| Subject: Electionlawblog news and commentary 6/7/06 |
| From: Rick Hasen |
| Date: 6/7/2006, 8:18 AM |
| To: election-law |
Rep. Lynn Westmoreland has written this oped for The Hill, "Georgia has changed for the better, and the Voting Rights Act should too," which appears to be the same as this one that appeared May 29 in the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
I normally don't link to opeds that appear in numerous places, but here I think it is interesting that this is appearing now. In my recent Findlaw column on VRA renewal, I wrote: "A few House members from Georgia and Texas are making noises about extending the act nationally, but this appears to be just political posturing for the folks back in their districts." I am now wondering if this is more than "making noises." That is, I am wondering whether some Republicans like Westmoreland are serious about fighting for changes in VRA renewal.
It seems pretty clear that the Republican leadership, along with Democrats in the House, will be able to pass a renewal, even over the objections of a few Southern legislators. The real question, I think, is going to be whether Sens. Cornyn and Sessions on the Senate Judiciary Committee, along with potentially other Senators, are going to take steps to try to make changes in the bill. These Senators will have a lot more power to force such changes than the House skeptics.
Bob Bauer has
rightly questioned whether the agonizing
of Sen. Cornyn over the constitutionality of a renewed VRA is
sincere.
He'd likely say the same of Rep. Westmoreland's agonizing. But these
protests present an opportunity for those in Congress who are more
committed to a renewed VRA that passes constitutional muster to craft a
compromise on the bill. That is, even if one does not accept Sen.
Cornyn's or Rep. Westmoreland's concerns as genuine, there are real
concerns about the constitutionality of the Act that VRA renewal
supporters should address. The Cornyn-Westmoreland concerns provide the
right political climate of "compromise" to make some changes in the VRA
renewal bill, such as adopting aproactive
bailout provision.
Michael C.D. MacDonald has this
piece in the NY Observer.
Norm Ornstein has written this
Roll Call column (also available here
without a subscription).
Ruth Marcus offers this
Washington Post commentary, which begins:
Coincidentally, in the weeks after Galbraith's death, I came across assaults on two pillars of the conventional political wisdom: that negative attack ads are bad and that disclosure of campaign finance information is good. Neither argument is ultimately convincing, but both serve as provocative warnings against the complacent repetition of accepted verities.
Bob Bauer responds.
Responding to A.J. Pate's comments in this post,
Jeff Hauser writes:
Re the "legality" of DeLay's actions with the FAA... we all know that for many reasons -- including prosecutorial discretion and the necessity to prove beyond a reasonable doubt facts about which one can otherwise make reasonable deductions -- not every illegal act is prosecuted.
But consider the bipartisan House Ethics Committee's letter to DeLay:
"Your intervention in a partisan conflict in the Texas House of
Representatives using the resources of a Federal agency, the Federal
Aviation Administration, raises serious concerns under these standards
of conduct. Your contacts with the FAA were in connection with the
dispute over congressional redistricting in the Texas House of
Representatives that occurred in May 2003. The purpose of these
contacts was to obtain information on the whereabouts of Democratic
Members of the Texas House who had absented themselves from Austin for
the purpose of denying the House a quorum. You have stated to us that
you made these contacts at the request of the Speaker of the Texas
House of Representatives, who was seeking information on the location
of an
airplane that was shuttling the absent legislators, and that you
relayed the information you had obtained on the location of the
airplane solely to the Texas House Speaker.
The submissions that you made to the Committee argue that those contacts with the FAA were proper, but those arguments are not persuasive. [. . .] In sum, the statements made by the FAA official regarding his views of his actions after he had learned the purpose of the requests, and the FAA's later establishment of a restrictive policy on responding to such requests, indicate a larger concern about the propriety of the FAA's response to your requests for information, regardless of whether, in the specific circumstances, the actions of the FAA official did not violate the FAA rules or regulations that were in effect at the time."
So reports
Todd Kunioka. Quite a delay caused by the Ninth Circuit's now withdrawn
opinion in Padilla v. Lever.
The NY Times offers this
editorial on developments in Ohio I flagged here and here. See
also this
article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer and this
post by Dan Tokaji.
See this
press release, which links to this
letter sent to Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell.
Election Law@Moritz has posted this
information about a conference being held on "Election Law and the
Roberts Court" September 29-30.
Ever the optimist, Ned Foley has posted this
comment at the OSU Election Law site.
The Clarion-Ledger (Miss.) offers this
report.
The Denver Post offers this report which
suggests that the parolees' claim is one under state
constitutional law. Link via How Appealing.
-- 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