"Ruling settles ballot dispute; Discrepancies in wording shouldn't have stopped vote on Prop. 77, top court says."

The Sacramento Bee offers this report. A snippet:

Attorney Lance Olson, who represented Democratic legislative leaders in the suit, called the Supreme Court ruling "nworkable"because it provides no clear standard for lower courts.

"he message is, you might as well go to the Supreme Court each time you think there's a problem with an initiative,"Olson said.

"They obviously made the decision back before the election to put it on the ballot, and they had to justify that,"he said.

My earlier analysis of the court's decision is here.

"Storm-displaced will cast early votes"

The Times-Picayune offers this report, which begins: "New Orleans voters who were scattered throughout the state and nation by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita should be allowed to cast early votes in the April 22 city elections at 10 satellite voting centers in the state's largest parishes, the Senate said Thursday."

"Former FEC Chairman Scott Thomas Joins Dickstein Shapiro Morin & Oshinsky LLP to Provide Political Law Advice"

See this press release.

"Md. Official Resists Call to Change Voting System"

The Washington Post offers this report on the ongoing election reform controversies in Maryland.

Chicago Heights Section 2 opinion

Here is the district court opinion and order in the Chicago Heights voting rights case that I mentioned earlier this week. Thanks to Mathias Delort for the file.

Bauer on "grassroots lobbying" and electioneering

Bob Bauer responds to my post yesterday on his attempt to get the FEC to create a broad exemption from BCRA's electioneering communications rules for "genuine issue advocacy." He concludes with a call that I engage in further debate on the issue. I'll so so some time next week, when I am back in town.

-- 
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