All posts by Rick Hasen

“Louisiana argues parts of Voting Rights Act are unconstitutional in redistricting case”

Department of Justice, Voting Rights Act

When I heard the news of the DOJ backing away from its position in the Callais redistricting case out of Louisiana before the Supreme Court, I realized that I had failed to link to this important story from Jan. 7 in the Louisiana Illuminator about Louisiana’s litigation position in another Voting Rights Act case:

Attorneys representing Louisiana in a lawsuit against the state legislative redistricting plans passed in 2022 are arguing that a key piece of the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional and should not be applied to the state. 

The case could produce a bellwether decision that impacts Black voting strength in several states where similar challenges have arisen. 

Arguments were presented Tuesday to a three-judge panel of the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in the case Nairne v. Landry, in which Black voters are challenging the most recent  legislative redistricting maps as unconstitutional racial gerrymanders. …

Every case brought under Section 2 is likely to be used as a test case for those that seek to have that portion of the Voting Rights Act overturned, advocates have said. 

The U.S. Department of Justice intervened in Nairne in response to the state’s arguments against Section 2 but remained neutral on the other aspects of the case. 

Noah Bokat-Lindell, a DOJ civil rights attorney, argued states cannot get a carveout from a generally applicable statute. For example, they cannot become exempt from the Americans with Disabilities Act because a state argues it doesn’t discriminate against disabled people, he said. 

In a press conference after the hearing, Attorney General Liz Murrill argued that if Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act was ruled unconstitutional, Black voters could still count on the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. 

“Those are legal arguments that we wanted to preserve so that they eventually might make it up to the United States Supreme Court,” Murrill said. “They’ve also been percolating in a number of other cases related to the scope and continuing application of Section 2 to states under current conditions.” 

Let’s watch what Trump’s DOJ does in this 5th Circuit case.

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“Trump Seeks Pause of Supreme Court Cases, Disavows DOJ Stance on Voting Rights Act “

Department of Justice, Voting Rights Act

Jimmy Hoover for the NLJ:

In Louisiana v. Callais, the Supreme Court will soon hear appeals to uphold the remedial map by an unlikely alliance of the state of Louisiana and the NAACP Louisiana State Conference and other supporters of the new map, codified as S.B. 8.

In a December brief, the Biden DOJ urged the Supreme Court to “vacate”the lower court’s ruling in light of its “failure to apply the proper” legal framework for racial gerrymandering cases. Former U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar had even sought argument time for her office when the case is heard by the court.

On Friday, however, Harris—a former Williams & Connolly partner—advised the court that she was rescinding the DOJ’s position in the case. 

Following the change in Administration, the Department of Justice hasreconsidered the government’s position in these cases,” she wrote.

“The purpose of this letter is to notify the Court that the previously filed brief no longer represents the position of the United States,” Harris added. “In addition, the United States is withdrawing its pending motion to participate in the oral argument.”…

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Scholars of Democratic Backsliding File Amicus Brief in 4th Circuit Warning About Judge Griffin’s Attempt to Overturn the Results of the 2024 North Carolina Supreme Court Election

election subversion risk

From the introduction to this brief:

Democracies do not necessarily live forever. Sometimes, they die. Amici’s scholarship shows that they often erode from within, through the degradation of free and fair elections and the capture of independent courts or electoral commissions by ruling parties seeking to expand and entrench their own power. Over the last 20 years, political scientists have documented and analyzed these patterns of democratic backsliding in countries like Hungary, Turkey, and Venezuela. The process is typically piecemeal—so gradual that it may not “set off society’s alarm bells.” Steven Levitsky & Daniel Ziblatt, How Democracies Die 6 (2018).


Such backsliding is happening now in North Carolina. And Judge Griffin’s effort, to invalidate tens of thousands of votes retroactively and overturn an election in the absence of any evidence of fraud or impropriety, is a dramatic escalation.


If we saw this happening in another country, we would know what to call it.


This is no ordinary legal dispute. Alarm bells should be ringing. From the perspective of political scientists and scholars whostudy the breakdown of democracy, Judge Griffin’s actions represent a profound challenge: Will an American state break with democratic norms and overturn an election decided by a majority of voters? Or will Judge Griffin’s efforts be rejected, despite the ruling party’s wishes?


One thing that separates North Carolina from Hungary or Venezuela is the ability of federal courts to enforce democratic norms embodied in federal law. Most nations do not have the benefit of an independent, politically insulated, supervening judicial authority with a duty to effectuate fundamental democratic commitments. But North Carolina has that, in the form of this Court. This Court should assert jurisdiction here, to enforce the statutory and constitutional rules that prohibit retroactively invalidating thousands of votes and to prevent further degradation of democracy in North Carolina.

Update: Griffin opposes the filing of this brief on timing grounds.

