soapbox

Dan Burton latest to retire. He's one district north of me. I once had his democratic opponent as a client.
Several folks have already announced, including David McIntosh, who I like,and marion County coroner John McGroff (sp?) who ran a good primary fight again Burton 4 years ago.

Here's the full list of retiring members from the House of Representatives: Steve Austria, R-Ohio, 2 terms Dan Boren, D-Okla., 4 terms Dan Burton, R-Ind., 15 terms Dennis Cardoza, D-Calif., 5 terms Jerry Costello, D-Ill., 12 terms Geoff Davis, R-Ky., 4 terms Barney Frank, D-Mass., 16 terms Elton Gallegly, R-Calif., 13 terms Charlie Gonzalez, D-Texas, 7 terms Wally Herger, R-Calif., 13 terms Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., 10 terms Dale Kildee, D-Mich., 18 terms Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., 17 terms Brad Miller, D-N.C., 5 terms John Olver, D-Mass., 10 terms Todd Platts, R-Pa., 6 terms Mike Ross, D-Ark., 6 terms Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., 10 terms

charlie white convicted on 6 of 7 counts. next question, will it be reduced to a misdemeanor, will there be jail time, will he win an appeal, but the biggest question for me is whether the county court, finding him not to be a candidate and vop ossily elected, will stand. it probably won't, but it if it did there would be significant consequences for the libertarian party. however, i'm not liked by the current libertarian leadership locally, so there's no patronage job in this for me even if things shake out that way.

NC's Heath Shuler won't seek re-election to House

i have lost track, but it seems like a high number of dem's are not running for re-election.

http://i.imgur.com/HrWfU.png

meet the three-judge panel:
the texas voter id case, which raises the issue of whether the voting rights act is constitutional, has been assigned to a three judge panel, after which is is likely to go directly to the supreme court.
http://txredistricting.org/post/16642474099/texas-voter-id-case-meet-the-three-judge-panel
judge tatel: appointed by clinton. From 1969 to 1970, he served as Director of the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, then returned to Sidley & Austin until 1972, when he became Director of the National Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law in Washington, D.C. authored Namundo, upholding VRA.

In 1992, Judge Wilkins also was the name plaintiff in a suit over racial profiling against the Maryland State Police, which resulted in a settlement requiring Maryland State Police to maintain records of all traffic stops.

Judge Collyer (bush appointee, active in the texas redistricting cases. So this is a good panel, unless they overreach and annoy the conservative wing of the supreme court.

http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P12/IN-R
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delegate counts:

Newt - 25

Romney - 14

Ron - 10

Rick - 8

http://www.politics1.com/in.htm

The political buttons are a nice touch.

note to self:


Get directions My places
Indianapolis, IN
Last Updated by Move to 2 days ago
LOCATION: Birch Bayh Federal Building and United States Courthouse
46 East Ohio Street
Indianapolis IN 46204


Main event: noon-1pm. Rallies and demonstrations throughout the day.


Please join us on Friday, January 20th in protesting the two-year anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling that allows corporations to spend unlimited funds trying to influence our elections. The main event will be from noon to 1:00 PM with speeches by dignitaries and a press conference. Rallies and demonstrations will take place throughout the day. We will be downtown in front of the Birch Bayh Federal Building.


CONTACT: Conrad Cortellini, Indiana Alliance for Democracy, Conrad@cortellini.net

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_19768783
this article, advocating more disclaimers for superpacs, has a great quote by hasen.

"There's nothing happening in Congress these days, but there's especially nothing happening on campaign finance reform."

here is my response to the article in the comments, not that anybody reads comments.

Arbitrary Aardvark · Indianapolis, Indiana
Eshoo should read Talley v California, the 1960 landmark civil rights case that held that the kind of disclosure she is advocating is unconstitutional.She should ask herself what she meant when she swore to uphold the constitution. Her threats that Obama should "lean on" the independent FEC create an appearance of impropriety. Several Illinois governors are in jail for getting caught leaning on people.
In cases such as Bongiorni, People v Drake, Canon City, Schuster, and the 2002 Griset case that was later reversed on other grounds, California's disclaimer regulations have repeatedly been found to be unconstitutional censorship. On today, when much of the internet is dark in protest of SOPA and PIPA,we should not ignore elected officals like Eshoo calling for more unconstitutional censorship of political speech.

http://in.findacase.com/research/wfrmDocViewer.aspx/xq/fac.20110503_0000311.SIN.htm/qx

worley v wadell is an indiana case about the way the bmv won't let people get ID.

there's a long thread going on at the election law list about voter ID.
here are some of my notes; i may or may not end up posting to that thread.

Issues re Indiana voter ID

Nuns on the run:
Two things we can learn from the nun episode: the statutory procedures were not followed. The nuns were supposed to be given provisional ballots, but instead they were just turned away. Even the election officials find voter id too complex to comply with correctly. This has happened to me as well; being turned away instead of given a provisional ballot.
Secondly, according to one of the above posts, other nuns were discouraged from trying to vote, after the first group was turned away. So there are circles of disenfranchisement, a) legitimate voters whose provisional votes aren’t counted. 1000 of these in 2008; I have no more recent data b) legitimate voters who were unlawfully turned away when trying to vote. c) people discouraged from trying to vote because they know it would be a futile gesture since their votes won’t be counted.


Identity:
Need driver’s license to get birth cert. Need birth certificate to get driver’s license. I’m a disorganized person. If I had a document 27 years ago, that doesn’t mean I can find it now.
Name is not the same ; in re hauptly. In “In re Hauptly”, the Indiana Supreme Court said that your name is whatever you say it is. This was a 1972 case about a woman who did not change her name when she married. My name, Robbin George Stewart, is not the same as on my birth certificate, and there is no longer any existing paperwork documenting the change of name (in the 1970s),and the BMV gives me a hard time about this anytime I need to renew or replace my license.
Residence: I get all my mail at my po box.
Trevor asks: Many states do not accept po boxes or rfd addresses (postal addresses) as a "residence address", requiring instead the physical locator (401 Elm street). This is a problem in rural sections of the country, where people will not have any biills etc showing their physical residence address, because all mail goes to a postal address. Is this the case in indiana?
Yes; I am registered at my domicile but get no mail there. I’m not sure how the RR situation is handled.
Social security number: I’ve never applied for one. Some people don’t have them, and voting should not be made contingent on getting them. The one I use is one my father got for me without consulting me, and I haven’t figured out how to give it back.
I have one friend who is not willing to register to vote in Indiana. At the time he made that decision, social security numbers were part of the public voter record, and he didn’t want his privacy intruded on.
For $5000, I can get you a copy of the Indiana voters database. It’s a few years out of date, but it does have the social security numbers. An updated list is an extra $5K. Postage and handling extra.
Process: when I could not get my license renewed, I was denied a hearing by the bmv after I made a written request for one. I suspect that this violates procedural due process.
Disclosure: Scott F. Bieniek correctly points out that voter ID is a form of disclosure; red tape inserted into the elections process to deter participation. If you object to voter ID, try to use this to find common ground with us in the “anti-reform” faction. Disclosure regimes such as voter ID impose barriers to political participation. And these barriers can be relatively higher for the poor and powerless, in a way that distorts democratic process.

http://volokh.com/2012/01/09/a-rare-twenty-sixth-amendment-violation/

it's a tie.

Rick
Santorum
25% 29,908 0

Mitt
Romney
25% 29,874 0

Ron
Paul
21% 26,097

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/primary-election-results-2012/state.shtml?state=IA&tag=watchnow#ixzz1iSz2nxgY

ron paul video. looking forward to tonight's results.
http://runronpaul.com/supporter-video/ron-paul-grassroots-energy/

two big stories today.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

the justice department denied preclearance to SC's voter ID rules, finding that they violate the voting rights act. this is a political decision as much as a legal one, just as the Bush administration's decision to preclear voter ID in Georgia was political. Hasen thinks that this is likely to wind up in the supreme court as a test of the VRA's constitutionality.

