TX Redistricting: “The State of Texas filed a reply brief today defending Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott’s position that the voter ID suits filed by the Justice Department and by African-American and Hispanic voters should be dismissed without need for … Continue reading
LA Times: “Anaheim is in talks to settle a lawsuit filed by the ACLU accusing the city of effectively excluding Latinos from holding political office and violating the California Voting Rights Act.” This comes after a big remedy in Palmdale … Continue reading
I’ve posted a revised (but not final) version of this article. It will be out in early 2014 in the William and Mary Bill of Rights Journal. … Continue reading
Another Democratic Shaw lawsuit. Very interesting. … Continue reading
This Jeff Shesol piece in the New Yorker discusses Shelby County, Citizens United, and the question of Court-Congress relations. … Continue reading
Via SSRN, you can now download a revised draft of my paper, Race or Party? How Courts Should Think About Republican Efforts to Make it Harder to Vote in North Carolina and Elsewhere. The final version should post on the … Continue reading
The City of Palmdale’s expert, Doug Johnson, posted some comments to the EL Listserv in response to the earlier David Ely comments posted on this blog. He has agreed to let me repost them here: As one might imagine from … Continue reading
Kareem Crayton and Terry Smith have posted this draft on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In this paper, we analyze the Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder, which declared unconstitutional the coverage formula for Section 5 preclearance. … Continue reading
Plaintiffs’ expert in the Palmdale case (see earlier post), David Ely, sends along these thoughts via email: 1. Judge did not say that incumbency can never be a consideration, he said that it cannot be used to justify a plan … Continue reading
Important AP story: “The Obama administration is aggressively pursuing lawsuits over minority voting rights in Texas and North Carolina, but the Justice Department has not moved on evidence that the latest round of redistricting in Los Angeles County unfairly reduces … Continue reading
A Los Angeles County superior court judge has issued this tentative remedial order (following this ruling on the merits) that the City of Palmdale’s at large elections violate the California Voting Rights Act. I am about to talk about this … Continue reading
See this editorial. … Continue reading
Pretty dramatic data on Anglo v. Hispanic support for controversial measure: Table 1. Percent vote cast for City of Pasadena Proposition 1 by percent of voting age population Anglo and Hispanic … Continue reading
See here. … Continue reading
Michael Li has the details and the scheduling order. … Continue reading
Zack Roth reports for MSNBC. … Continue reading
The Hill: The powerful House Republican said this week that he’s preparing to throw his full weight behind the effort to reinstall the voting protections shot down by the Supreme Court in June. Rep. James Sensenbrenner Jr., former head of … Continue reading
The November issue includes three items discussing Shelby, Inter-Tribal, or both: FOREWORD Equality Divided Reva B. Siegel COMMENTS Beyond the Discrimination Model On Voting Samuel Issacharoff LEADING CASES CONSTITUTIONAL LAW Elections Clause — Federal Preemption of State Law — Federal … Continue reading
Video: 2013 Law Alumni Association (LAA) Annual Fall Conference: “The Future of Voting Rights” The conference, co-sponsored by the NYU Law Alumni Association and the Journal of Legislation and Public Policy, took place on Wednesday, November 13, 2013. Voting is … Continue reading
Woah: The Wisconsin Supreme Court took over one voter ID case Wednesday and said it would hear an appeal of another. The move by the high court cancels oral arguments that were to be held next month before the District … Continue reading
A group of researchers at the University of Maryland have posted this draft on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The Supreme Court’s recently issued opinion in Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder (2013) declared an important part of the Voting Rights … Continue reading
He blogs here, discussing my NY Times oped from Saturday and my forthcoming HLRF piece,Race or Party? How Courts Should Think About Republican Efforts to Make it Harder to Vote in North Carolina and Elsewhere. … Continue reading
I have written this oped for the NY Times. It begins: “IT’S the latest fad among state officials looking to make voting harder: We’re not racist, we’re just partisan.” Another snippet: Shifting the debate away from the “race versus party” … Continue reading
This item appears at The Brad Blog. … Continue reading
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “In a late-night session Thursday, Republicans in the state Assembly approved measures to reinstate Wisconsin’s voter ID law, tighten early voting hours and limit the ability to recall some elected officials. They also took a first step … Continue reading
Wisconsin Public Radio reports. … Continue reading
A ChapinBlog. … Continue reading
Full Program http://rainbow.3cdn.net/a556f4096b56b58efc_zvm6bxkjl.pdf * Full Registraqtion https://secure.rainbowpush.org/page/contribute/2013-rainbow-push-coalition-citizenship-education-fund FRIDAY FORUM AT 2 PM, CAPITOL HILTON 1001 16th Street, NW VOTING RIGHTS AMENDMENT PANEL: “In A Democracy Voting Is Fundamental” The fundamental individual “right to vote” is not in the United States Constitution. … Continue reading
I have posted this draft on SSRN (127 Harvard Law Review Forum (forthcoming Dec. 2013)). Here is the abstract: North Carolina, Texas, and other states with Republican legislatures have passed a series of laws making it harder for voters to … Continue reading
Jon Sherman lays out the strategies. … Continue reading
I expect this Rolling Stone article to engender some controversy. … Continue reading
Law360. … Continue reading
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial: Don’t change voter ID law; get rid of it Wisconsin Republican Legislators Michael Schraa and Mark Born: “Wait and see” is not an option for voter ID … Continue reading
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: A professor who studied voter fraud in Wisconsin and around the country testified Thursday that it is “exceedingly rare,” and that requiring voters to show a photo ID might have prevented just one of the few dozen … Continue reading
Rolling Stone reports. … Continue reading
Provocative Tom Edsall column: “The Republicans who now control the legislatures and governorships in the Deep South are using the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 to create a system of political apartheid…..Have Republican legislators in the South become civil … Continue reading
AP reports. … Continue reading
The latest from Wisconsin. … Continue reading
NYT: On Tuesday, Texas unveiled its tough new voter ID law, the only state to do so this year, and the rollout was sometimes rocky. But interviews with opponents and supporters of the new law, which required voters for the … Continue reading
Zack Roth: Tuesday’s off-year election was a dry run for Texas’ controversial voter ID law. On the surface things went pretty smoothly, with few voters forced to cast provisional ballots. That was enough for the law’s Republican supporters to claim … Continue reading
WaPo editorial. … Continue reading
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: The trial began with a string of people describing the problems they had in trying to secure IDs for themselves or family members. Some of them have yet to be successful. “I cannot express the amount of time, … Continue reading
Texas Redistricting reports. … Continue reading
BLT: The lawyers who successfully challenged the Voting Rights Act before the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year are seeking $2 million in legal fees from the federal government. U.S. Department of Justice lawyers and attorneys from Wiley Rein, who … Continue reading
Kali Borkoski reports for SCOTUSBlog on Pasadena, TX after Shelby County. Watch! … Continue reading
Politico: Voter ID advocates and opponents alike will be watching Wisconsin on Monday as a new federal trial on the state’s photo ID law begins. The case is the first federal trial under the Voting Rights Act since the Supreme … Continue reading
ProPublica reports. … Continue reading
Norm Ornstein: It is becoming increasingly obvious that the Supreme Court decision in Shelby County v. Holder, which eviscerated the Voting Rights Act, is leading to a new era of voter suppression that parallels the pre-1960s era—this time affecting not just … Continue reading
Ari Berman writes for The Nation. … Continue reading
Nick Stephanopoulos has posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming, Supreme Court Review). Here is the abstract: In Shelby County v. Holder, the Supreme Court dismantled one of the two pillars of the Voting Rights Act: Section 5, which had barred … Continue reading