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Trump Floats Disgusting Idea of Tying Disaster Aid for Los Angeles Wild Fires to California Adopting a Strict Form of Voter Identification

chicanery, fraudulent fraud squad

This one really hits home. I have friends and family who have lost their homes or otherwise been displaced by the awful recent wildfires. The tradition has been to give disaster aid where it is needed —whether that is Florida, North Carolina, or California—without extortion. What crass political opportunism.

A Texas congressman is already on board.

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“Many Jan. 6 Rioters Pardoned by Trump Attacked Police, Videos Show”

authoritarian threats in US, election subversion risk

NYT:

After Daniel Rodriguez pleaded guilty to assaulting a police officer during the attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob on Jan. 6, 2021, he was sentenced to more than 12 years in prison by a federal judge who called him a “one-man army of hate.”

Two other men, Albuquerque Cosper Head and Kyle J. Young, were sentenced to more than seven years for their parts in the assault on the officer, Michael Fanone.

On Monday, President Trump pardoned all three of them, lumping them together with nearly 1,600 other people who had been charged in connection with the Jan. 6 riot and who he suggested had been victimized by a politicized prosecution. His grant of clemency comes despite a wealth of evidence about their crimes, including videos used against them by the Justice Department.

Some of the videos document the gruesome moment when Officer Fanone, who rushed to defend the Capitol on his day off, was dragged into the crowd by Mr. Head, beaten by Mr. Young and then attacked with a stun gun by Mr. Rodriguez.

Video from Officer Fanone’s body camera shows Mr. Rodriguez driving the stun gun into Officer Fanone’s neck, causing him to scream. Officer Fanone, who has since left the police force, sustained grievous injuries that day and suffered a heart attack.

Even some close allies of Mr. Trump had opposed granting clemency to those rioters found guilty of violent crimes, especially the more than 600 who were convicted of assaulting or resisting police officers. Of those defendants, nearly 175 used a dangerous or deadly weapon, prosecutors say.

Four years later, the violence they committed is still shocking — and the facts of what happened are right there in the images, many of them now iconic.

Here are some of the most egregious acts of violence that took place during the Capitol attack, as seen in videos….

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“Texas State Bar seeks to dismiss its lawsuit against Ken Paxton for challenging 2020 presidential election”

chicanery, election law biz

Texas Tribune:

The State Bar of Texas on Wednesday moved to drop its lawsuit against Attorney General Ken Paxton for his attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, extending a cascade of legal and political wins for the once-embattled Republican leader.

In a court filing, lawyers with the bar’s Commission for Lawyer Discipline asked the Texas Supreme Court to dismiss the suit, citing the high court’s December decision to toss a separate state bar lawsuit against Paxton’s top aide, Brent Webster, for working with Paxton to challenge the 2020 outcome in battleground states won by Democrat Joe Biden.

The state bar had sought to sanction Paxton, which could have carried a punishment ranging from a private reprimand to disbarment. Lawyers from the bar — which regulates law licenses in Texas — have argued that Paxton, in falsely claiming to have uncovered major evidence of election wrongdoing, forced the battleground states “to expend time, money, and resources to respond to the misrepresentations and false statements.”

The bar’s dismissal motion effectively ends a case that dates back to May 2022. It is Paxton’s second personal legal victory within the last year: In March, prosecutors dropped long-running felony securities fraud charges against Paxton under an agreement that required the attorney general to perform 100 hours of community service and take 15 hours of legal ethics courses. Paxton also agreed to pay around $271,000 in restitution to those he was accused of defrauding more than a decade ago when he allegedly solicited investors in a McKinney technology company without disclosing that the firm was paying him to promote its stock….

In its decision to dismiss the lawsuit against Webster last month, the Texas Supreme Court upheld an earlier ruling by a Williamson County district judge who said that taking Webster’s law license would violate the Texas Constitution’s separation of powers doctrine. In their motion to drop Paxton’s case, state bar lawyers acknowledged that their lawsuit against the attorney general “raises identical separation of powers issues” as those at issue in Webster’s case.

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“Trump’s White House Press Secretary Reveals Her Failed Campaign Spent $200K in Illicit Contributions”

campaign finance

NOTUS:

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt revealed in amended campaign filings on Thursday that her unsuccessful 2022 congressional campaign owes more than $300,000 in unpaid debts, with Leavitt failing to disclose for years that her campaign took in hundreds of thousands of dollars in inappropriate donations and never paid the money back.

The vast majority of that debt, about $200,000, is owed as refunds to contributors who appear to have donated above the legal limits. Those excessive contributions went unreported for years — until Thursday — when Leavitt’s campaign amended every campaign filing she had ever made with the Federal Election Commission….

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“Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office taking over voter registration fraud investigation in Lancaster County”

chicanery, voter registration

WGAL:

The Lancaster County District Attorney’s Office provided the following breakdown of ballots that were reviewed.

  • Detectives from the Lancaster County District Attorney’s Office reviewed 1,203 applications.
  • Applications were provided by the Lancaster County Voter Registration Office.
  • 367 applications were verified.
  • 383 applications were found to contain fraud.
  • 453 applications were unable to be verified and are suspected to be fraudulent.