A democratic judge has ruled that Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White is out of office, as early as next week depending on whether a stay issues. Louis Rosenberg is the father of one of the activists who has been gunning for White,and Advance Indiana thinks this is not kosher.
http://advanceindiana.blogspot.com/2011/12/democrat-judge-stands-decades-of_1661.html


I am trying to find out if, under the ruling, however temporary it might be, the Libertarians officially came in second,and if so do they get to appoint people to election boards, hire precinct workers,and that sort of thing.

this just in:
Libertarian Party of Indiana
The judge ruled that all the votes for Charlie White are invalid because has was not eligible to be on the ballot, which would mean that only two parties appeared on the ballot for SOS: The D's and L's. This means Vop would become the SOS, and the LP would become the second major political party in Indiana. This means that D's and L's would then serve on boards that depend on the SOS vote, such as election commissions. Ballot placement would move to D's first, then L's and then R's. The Republican Party would then be the minority third party in Indiana. They would sthttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifill maintain ballot access because of a law passed last year called the "Charlie White Fix."
19 minutes ago · Like · 1


it's bigger than i thought, as spelled out in this story
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/12/23/1048083/-Good-Grief,-Charlie-White!-Why-a-Court-Ruling-in-Indiana-Could-Have-National-Implications?via=siderec
that says that the GOP would lose the right to primaries, would have to petition for a its candidates, meanwhile the LP would have primaries.

update i got this story linked at hasen, http://electionlawblog.org/?p=27024
oh and i think i found it via brad blog via reddit.

The Indiana Supreme Court has issued a mindboggling opinion pdf finding that, while a misdemeanor battery conviction is not an infamous crime,and therefore is not within the scope of the infamous crimes exception to the right to vote under the indiana constitution, the legislature under its police power can just disenfranchise anybody anytime. That's not what they said, but it's what they did.

As usual, I learn of the case when Hasen cites Oddi. The Indiana Law Blog has detailed coverage of how the case has been progressing. It came to the Indiana Supreme Court by way of certification from federal court, and a big part of the court's commentary is about the problems with certification, and some griping about why don't litigants just bring these cases in state court to begin with. As a person who has tried to do that in the past, I can understand why the common wisdom is to avoid state court and seek federal court. Not, however, that federal court is much better. I'm specifically referring to the 7th circuit and the southern district of Indiana. I have had no interactions with Judge Lawrence, the judge here,and these remarks are not about him. Bill Groth is plaintiff's lawyer here, who lost the Indiana Voter ID case (the state one, LWV v Rokita) when, as it did here, the Court chose not to give much substance to Article II section 2, the right to vote.

The opinion is, shall we say interesting, in several respects. It's long,and probably dry reading for those who aren't election geeks - I don't expect any outcry as there was when the Court not too long ago botched a case about the right to resist cops breaking into one's home.

One of these respects is that the Court's decision is based on a question the federal court hadn't asked.
Plaintiff's argument at the federal court is that a federal statute is violated, when plaintiff's voter registration was cancelled while he was in jail on a misdemeanor, if (and only if, "iff") the state constitution was violated,and therefor his disenfranchisement was unlawful, or unauthorized, or something.

We construct our suits this way because of 42 USC 1985, the legal fees provision that goes along with section 1983. Indiana has no civil rights enabling legislation which would provide for legal fees in state constitutional suits. I also suspect that state courts are less willing to correctly calculate the fees for prevailing parties. I don't know if someone's researched that.

The certified question was whether plaintiff's crime, a misdemeanor, was infamous.
In detail,the Court traces the history of infamy through Greece, Rome, England, the Indiana Territory, and legislature under the first and second Indiana constitutions.
The Court reversed some of its earlier precedents,and did so correctly in my opinion.

This reminds me of one of the best lectures I heard in law school. It was a black studies professor whose advice was, don't be fooled by what the court says, watch what it does. Cases where they hang the guy will have flowery language about the sanctity of life.

An aside: the statute plaintiff was convicted under is unconstitutionally void for vagueness. Battery in Indiana is touching someone "in a rude, insolent or angry manner." I was once falsely accused under this statute, and it turns out to be very difficult to defend against, because it's slippery and vague. In my case the charges were dropped.
But that probably doesn't help plaintiff here,and anyway it's not an argument
he's raised.

Anyway, after concluding that his crime wasn't infamous,the court says the legislature has the power to disenfranchise him anyway. Now, it is true that prisoners lose some of their rights, as a matter of due process or the Indiana equivalent, due course of law. But that's not the issue here, because the Indiana Constitution sets out, in article II section 2, that everyone has the right to vote if they are over 18, live here for 3o days, and some third thing. The exceptions to this, textually, are narrow and few, including the power of the legislature to disenfranchise for infamous crimes, which this wasn't.

I have not read the various briefs in this case. I get the impression that section 2 wasn't discussed in detail, because both sides assumed that the infamous crimes clause would control and decide the case. In LWV, the court construed section 2 as not meaning much, for the 1000 people who were disenfranchised in 2008 by voter ID. Here, they don't even bother to mention it.

What will and should Judge Lawrence do next? It's a sticky wicket.


I wonder if anyone has a breakdown of the extent to which minorities are disproportionately affected. In my neighborhood, it is not uncommon for people to be falsely charged with felonies, and to take a misdemeanor plea bargain to make the case go away, if one cannot afford private counsel; minorities are more likely to be poor and less able to afford private counsel.

My guess is that the number of people disenfranchised by being de-registered when jailed, however briefly, for misdemeanor convictions, exceeds the number of in-person fraudulent votes that the voter ID statutes are directed at.

In a Bush v Gore related case, some research has shown that the false purging of people who weren't actually felons was enough to tip Florida and the country, to the GOP column in 2000. It would be interesting to know how many people have been purged in the way this case upholds,and whether that brings some elections within the margin of litigation. Maybe it's in the briefs, maybe it's a case for Mike Pitts or his students.

The prevailing defendant in this case was J Bradley King, one of the head honchos of the Indiana Election Division. We've tangled before,and will again.

http://electionlawblog.org/?p=26462

“ACLU Files Lawsuit Challenging Wisconsin’s Unconstitutional Voter ID Law”
Posted on December 13, 2011 9:11 am by Rick Hasen

See this press release. See this related blog post/video.

this suit is important because it cleanly raises the 24th A issue.

it's rare that i would quote a hasen post in full, but this one is highly relevant.

How Not to Campaign for Judge in Indiana
Posted on November 29, 2011 8:01 am by Rick Hasen

The following election fundraiser ad by a judge (who is also the spouse of the Marion County Democratic party chair) earned an admonition from the Indiana Commission on Judicial Nominations:

Around August 15, 2011, invitations to a fundraiser to support the 2012 re-election campaign of Judge Pierson-Treacy were mailed to over six-hundred people in the Indianapolis area. The invitations notified potential donors that a fundraiser was to be held on September 15, 2011 at the office of a local attorney who is a co-chair of Judge Pierson-Treacy’s campaign committee. In the text of the invitation, under a heading marked “Suggested Contributions,” was a list of recommended monetary amounts with legal monikers next to them. The suggested contributions were written as:

$150 “Sustained”
$250 “Affirmed”
$500 “So Ordered”
$1000 “Favorable Ruling”

Recipients of the invitations then were directed to make checks payable to the “Re-Elect Judge Becky Committee” and to send the checks to a particular address.

If I remember right, Pierson-Treacy is one of the judges who defeated me when i ran in 2000. I am one a very small number of people who have run for judge in marion county and lost. Strange ballot rules usually result in all candidates, or all but one of 16, winning. There are rarely any primary contests, after the party slate is picked at a slating convention, which is usually de facto controlled by the party chair. In this case the party chair is Judge Becky's husband.

Ethics rules prohibit Judge Becky from holding party office. Those rules may be questionable after Mn GOP v White. I wonder whether being the spouse of a party chair raises the same issues of an appearance of impropriety.

I was able to run in 2000, knowing I would lose, because I don't make my living as a lawyer. At the time I was day trading, currently I do odd jobs out of state and collect rent. Most practicing lawyers would be afraid to run, based on a perception that it could rick hurting their practices.

Barney Frank is the latest of 17 house democrats to retire as of 2012. Some of these are seeking higher office.

Shirley Town Council – North Ward - Hancock County IN
Vote for 1
Rebecca (Becky) Hammer (R) 92
Dennis Denney (L) 93

Libertarian leads by one vote in Indiana town, Shirley.

Election night totals are not final till absentee and provisional ballots are counted.
I wonder whether GOP election officials will accept defeat or find extra ballots.
I suspect the local LP is not prepared for a contest, whether honest or crooked.

