Rancho San Juan was accepted Tuesday by the Board
of Supervisors, which agreed to put the issue on the June ballot. The
action by supervisors was expected. What wasn't expected was a
last-minute Voting Rights Act challenge to the grass-roots petition
drive that placed Rancho San Juan on the ballot again." Thanks to a
reader for passing this along. No word yet on the petition for
rehearing en banc filed in the Ninth Circuit.
See articles here
and here
in the Washington Post; this NY
Times article; and this
USA Today article.
An updated version of the City Journal piece I linked to last wek
has appeared
at OpinionJournal.
-- Rick Hasen William H. Hannon Distinguished Professor of Law Loyola Law School 919 Albany Street Los Angeles, CA 90015-1211 (213)736-1466 (213)380-3769 - fax rick.hasen@lls.edu http://www.lls.edu/academics/faculty/hasen.html http://electionlawblog.org