According to investigators, indicators of fraud included:

  • Incorrect or non-existent addresses.
  • False personal identification information.
  • False names.
  • Incorrect Social Security information.
  • In other cases, applications contained accurate voter identification information, but the application was determined to be forged.
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“Justice Department Orders a Halt to Civil Rights Work”

Department of Justice

NY Times:

The Justice Department has ordered an immediate halt to all new civil rights cases or investigations — and signaled that it might back out of Biden-era agreements with police departments that engaged in discrimination or violence, according to two internal memos sent to staff on Wednesday.

The actions, while expected, represent an abrupt about-face for a department that had for the past four years aggressively investigated high-profile instances of violence and systemic discrimination in local law enforcement and government agencies.

The first of two short memos sent by Chad Mizelle, the chief of staff at the department, ordered a “litigation freeze” at the department’s Civil Rights Division to decide whether Trump appointees want “to initiate any new cases,” according to a screenshot of the document viewed by The New York Times.

Mr. Mizelle also barred lawyers working for the division from filing “motions to intervene, agreed-upon remands, amicus briefs or statements of interest,” unless they receive the approval of senior Trump appointees. It is the clearest sign yet that the hard-line conservatives taking over the department intend to swiftly sweep away the previous administration’s liberal agenda….

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“‘The gloves are off’: Trump appears poised to cash in from his presidency in new ways”

conflict of interest laws

Fredreka Schouten for CNN:

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump released meme coins just days before he took the oath of office. A splashy pre-inaugural party was held at a property his company owns. And a Saudi-backed golf tournament is headed to a Trump club this spring.

Trump’s latest money-making moves are raising alarms among ethics watchdogs who say that, just days into his presidency, the Republican appears poised to benefit financially from his final term in office in new and lucrative ways.

During his first four years in office, Trump’s team paid “lip service” to ethics guardrails, said Lisa Gilbert, co-president of the liberal group Public Citizen, which this week sued the Trump administration over a separate issue – claiming that Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency is operating in violation of a federal transparency law that governs advisory panels….

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“In blow to GOP, NC Supreme Court won’t fast-track lawsuit seeking to throw out 60,000 ballots” (Divided opinions suggest an ultimate possible 3-3 tie in this case)

judicial elections

Will Doran of WRAL:

North Carolina’s Republican-majority state Supreme Court ruled partially against the Republican candidate seeking to join its ranks, rejecting his effort to fast-track a lawsuit seeking to throw out more than 60,000 people’s 2024 ballots.

The case — which could decide a razor-thin, undecided race for a seat on the high court — must go to trial first, the justices ruled ruled Wednesday, shooting down what it called an “extraordinary” effort to skip a trial, bypass the state Court of Appeals, and have the issue decided quickly and directly by the state’s highest court.

Wednesday’s decision was essentially unanimous. However, in an indication that the justices are aware of the close attention on the case, every member of the court wrote a separate opinion explaining his or her decision — except for Riggs due to her recusal.

The majority opinion sending the case back to trial was written by Republican Justice Trey Allen. The court’s other Republican justices — Chief Justice Paul Newby and justices Phil Berger Jr., Tamara Barringer and Richard Dietz — each wrote concurring opinions. The court’s other Democratic justice, Anita Earls, wrote an opinion that concurred in part and dissented in part.

Earls said she would have gone a step further and fully denied Griffin, allowing Riggs to be officially declared the winner. Allowing the election to remain in limbo while this goes back to trial, she said, sets a troubling precedent for future elections. “It sets up courts to be the arbiters of election outcomes instead of voters, and weakens faith in the democratic processes of this state,” she wrote.

You can find the set of opinions at this link. It is possible the Court will ultimately divide 3-3 over what to do, which could leave the lower court opinion in place unless NC has a different way of dealing with tie votes on courts than the normal procedure.

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“O.C. Registrar of Voters debunks viral election fraud claim”

election administration, fraudulent fraud squad

LA Times:

A recent Orange County Grand Jury report that found no evidence of voter fraud did little to dissuade a false claim of election tampering from exploding on social media soon after.

On Jan. 16, Joe Hoff, a far-right television and radio host, posted a video clip on his website of an Orange County Registrar of Voters worker scanning a batch of ballots three times after the November 2024 elections.

“We don’t know if there is a legitimate reason for the worker’s actions,” Hoff wrote.

Building on suspicion, the video was reposted by “End Wokeness,” an X account that commented Democrats “outperformed” on the ballot in O.C., as a poll worker was “caught” triple-scanning ballots.

The post has since amassed more than 2 million views.

In response, the Orange County Registrar of Voters issued a statement the following day and contended that the security camera footage only shows the worker properly doing her job.

“The employee scanned the batch of ballots twice and then cleaned the scanner before scanning the batch of ballots a third time because during the first two scans some of the ballots were rejected by the scanner,” the statement read. “Given the large number of vote-by-mail ballots we scan during an election, Registrar of Voters employees must regularly clean the scanners.”…

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