In other Indiana LP news, one incumbent reelected, one Indianapolis city council member defeated 25-75%. In Greenville, my friend Phil Miller got 42% in a two way race against a GOP candidate. I've never heard of Shirley IN, but if it's not near rt 70 or 40 I could have missed it. map

“The benefits of voting to the individual voter are elusive (a vote in a political action rarely has any instrumental value, since elections for political office at the state or federal level are never decided by just one vote), and even very slight costs in time or bother or out-of-pocket expense deter many people from voting, or at least from voting in elections they’re not much interested in. ”

– Judge Richard Posner, in a Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals decision upholding Indiana’s voter ID law

Charlie White, Indiana Secretary of State, is in the news again.
Secretary of State White files complaint against Bayhs

update 11/10/2011 seeks dismissal on technicality

He has referred a voter fraud case against Mr and Mrs Birch "Evan" Bayh, for voting in the Indiana primary when they live in DC.
The prosecutor is a democrat.
This seems like it could be selective not-yet-prosecution, for political purposes related to White's own pending voter fraud charges.

Bayh's residency has been at issue before. In State Election Board v Bayh
his residency was challenged regarding whether he could serve as governor. He won that case, which established that residency and domicile are pretty much the same thing as a matter of Indiana election law.

White's tactic had been urged in the local blogosphere:

http://advanceindiana.blogspot.com/2011/06/why-is-media-giving-evan-bayh-pass-on.html

In the end I do not expect either White or the Bayhs to be convicted of anything.

In the masthead for this blog i have "andy horning for congress". since it's been years since andy ran, i am sometimes asked why i still have this. it's deliberate civil disobedience, express advocacy on a website with no disclaimer.
i'll be updating it soon. andy has announced that he's running for the senate. i expect he'll get the libertarian nomination to run against lugar or whoever the GOP nominates.

update: Survivor's Rupert Boneham has announced for the LP nomination for governor, which has been well-received by the local party.

About ten years ago the FEC put out a call for comments on internet rulemaking.
A then-record (now elipsed) 1000 people responded saying "Hands off the Internet!"
The FEC backed down and avoided heavily regulating, but now and then when they think we aren't looking they try to sneak something past us. It is that time again.
http://fec.gov/agenda/2011/mtgdoc_1158.pdf is a call for comments on the FEC maybe revising its disclaimer policies for websites and ads, again. Google and Facebook had asked for exemptions, pointing out that a short text link doesn't leave room for a disclaimer.
That, I think, is the context for this possible new rulemaking.

In Talley, McIntyre, ACLF, and Watchtower, the Supreme Court has stressed that disclaimer regulations are unconstitutional, and anonymous speech is protected.
The general First Amendment principle, from Tornillo v Miami Herald, Wooley v Maynard, etc., is that people rather than the government decide what they will say.
The FEC has been violating this civil right throughout its existence, and ignoring my submitted comments on the issue. I first submitted comments during the AO1998-22 Leo Smith controversy,and then was one of the 1000 commenters mentioned above,and have recently written then again a few months ago.

Citizens United threw a monkey-wrench into our understanding of when anonymous speech is protected. 8-1, the Court upheld disclaimers and disclosure for speech by corporations, speech which had previously been banned altogether. But they did not explain whether their decision was limited to corporate speech,or whether they were overruling Talley and McIntyre, or what. Three lower courts have split on what the effect of CU is. At some point this may go back up to the Supreme Court for clarification. Meanwhile rogue agencies like the FEC have some cover, and can claim qualified immunity when they act in actual bad faith. It remains an ethical violation,for those commissioners and staff who are lawyers, creating at least the appearance of impropriety. Whether the DC bar would take such a complaint seriously has yet to be tested.

What I hope to do with this post is call the internet's attention to the opportunity to comment to the FEC for their proposed rulemaking. I hope that a few of the people who ten years ago said "hands off the internet" will let the FEC know we are still here.

Comments may be submitted
20
electronically via the Commission's website at
21
http://www.fec.gov/fosers
Paper comments must be sent to the Federal Election
2
Commission, Attn.: Amy L. Rothstein, Assistant General Counsel,
3
999 E Street, NW., Washington, DC 20463.
All comments must
4
include the full name and postal service address of a commenter,
and of each commenter if filed jointly, or they will not be
6
considered.
The Federal Election Commission requests comments on whether
8
to begin a rulemaking to revise its regulations at 11 CFR 110.11
9
concerning disclaimers on certain Internet communications and, if
10
so, what changes should be made to those rules.

adam liptak in the new york times has a column praising disclosure aspects of citizens united.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/20/us/disclosure-may-be-real-legacy-of-citizens-united-case.html?_r=2
i should get around to writing a rebuttal.

Exciting Bopp case today from wisconsin, striking down a disclaimer statute (at least as applied.)

Hatchett v. BARLAND, Dist. Court, ED Wisconsin 2011,
references my Majors v Abell case 3 times, and intelligently discusses McIntrye in light of Citizens United. We now have a circuit split, on an issue that could easily return to the Supreme Court.

LA wants ID to buy pens, pencils.
http://boingboing.net/2011/09/08/los-angeles-may-demand-id-for-buying-spray-paint-other-art-supplies.html

rupert boneham, best known for survivor reality show, may run for governor of indiana as a libertarian.

my response to a weekly standard article

I live in indiana and have been refused the vote 6 times since passage of the ID poll tax. In Indiana to vote they want you to show a driver's license, if you have one, which costs $20. I believe that's a poll tax, unconstitutional under the Harman v Forssenius (1966) standard. Even for a "free" ID, only available to those without a licence, you need a birth certificate which usually costs $12. To me that's a poll tax. There is no argument or evidence in your post that showing ID is not a poll tax; you discuss other stuff instead.

http://www.timesrepublican.com/page/content.detail/id/542386/Iowa-Secretary-of-State-advocates-voter-ID-bill.html?nav=5005
Iowa Secretary of State advocates voter ID bill

"You have to show an ID before you get on an airplane, you have to show an ID before you open a checking account, and if you like beer you have to show ID before you buy a beer so why not when you vote?" Schultz said.
The usual lies.

Schultz said in addition to a photo ID, he would like to see all counties have access to an electronic database called a poll book, that would enable election officials to swipe an ID, like a credit card, and determine if a person has voting rights.

Schultz said he did not know the added cost of providing free ID or pollbooks, but did not feel like the expense would be prohibitive.

How much will the free ID's cost? Here in Indiana the average cost of a free ID is $12.

Schultz's plan, to make voting contingent on swiping a card, is the next step; it's where Voter ID is headed. What could possibly go wrong?

Fisking Hicks:
"Joe R. Hicks: When did carrying an ID become ‘a white thing’?", found here http://electionlawblog.org/?p=22122

When I used to practice, we had a useful habit (1), when receiving a filing from opposing counsel, of putting together a "lie list", a list of the false statements in the filing.
Not every false statement is always a lie; honest mistakes happen. But calling it a lie list is useful shorthand. Here's a list of some of the false statements in Joe Hick's Orange County Register article. Hicks sounds like someone I would agree with much of the time, but not here. The voter ID debate has made for strange bedfellows.

1. "when did showing identification, something just about every American does several times in the course of a day..." Here the false statement is buried in a clause, so the overall sentence might be true, or at least not false. But I want to make a note of it; it sets the tone for the article. It's a quarter to five here. I haven't shown an ID to anybody today. Does that make me UnAmerican? When I go the bar tonight - it's Tuesday, live Irish music night - I won't be carded. I'll ride my bike there and my city does not require a bike riding license or a pedestrian license. In practice, our local cops don't stop bike riders. In a typical day, I don't cross international borders, enter a federal courthouse, get a traffic ticket, go to a bar where they don't know me, or do anything else that might call for a government-issued photo ID.

2. "In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states can require voters to produce photo ID, or in some cases other official forms of ID, and that this does not violate their constitutional rights." That's false; Crawford v Marion County was decided on procedure and did not decide the merits.

3. "Further, lawsuits challenging voter ID laws in Indiana and Georgia were tossed from court because plaintiffs couldn't produce a single individual who was prevented from voting by these laws." That might be true about Georgia. I think the case has been refiled? That's false about Indiana. In both the state and federal cases, plaintiffs were found to have standing. In the U S Supreme Court case, the court had my amicus brief; I am that voter. In the state case, the Court rejected my motion to intervene, so they were well aware that real people's rights were at stake.

4. "The protests that these laws disenfranchise black voters does give rise to the question, 'Why is producing ID such an undue burden for black voters – but isn't presumably a burden on other races?'" That's a false presumption. It doesn't follow either logically or empirically. I happen to be white. I happen to be a conservative and have run for office as a Republican, but I am also burdened when governments violate civil rights. In my neighborhood, on the lower east side of Indianapolis, blacks have their civil rights violated more often and more harshly, but we all suffer.

5. "Certainly the NAACP, and Jackson, must be aware that state and local governments make identification cards available for free to anyone who requests one." That's false. In Indiana, for example, 80% of voters aren't eligible for the "free" ID's. And even those require a birth certificate, which cost on average $12. I was told that I couldn't get a license without a birth certificate or a birth certificate without a license. Hiring a lawyer to straighten that out out cost me a lot more than $12. At the local branch in the hood, the majority of people who go there to get ID are turned away. If I have to deal with BMV I find it useful to drive ten miles to the suburbs to get slightly better service.

6, 7. "where ID is also required – checking into a hotel anywhere in America, cashing a check, making a major purchase with a credit card, buying alcohol if you appear to be under-age, or getting on an airplane?"
The airplane myth is the big lie of voter ID articles. It gets repeated so often some people will start to think it is true. I've seen it twice just today. I have not yet checked out the hotel example, but I'm not aware of any statute anywhere that requires ID for hotels. My bank cashes my checks without ID when the teller knows me, and no statute stops them from doing so. Yesterday when I reopened a checking account my ID was checked - similar to how we show ID when registering to vote; voter registration being an authorized procedure under my state's constitution. I'm told the PATRIOT act requires the ID for new accounts; I haven't looked at the legislation myself.

8. "The question begging for an answer is why only 29 states have voter ID requirements? Shouldn't all states require you to produce evidence that you are who you say you are before you cast a vote?" The lie here is only implied, and not overt, since the sentence is in the form of a question. But all states require evidence that you are who you say you are. Where I vote, the evidence is that my name is in the voter rolls, at the address I told them, my signature matches, and they know me.
The last time I went to vote, earlier this year, I was asked for ID and said no. The clerk rolled his eyes, said something like "every freakin' time" and let me have a regular ballot. I've been suing them over not letting me vote since 2006.

So, on a quick read, I only found 8 lies untruths; I expected a top ten. The article has many statements of opinion I don't agree with, but that's not the purpose of a lie list.

http://www.idchief.net.ph/
sells fake ID's. the ad came up when i was reading an article on voter ID.

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/08/moveonorg_to_pay_43k_fine_for_inadvertent_campaign_finance_violations.php

moveon.org had a software glitch and some of their campaign reports didn't send. for a budget of 1/2 million, $43K is a doable expense of doing business. but for some groups, $43K fines for violations with no mens rea sends a chilling effect.

moveon.org is a leftist group associated with the soros faction and the "reform" faction. petard, hoist. it'll be interesting to see if people are for or against these fines when it's their own ox being Gored.

My amicus brief in NOM v McKee, the one rejected by the first circuit, is here

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:0L1j6Odr6DgJ:ballots.blogspot.com/2010/08/kinda-long-i-havent-gotten-shorter-link.html+soapbox+mckee+nom&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a&source=www.google.com

I just learned something rather distressing. Blogger isn't showing my whole blog, just about the past 8 months. There are 7 years of posts here, somewhere.

draft:
A significant loss in the first district in NOM v McKee.

The court's analysis was similar to that in WVRTL v Tennent, discussed here last week.

In a multi-issue case about disclosure and political committees, the court upheld Maine's disclaimer statute under the apparent authority of Citizens United.

This is a case where the First Circuit denied my motion to submit an amicus brief, without saying why.
The stuff they got wrong is exactly what I covered in my brief.
In the West Virginia case, my amicus brief on the same topic was admitted, but the opinion neglects to mention or discuss it, while listing the other amici. There had been a change of judge at some point during the case, and I'm not sure the new judge read my brief.

In both cases, the court first said that the standard of review in disclaimer case is "exacting scrutiny" (that is, a very permissive standard,) rather than strict scrutiny.
So they are saying that Citizens United overruled McIntyre and ACLF and Watchtower on this point, which is a possible interpretation, although CU never says it is doing this.
They then conclude that disclaimer censorship furthers some important government interests - which it does - and uphold the statutes.

In my view, CU is better read narrowly, as requiring disclaimers for previously banned speech by corporations,and not overturing 50 years of precedents based on Talley, such as Tornillo and Wooley. But CU is ambiguous on this point,and I could be wrong.

Part of what I find objectionable about these cases is not just that they come to what I think is the wrong conclusion, but they do so with little analysis or awareness of the controlling precedents on the other side.

"Finally, we agree with the district court that 'Citizens United has effectively disposed of any attack on Maine's attribution and disclaimer requirements.'... The disclaimer and attribution requirements are, on their face, unquestionably constitutional." Footnote

It's the unquestionably that irks me,since they are wrong, I submitted a brief showing where they are wrong,and they chose to put it in the trash.
I have not read the plaintiffs' briefs, so I don't know how competently the issue was before the court.
I am aware that there is a winging tone to this post,and I should re-write it.

TN state senator Ketron has written this editorial in favor of voter ID.

It starts off with two and a half lies.
Tennesseans are required to show photo identification for everything from making a purchase at the mall or boarding a plane to cashing a check, and we do it without complaint.

At the mall, I can pay cash. At the airport, I have a right to fly with no ID, unless I'm the pilot. At the bank, it is up to the bank whether or not to require ID. They usually don't when I know the teller. Without complaint? Perhaps Senator Ketron hasn't met my ex-wife.

Voter ID is useful, if the GOP wants to position itself as the friend of red tape, solving problems by throwing taxpayers' money at them, and harassing the little guy.
I thought that was Obama's gig.

The Tennessee version of the bill allows for absentee balloting as an option, so it would probably be upheld in court like in Michigan. By expanding absentee balloting, this bill makes election fraud easier, while making voting more of a hassle for honest voters.

He identifies two kinds of voter fraud that voter ID isn't needed to fix, voting by felons and voting in multiple states.

He concludes with another lie: "It only takes one illegal vote to negate your vote!" When I recently voted, there were 20 categories to vote in. Some were yes/no options, or only listed two candidates, but others were multiple choice. The changes of someone exactly negating my ballot are about as good as winning the lottery.

DNJ.com's web site isn't letting me leave a comment, so this is that comment.
cc:sen.bill.ketron@capitol.tn.gov

Ex-gov Tommy Thompson probably in the Senate race in WI to replace Kohl in 2012.
He'd be a likely front-runner. The 6 GOP WI recall elections are next Tuesday.

Bit of a hullabaloo over 'Mississippi NAACP leader sentenced in voting fraud."
Mississippi has 82 counties. Tunica county has almost 11,000 people.
The NAACP county chapter is run by an executive board, with titles like assistant to the secretary. In addition, there is an executive committee, which doesn't have any designated functions shown on the website. The convicted person served on this executive committee. To call her a "Mississippi NAACP leader" is probably overstating the case.
Her "massive voting fraud" consisted of ten absentee ballots. She had a prior conviction for forgery. My guess is that this time she got caught,and that she's not the only person in Tunica county to pull this kind of stunt. Still, any benefit to her is probably outweighed by her conviction and jail time. I haven't looked to see whether elections in Tunica county are close, where a cabal of voter fraudsters could put in their own faction, and use it for the usual sorts of graft and corruption.
Voter fraud such as this is real, but it pales in comparison to the 1000 Indiana voters in 2008 alone who were defrauded of their votes when their provisional ballots were not counted.
Now that voter ID is metastacizing around the country, the massiveness of voter ID based voter fraud will go up, and probably no one will keep a good count.
Meanwhile some small and uncountable deterrent effect to in person voting fraud will result,and only some of that fraud will be moved into new channels such as absentee fraud.

The furry-american demographic lost one of their friends in congress as D David Wu resigns over teen sex scandal.

cfifruling

this is a placeholder for some thoughts on the ruling in cfif v tenant.
several days ago there was a ruling on dueling summary judgment motion that disposed of some but not all issues in the joint cases of cfif v tenant and wvrtl v tenant.

this is a case in which i had submitted an amicus brief on the issue of disclaimers.
the ruling noted some of the other amici in the case but did not mention mine; i wonder if the judge even read it. there had been a change of judge; this is a case that has been going on for a while.

i think that the case is erroneous in its decision upholding disclaimers.
it does two things. first, it says that disclaimers are not subject to strict scrutiny, but only "exacting scrutiny", which in practice is a far more permissive standard.
second, it says that disclaimers are now governed by citizens united,with no mention of four contrary prior precendents.

my own take on this is that i think citizens united only applies to cases of statutes regulating corporate speech, and does not overrule the prior precedents of talley mcintyre aclf and watchtower. i think if citizens united had intended to overrule those cases, it would have said so.however, the disclosure/disclaimer part of CU is badly written and incoherent, and did not explain itself well, so it is somewhat understandable that court here and in maine are making this error.

my amicus brief to the first circuit in the maine case was rejected; i do not know why.
the first circuit has not yet ruled.

jim bopp, counsel for wvrtl, has said that he favors disclaimers. i do not know whether he is engaged in collusive lawsuits or just what his strategy is; he didnt respond when i asked for clarification.

i know not know what the other party, cfif, intends to do in this case. i have not decided what role if any i should take.

bopp wins victory in maine public financing case.

judge sentenced for vote buying and election fraud in kentucky under federal racketeering charges. curiously, the article doesn't mention which party the judge is from. hat tip paul leto.
this might be the first use of racketeering charges for voting buying?
update: they were republicans.

A 7th circuit decision granting a temporary injunction against gun ranges in chicago shows that the 2nd amendment is starting to get taken seriously by the lower courts. A standard of review is beginning to emerge from these cases.
Courts will look to whether the activity in question is within the core rights protected by the amendment,and the degree to which regulation burdens it. Substantial or severe burdens on the core rights will get some form of heightened scrutiny.
Analogies are made to election law cases, of all things, so what is to me the familar framework of Anderson, Takushi, and Norman v Reed, will have a new context.
I guess i'll cross-post this to my election law blog as well. (was first posted at vark.blogspot.com.)
Buckley v Valeo exacting scrutiny is mentioned, as well as Crawford v Marion county, which extended the Anderson test to election law cases generally.

The decision cites a number of well known law bloggers, including Eugene Volokh, Instapundit, Randy Barnett, David Koppel.

I suspect that a short comment on this topic could get published somewhere.
I probably won't get around to writing it myself.

update: here are a few passages from the opinion.

Borrowing from the Court’s First Amendment
doctrine, the rigor of this judicial review will depend on
how close the law comes to the core of the Second Amendment
right and the severity of the law’s burden on the right. slip op. at 33.

Both Heller and McDonald suggest that broadly prohibitory
laws restricting the core Second Amendment
right—like the handgun bans at issue in those cases, which
prohibited handgun possession even in the home—are
categorically unconstitutional. 33.

First, we ask whether the challenged
law imposes a burden on conduct falling within the scope of the Second Amendment’s guarantee. . . . If it does
not, our inquiry is complete. If it does, we evaluate the law
under some form of means‐end scrutiny. 34-35.

Both Heller
and McDonald suggest that First Amendment analogues are
more appropriate... and on the strength of that
suggestion, we and other circuits have already begun to
adapt First Amendment doctrine to the Second Amendment
context. 41
Likewise, “[l]aws that burden political
speech are subject to strict scrutiny.” Citizens United v. Fed.
Election Comm’n,
On the other hand, “time, place, and
manner” regulations on speech need only be “reasonable”
and “justified without reference to the content of the
regulated speech.”
In election‐law cases, regulations affecting the
expressive association rights of voters, candidates, and
parties are subject to a fluctuating standard of review
that varies with the severity of the burden on the right; laws
imposing severe burdens get strict scrutiny, while more
modest regulatory measures need only be reasonable,
politically neutral, and justified by an important
governmental interest. See Crawford v. Marion Cnty.
Election Bd., 553 U.S. 181, 190‐91 (2008); Wash. State Grange,
552 U.S. at 451‐52; Burdick v. Takushi, 504 U.S. 428, 434
(1992); Lee v. Keith, 463 F.3d 763, 768 (7th Cir. 2006). “First
Amendment challenges to disclosure requirements in
the electoral context”—for example, laws compelling
the disclosure of the names of petition signers—are reviewed
“under what has been termed ‘exacting
scrutiny.’ ” Doe v. Reed, 130 S. Ct. 2811, 2818 (2010). This
standard of review requires “a substantial relation between
the disclosure requirement and a sufficiently important
governmental interest,” and “the strength of
the governmental interest must reflect the seriousness of the
actual burden on First Amendment rights.”

My thought is that not only will election law balancing tests be used to help establish a workable standard of review in gun cases, which currently operate in a state of indeterminacy, because Heller and McDonald are new and did not set out a standard, but also gun cases may at some point be used in election cases, which also operate in a state of indeterminacy.
The Burdick-Anderson-Norman framework lets us treat minor violations lightly, apply balancing to more serious questions and strict scrutiny to severe burdens.
But we have no test to know when a burden is severe,so the Court has upheld poll taxes (Crawford), censorship of political speech (Citizens United disclaimers), and a ban on political association by parties (Twin Cities) although each of these severely burdens political participation.

In Heller McDonald and Ezell, Alan Gura has won victories and established a meaningful Second Amendment. But there will be losses to follow, as Second Amendment rights are infringed by "reasonable regulation." Those cases in turn may be cited in future briefs by the "reform" crowd seeking to further burden or censor political speech and association. The emerging connection between First And Second Amendment jurisprudence bears watching, even by people who are solely election lawyers.

Howard reports that among the 13 cases the supreme court granted cert for for next term, is one about lame ducks.

This is was going to be a post about a factual error I think thought Justice Kagan made in her dissent in McComish.
Yesterday the Supreme Court decided McComish v Bennett pdf, the Arizona matching funds case. Justice Roberts wrote for the court and said the usual nice things about elections are free speech, and we already decided this issue in Davis anyway, and it's the Ninth Circuit so we'll just overrule them as usual.

What makes the case significant is its dissent. See McConnell.
Hasen is calling the case Arizona Free Enterprise. That's a nice touch for IJ to have their case called Free Enterprise.
I prefer FEC v Bennett. McComish sounds like a WB sitcom about a cop who's just one year away from retirement. Hayward prefers AFEFCPAC.

The dissent by Justice Kagan is as confrontational as one by Scalia. It shows that First Amendment protection of election speech is just one vote away from tragedy. Future cases that lose any of the Roberts-Kennedy-Scalia-Thomas-Alito coalition can lose. And this is not an especially cohesive bunch; look at the lineups on the other cases decided yesterday. So we are still in a world of what Hasen has called indeterminacy.

One thing neither side really discusses is stare decisis. The ninth circuit and the dissent both try to distinguish Davis on what I think are very shaky grounds.
Davis is to McComish as Heller is to McDonald. No one on the losing side is saying, we don't like the result, but we've already decided this issue,and should move on.
This approach is likely to be thrown back in their faces when at some future point the conservative majority invalidates some favorite precedent of the liberal wing.

There was a phrase that jumped out at me from the Kagan dissent. I think thought she was factually wrong about what the court has held about disclaimers.

On Page 58 of the slip opinion, in number two of part B, she states,
"Number two: Our decisions about disclosure and dis-claimer requirements show the Court is wrong. The Court has repeatedly declined to view these requirements as a sub-stantial First Amendment burden, even though they dis-courage some campaign speech."

OK, this is a slightly different claim than I thought she was making. She isn't saying the Court has never viewed disclaimer requirements as a substantial burden, just that they haven't always done so. That is correct; in McConnell and Citizens United flawed disclaimer arguments that failed were raised,and treated somewhat dismissively.

What does she say next?
She cites disclosure cases. She does cite Citizens United,and that single example might be enough to prove her point. OK, I was wrong,and Kagan was not wrong, and this post has now lost its focus.

On the other hand, her point is still open to criticism. Talley v California, 1960, is outside the post-Buckley time frame she is discussing. But in McIntyre v Ohio, 1995, the court did apply strict scrutiny in striking down a disclaimer rule. (One that applied to candidates, not just little old ladies named Margaret.)
In Victoria Buckley v ACLF, 1999, all nine members of the court found the disclaimer rule unconstitutional, in a variety of separate opinions. Justice Thomas, concurring, discussed disclaimer rules as a severe burden triggering strict scrutiny under the Norman v Reed framework.
See also Watchtower v Stratton.
So Justice Kagan's discussion of disclaimer cases is highly selective and ignores the main thrust of the court's cases during the period she is discussing.
That 4 members of today's court are willing to selectively edit the court's own history is not a good sign for the ongoing battle to finally enforce the civil rights victory Manual Talley won 51 years ago.
My failed attempts to get somewhere on this myself over the past 15 years [Stewart v Taylor, Anonymous v Delaware, Majors v Abell] suggest that I should work harder to find a competent ally to work with, such as the Institute for Justice.

Yesterday the supreme court decided FEC v Bennett, aka McComish v Bennett aka sundry other things. I'll have a post up shortly about the dissent's comments about disclaimers, but first this. In a new york times blog, hasen and others discuss the impact of the decision.
Where to Now on Public Financing?
How will the Supreme Court's rejection of an Arizona matching-funds law affect the political landscape?
New York City as a Model?

Public financing, now that it can no longer be promoted as evening the playing field, Harrison Bergeron-style, is often promoted as an alternative to corruption.

In New York, there is a matching funds provision whereby donations of up to $175 get matched 6-1. To me, this is an open invitation to corruption. It turns every political race into a horse race where those in the know have a sure thing, a horse that pays out 6-1. New York is one of those places that has a culture of corruption, part of the local culture that has continued since Tammany Hall days. Boston, Chicago, New Orleans and parts of Philadephia are similar. There are rural examples as well.
I am no Damon Runyon, and this post won't have the colorful idioms it deserves.
But as someone with a long time interest in game theory and political shennanigans, it's not hard to see how this matching funds program provides leverage for schemes that include legal, illegal,and a broad gray area in between.

Probably legal: Society hostess invites her friends to a tea party to meet local candidate, where there is an expectation, a social norm, that those who attend will contribute $175 each. 100 guests at 175 x 6. $100,500, less expense of tea and sandwiches. Local candidate gets elected and society hostess now has a friend at city hall, and can get invited to fancy dinners.

Probably illegal: City worker/union member/community organizer/etc, call him "joe", told to contribute $175 to campaign, "or else", but "you'll get it back." Campaign gets matching funds, $175x6= 1050, joe gets $250 in a brown envelope, campaign pockets $800. Times 100 = $80,000.

Gray area. Joe is invited to a beer and brats lunch, hears a rousing speech by candidate, is asked to pony up $175, does. $1050 to campaign. Campaign drops by Joe's house with 50 signs, asks him if he would put them up for $200 and talk up the campaign with his friends. Times 1000 = $850,000.

Given the mix of New York's culture of corruption and the structure of this matching funds program, I see it as an open invitation to graft and looting of public funds.
Is this the model we want to promote nationally? Will we call it "clean elections"?

as blogged by hasen, usa today article on voter ID

http://saos.nictusa.com/saos/searchao?SUBMIT=ao&AO=3250
coments on the facebook FEC AO 2011-09, including mine.
Everybody opposes draft A, except "democracy 21".

Nevada Com'n on Ethics v Carrigan, and the Nevada Constitution.
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/10-568.pdf
http://sblog.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/01-07-Nevada-Commission-opinion-below.pdf

Carrigan was on the county council of Sparks Nevada (or something; I am blogging on the fly without checking the facts.) He was censured for voting on a matter that his campaign manager had a financial interest in.
he challenged his censure on first amendment grounds in state court,and won 5-1 with one recusal at the state supreme court. He was then reversed 9-0 by the US supreme court.
(The case continues on remand;he may still win on other grounds.)
What I want to know is why didn't he sue based on the Nevada constitution?
If he had, and the nevada court agreed with him, and said so clearly, his case would have been insulated from USSCt review. Was it malpractice by his attorneys? Was it some strange procedural obstacle? Were there no grounds under the Nevada constitution?

http://legallypolitical.blogspot.com/
interesting stuff

Democrats pick up a GOP seat in congress in a special election.
Final, unofficial results gave Hochul, the Erie County clerk, 47%. Corwin, a state assemblywoman, received 43%. Tea Party candidate Jack Davis took 9% of the vote. He has run as a Democrat in the past, and polls say he took votes from both major candidates.

This is a story about the bloomberg story on campaign finance disclosure.

It started, as many topics on this blog do, with an entry at hasen's election law blog:
"'GOP FEC Commissioner To Campaign Reformers: You've Wasted Your Life'
TPM reports."
TPM of course is talking points memo, a popular liberal blog.

GOP FEC commissioner McGhan looked younger and hairier than I expected. I can't place who he reminds me of. Charlie Sheen? The dad from Malcolm in the Middle, Bryan Cranston? Winning!


http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/05/gop_fec_commissioner_to_campaign_reformers_youve_wasted_your_life.php
It's a good story,and in the blogosphere we aren't bound by the mainstream media's pretense of objectivity.

The story jumps off with a bang with an accusation of $4 million in illegal campaign spending. That sounds potentially libelous if untrue. The source is a bloomberg article,
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-19/secret-donors-multiply-in-u-s-with-finances-dwarfing-watergate.html

I was really struck by a paragraph a bit further down the article.
Bloomberg's report also found another group called "Water for All" ran ads on Spanish stations showing Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) with a red circle and a line running through her, but didn't report its campaign expenditures because their lawyer said the ads weren't political in nature.
I thought to myself, would a lawyer really say the ads weren't political?
So I followed the link, and the word "political" is used in that way three times in the Bloomberg article.
Once outside the quote marks, once inside quote marks, and once while describing WRTL.

NFIB spokesman Kipp Maloney acknowledged not reporting $1.53 million to the commission....
FEC rules mandate the reporting of ads that mention candidates within 60 days of an election, and that target “the relevant electorate.” The unreported NFIB ads were aimed at “constituents,” who may or may not vote, and not the “relevant electorate” specified in the law, Maloney said. “They were not political ads. They were lobbying efforts.” (see Maloney response below.)
Water for All didn’t report its campaign expenditures to the FEC because the ads weren’t political in nature and “we don’t need to file,” said Brian C. Leighton, the group’s attorney. “The rules do not require us to file.” Mr. Leighton sent me a very interesting email, see below.
Five years later, a group called Wisconsin Right to Life, which had been urging voters to demand that senators oppose the filibustering of judicial nominees, argued that even though their ads named lawmakers running for re-election, they were not political since they didn’t ask voters to vote for or against a particular senator.
But of course, that wasn't WRTL's argument at all. The article seems to be using the term "political" as shorthand for express advocacy. But politics is more than express advocacy. The personal is the political, and vice versa, as Hillary or Simone or somebody once told us. So the hunch I had upon reading the TPM blurb had gotten some confirmation,and next I wrote to one of the quoted sources. Here's his reply.

Hi Robin---I never said anything close to " the ads weren't political in
nature " ; the reporter kept asking why we didn't file and I repeated
several times that we don't need to file , and the rules don't require us
to file . he attempted to get me to say something about the political nature
of the ads , and I told him not to put words in my mouth ; it was his false
assumption that we were absolutely required to file and I said that that
was his own biased interpretation , and simply we were not required to
file. he certainly was not an objective reporter. Thanks for the heads up.

So Bloomberg, in what purports to be an article and not an editorial, seems to be accusing some people with pretty deep pockets of having violated federal law, while misquoting their sources and showing some lack of understanding of the case law.
I'll be interested to see what repercussions this article has, in either direction.

Wednesday update: Kip Maloney writes: Robin
I had the same experience as Brian. He totally turned everything I said to meet what he had already decided was the story.
thursday:
"We have not heard from Leighton, he never told us or complained to us that he was misquoted. In any event, we have checked our reporter's notes and they are accurate, and we stand by the story."
-Ty Trippet
Bloomberg News spokesman

another democratic sex scandal - cleveland

very interesting article about disclosure by bloomberg. it's kind of a hit piece against pro-gop independent expenditures.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-19/secret-donors-multiply-in-u-s-with-finances-dwarfing-watergate.html
I'm interested in the way the article uses the word "political'.
I've written to one of the guys quoted, asking him if that's actually what he said.
update:

Hi Robin---I never said anything close to " the ads weren't political in
nature " ; the reporter kept asking why we didn't file and I repeated
several times that we don't need to file , and the rules don't require us
to file . he attempted to get me to say something about the political nature
of the ads , and I told him not to put words in my mouth ; it was his false
assumption that we were absolutely required to file and I said that that
was his own biased interpretation , and simply we were not required to
file. he certainly was not an objective reporter. Thanks for the heads up
- Hide quoted text -
-----Original Message-----
From: Robbin Stewart [mailto:gtbear@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, May 23, 2011 8:26 PM
To: bleighton at arrival.net
Subject: wondering if you were misquoted in bloomberg

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-19/secret-donors-multiply-in-u-s-with-
finances-dwarfing-watergate.html

"Exemption Claim
Water for All didn't report its campaign expenditures to the FEC
because the ads weren't political in nature and "we don't need to
file," said Brian C. Leighton, the group's attorney. "The rules do not
require us to file." "

Hello. I'm an election law attorney and run an obscure blog. I was
wondering if you actually said "the ads weren't political in nature"
or something comparable.
I'm guessing the reporters don't understand the nuances of express
advocacy, etc. But maybe that was actually what you said. Wanted to
check in with you before publishing anything.
Thanks, Robbin Stewart.

"The Case for Voter ID You can't cash a check, board a plane, or even buy full-strength Sudafed over the counter without ID. Why should voting be different?" http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704816604576333650886790480.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Kansas SOS Kris Kobach has written this oped for the WSJ. I expect at some point I'll be linking to a rebuttal of some of Mr. Kobach's empirical claims in this piece.

I could write that, but probably won't get around to it.

http://online.wsj.com/article

possible tommy thompson v russ feingold race in MN in 2012 for Kohl's seat. still just speculation. that race would lean GOP. see charts.

http://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/hdh36/another_meaningful_whitest_kids_you_know_skit/

Quote of the Day
"Colbert Super PAC will also pay usual and normal administrative expenses, including but not limited to luxury hotel stays, private jet travel, and PAC mementos from Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus."
---Colbert Super PAC Advisory Opinion Request to FEC
Posted by Rick Hasen at 07:48 AM
-- sweet.

In Ft Wayne Indiana, Tom Schrader was fined $25 for a late campaign finance report. pdf.
But he didnt raise or spend any money, so he didnt meet the $100 threshhold, so the board lacked jurisdiction to fine him,and violated his civil rights by doing so.
I should send a letter.

Allen County Election Board
Room 136
1 East Main Street
Fort Wayne, IN 46802-1811

M-F 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m.

(260) 449-7329 (phone)
(260) 449-7908 (fax)
electionboard@co.allen.in.us

Campaign Finance Questions
acebcf@co.allen.in.us

IC 3-5-2-6
"Candidate"
Sec. 6. (a) Except as provided in subsection (b), "candidate" means a person who:
(1) has taken the action necessary to qualify under Indiana law for listing on the ballot at an election or to become a write-in candidate;
(2) has publicly announced or declared candidacy for an elected office; or
(3) otherwise seeks nomination for or election to an elected office, regardless of whether the individual wins election to the office.
(b) As used in IC 3-9, an individual becomes a "candidate" when the individual, the candidate's committee, or a person acting with the consent of the individual:
(1) receives more than one hundred dollars ($100) in contributions; or
(2) makes more than one hundred dollars ($100) in expenditures.
As added by P.L.5-1986, SEC.1. Amended by P.L.4-1991, SEC.1; P.L.3-1997, SEC.4.
draft:

To: Allen County Election Board
From: Robbin Stewart
Re: T. Schrader fine, Jurisdiction of Board
Date: 5/14/2011

I read today in the News-Sentinel that the board has fined Thomas Schrader $25 for filing a late campaign finance report, in an election in which you have ruled that he is not a candidate and will not appear on the ballot. I had a hnch that he might not have raised or spent the requisite $100 for the board to have jurisdiction to issue a fine,and indeed when i checked his report he had not raised or spent any funds.
Therefore the board's decision to assess a fine was in excess of its jurisdiction and violated Mr. Schrader's civil rights.

I was involved in the drafting of this statute in 1997 and have litigated this issue several times,although so far there has been no definitive court ruling on whether the statute means what it says.

Please put this matter on your agenda for reconsideration at your next meeting,and keep me advised of how you are handling this matter.

Cordially, Robbin Stewart.

The return of Feingold?
Wisconsin senator Kohl (D) won't run again. As the still-being counted Supreme Court race shows, WI is a toss-up state. Russ Feingold would probably like his old job back. There's no obvious GOP front-runner. I'll rate this one as toss-up. Even if the Dems keep the seat, it will take money and effort. On the other hand, the GOP and tea party may spend money and effort trying to win the seat that could have gone elsewhere.

bumping previous post
Monday, March 07, 2011
Ensign, R-NV, won't run. Leans GOP with congresscritter and former SecState Dean Heller a likely frontrunner.
Is all this just the usual generational turnover, or are we seeing real change?
Ensign Akaka Bingaman Hutchinson Conrad Lieberman Kyl Webb, that's 8, how many more to go? I predict several D seats will turn R this year, but I don't know how many more of these voluntary retirements we'll see. On average, expect 1 incumbent to lose the primary. It probably won't be Lugar.
Senator Akaka, D-HI, 86, will retire. Stays D. This will reduce the number of palindromatic senators by 1.
Jeff Bingaman D NM will retire. Likely GOP pickup. toss-up.
Jim Webb (D-VA) will retire. Likely GOP pick-up.

Hutchinson (R-TX) Conrad (D-ND) and Lieberman (I-CT) are retiring. Probable GOP pickup in ND, Dem pickup in CT. Susan somebody Bysiewicz, who was just CT sec of state, has announced, as have a few others. Susan was removed from the ballot for Attorney General in 2010 for not enough legal experience, by the state supreme court.
Jon Kyl, R AZ is also not running in 2012.

Tea party favorite "State Treasurer Richard Mourdock is planning a statewide tour to formally announce his intention to challenge U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar in the 2012 Republican primary."

Ensign, of course, resigned and may face indictment after the senate ethics committee referred his case to Justice, a rare move.
Kohl Ensign Akaka Bingaman Hutchinson Conrad Lieberman Kyl Webb, 9 down 41 to go.
In Indiana Joe Donnelly is leaving his congressional seat to take on Lugar/Mourdock, for a possible pick-up of one more house seat for the
OP. Lugar would beat Donnelly; a Mourdock/Donnelly race leans GOP.

Race Now Likely outcome:
WI Kohl D Tossup
NV Ensign R R (Heller)
HI Akaka D D
NM Bingaman D leans R
TX Hutchinson R R
ND Conrad D R
CT Lieberman I leans D
AZ Kyl R leans R
VA Webb D leans R?

So in open seats so far the GOP appears posed to pick up about 3, which would be 50-50.
I assume a GOP vice-president is more likely in the event of a tie.
Meanwhile way more D seats are in play in 2012 than GOP ones.
Feingold could run again and lose again, like Adlai.
In 2012, there are 21 Democrats, 10 Republicans and 2 Independents up.
At risk D seats include
Missouri Claire McCaskill.
Montana Jon Tester is polling at under 50%, congressman reberg likely challenger.
Nebraska Ben Nelson considered weakened, but no current opponent
Florida Bill Nelson, I didnt realize there were two Senator Nelsons.
W Virginia Manchin as incumbent has the edge.

At risk GOP seats include
MA
So a GOP pickup of the senate is likely, but not by much.
I expect I'll be updating this post many times before 11/2012.
wild guess: R 52 D 47 I 1.






These pictures of the senate majority and minority leaders illustrate the stark differences between the two parties. Note how McConnell leans slightly to the right, while Reid leans slightly to the left. McConnell's tie is blue, while Reid wears a blue tie.

today, for the first time in 6 years, they let me vote w/o showing ID.
maybe they are tired of being sued.

I don't know much about canadian politics. But it looks like the conservatives stay in power, but NDP has replaced the Liberal party as the opposition,and the bloc quebequois also lost seats to NDP. Cons 154 seats so far, NDP 100+. update 167 seats, 54%.
con 40%
ndp 30
lib 20
bloc 6
grn 4

canadians vote today. there are allegations that Harper violated election rules by, on election day, asking people to vote for him. we have a municipal primary here tomorrow.
i will go try to vote and probably be refused over ID issues.

As the initial results started coming in soon after 7:00 p.m. eastern time, some users were decidedly cautious, using code words to describe the rise of the left-leaning New Democrats -- whose party color is orange.
"My orange soda is fizzy," said one user, adding the hashtag "#notaresult".

"If I used to have three oranges, and someone gave me four more oranges, would I go to jail?" asked another.

Within half an hour several bolder souls had lost all sense of hesitation and were tweeting the results from the 32 seats in Atlantic Canada, some using the hashtag #tweettheresults.

http://mashable.com/2011/05/01/2012-election-killer-app/ Why Location-Based Services Will be the Killer App of the 2012 Elections. maybe.

voter id editorial
http://www.politicususa.com/en/gop-voter-id-minorities

woohoo, i get a story into boingboing.
The Florida Pirate Party has fielded a candidate in for House Representative from District 86: "With your help, we can bring the state of Florida inhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifto the new digital age, in a free and open manner run by the people, and for the people." (Thanks, arbitraryaardvark!) — Cory • 1 Comment

Pirate party candidate seeks florida house seat.
I'm not sure how this fits with Richard Winger's reporting that florida is seeking to drastically increase ballot access hurdles.

grand rapids congressman votes present a lot.
jeff feiger still making news.
return of feingold?

http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2009-04-02/news/the-dirty-truth-about-clean-elections/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorr_Rebellion
Only two men have been convicted of treason against a state.John Brown of Harper's Ferry is well known. The other is Dorr. Rhode Island's charter from the king required land ownership by white men in order to vote. Dorr supported voting by all white men (at one time blacks also, although he changed his mind later.) Dorr held a constitutional convention and was elected governor, but the legislature also elected their own governor. President Tyler, asked to send troops, sent one guy, but sided with the legislature. Shirmishes followed. Dorr was arrested, jailed two years, freed, died shortly after. The legislature then voted in a new constitution.
A civil war, over voting rights,and I'd never heard of it. Found it while googling about my own voting rights case.

nyt times blog pushes for more disclaimers on tv ads. article.
my comment:
11.
Robbin Stewart
Indianapolis
March 24th, 2011
1:22 am
In one of the landmark victories of the civil rights movement, the Supreme Court ruled in Talley v California (1960) that disclaimer regulations violate the first amendment. This case,and the related NAACP cases in Alabama and Little Rock, are the foundation of the modern right to privacy. The Supreme Court upheld this right again in McIntyre v Ohio in 1995. In Citizens United, the court made an exception to this general rule just as to corporations, but the general rule remains the law of the land. Occasionally, as in Red Lion, the court has treated TV and radio as less protected than other speech, but that is not the trend. The suggested new regulations are unconstitutional, and it would be unethical and illegal for the commissioners to try to enforce them if passed.
Groups like the Media Access Project are free to try to get the First Amendment repealed. Until then, they should learn to live with it.

http://www.mediaaccess.org/uploads/MAPPetitionForRulemakingReSponsorshipID.pdf
what i should do next is file something with the FCC, but i may never get around to it.

tonight the texas house passed voter ID. it next goes to conference committee then to the governor. i wonder if it is constitutional,and whether an effective challenge will be brought.
Sec. 1. CLASSES OF PERSONS NOT ALLOWED TO VOTE. (a) The following classes of persons shall not be allowed to vote in this State:

(1) persons under 18 years of age;

(2) persons who have been determined mentally incompetent by a court, subject to such exceptions as the Legislature may make; and

(3) persons convicted of any felony, subject to such exceptions as the Legislature may make.

(b) The legislature shall enact laws to exclude from the right of suffrage persons who have been convicted of bribery, perjury, forgery, or other high crimes.

(Amended Nov. 8, 1932, Nov. 2, 1954, Nov. 4, 1997, and Nov. 6, 2001.) (TEMPORARY TRANSITION PROVISION for Sec. 1: See Appendix, Note 3.)


Sec. 2. QUALIFIED ELECTOR; REGISTRATION; ABSENTEE VOTING. (a) Every person subject to none of the disqualifications provided by Section 1 of this article or by a law enacted under that section who is a citizen of the United States and who is a resident of this State shall be deemed a qualified voter; provided, however, that before offering to vote at an election a voter shall have registered, but such requirement for registration shall not be considered a qualification of a voter within the meaning of the term "qualified voter" as used in any other Article of this Constitution in respect to any matter except qualification and eligibility to vote at an election.

(b) The Legislature may authorize absentee voting.

(c) The privilege of free suffrage shall be protected by laws regulating elections and prohibiting under adequate penalties all undue influence in elections from power, bribery, tumult, or other improper practice.

sect I: and the maintenance of our free institutions and the
perpetuity of the Union depend upon the preservation of the right of
local self-government,
All political power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority, and instituted for their benefit. The faith of the people of Texas stands pledged to the preservation of a republican form of government, and, subject to this limitation only, they have at all times the inalienable right to alter, reform or abolish their government in such manner as they may think expedient.



Sec. 3. EQUAL RIGHTS. All free men, when they form a social compact, have equal rights, and no man, or set of men, is entitled to exclusive separate public emoluments, or privileges, but in consideration of public services.

Sec. 9. SEARCHES AND SEIZURES. The people shall be secure in their persons, houses, papers and possessions, from all unreasonable seizures or searches, and no warrant to search any place, or to seize any person or thing, shall issue without describing them as near as may be, nor without probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation.
Sec. 19. DEPRIVATION OF LIFE, LIBERTY, ETC.; DUE COURSE OF LAW. No citizen of this State shall be ..., or in any manner disfranchised, except by the due course of the law of the land.
Sec. 20. OUTLAWRY OR TRANSPORTATION FOR OFFENSE. No citizen shall be outlawed.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/03/rand-paul-for-president/72854/

In for a calf is not in for Ahn Cao. (see Ginsberg concurring in McIntyre v Ohio.)
The Supreme Court denied cert in Cao v FEC, Richard Winger reports. The 5th circuit, which is now the most reversed circuit, had used the permissive Valeo standard in upholding limits to political party spending. Scotusblog.
update: hasen's post is "Don't have a Cao, man."

Ensign, R-NV, won't run. Leans GOP with congresscritter and former SecState Dean Heller a likely frontrunner.
Is all this just the usual generational turnover, or are we seeing real change?
Ensign Akaka Bingaman Hutchinson Conrad Lieberman Kyl Webb, that's 8, how many more to go? I predict several D seats will turn R this year, but I don't know how many more of these voluntary retirements we'll see. On average, expect 1 incumbent to lose the primary. It probably won't be Lugar.
Senator Akaka, D-HI, 86, will retire. Stays D. This will reduce the number of palindromatic senators by 1.
Jeff Bingaman D NM will retire. Likely GOP pickup. toss-up.
Jim Webb (D-VA) will retire. Likely GOP pick-up.

Hutchinson (R-TX) Conrad (D-ND) and Lieberman (I-CT) are retiring. Probable GOP pickup in ND, Dem pickup in CT. Susan somebody Bysiewicz, who was just CT sec of state, has announced, as have a few others. Susan was removed from the ballot for Attorney General in 2010 for not enough legal experience, by the state supreme court.
Jon Kyl, R AZ is also not running in 2012.

Tea party favorite "State Treasurer Richard Mourdock is planning a statewide tour to formally announce his intention to challenge U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar in the 2012 Republican primary."

NYT: He would swing into Crook’s Corner, a legendary Southern restaurant, for an order of fried oysters to go, talking to anyone around and looking like the polished but approachable Democratic presidential candidate he once was.

Fine Gael replaces Fianna Fail after Irish vote.

Law professor advocates direct action against Mugabe regime in Rhodesia. I am not citing this pro or con,just find it interesting.Usually lawyers suggest working within the system, but he explains his position.