Including one involving election law professor Eugene Mazo. Richard Winger has the details.

California Governor Gavin Newsom is going to appoint Laphonsa Butler as the new Senator to replace Senator Feinstein, who died last week.

Butler used to live in California and still owns a house here, but is currently a Maryland resident while she works for EMILY’s List.

As I told the LA Times, someone need not be a resident of California before taking a position as a U.S. Senator or Member of the House of Representatives—only a resident once assuming office (and Butler will be registering again as a California voter).

The relevant case is Schaefer v. Townsend, 215 F.3d 1031 (9th Cir. 2000), cert denied sub nom. Jones v. Schaefer, 532 U.S. 904 (2001), in which the Ninth  Circuit held that “California’s requirement that candidates to the House of Representatives reside  within the state before election violates the Constitution by handicapping the class of nonresident  candidates who otherwise satisfy the Qualifications Clause.”

Opinion by Judge O’Scannlain.

Kermit Roosevelt oped in the LAT.

WaPo:

Kari Lake, the GOP Senate hopeful from Arizona, still contests her narrow loss in the 2022 Arizona governor’s race and proclaims herself the state’s “lawful governor.” The former television newscaster also baselessly disputes President Donald Trump’s 2020 election defeat and says Joe Biden is an “illegitimate president.” Her lawyers have been sanctioned by the state supreme court court for making “false factual statements.”

But now she has found a defender in what might seem like an unlikely place: a law clinic at Arizona State University.

In August, some university donors and alumni were flummoxed to see the Arizona State clinic listed as “Counsel for Defendant Kari Lake” on a motion to dismiss a defamation lawsuit filed against her by a Republican election official. In the suit, Stephen Richer, recorder for Maricopa County, alleges that Lake falsely accused Richer of intentionally sabotaging the gubernatorial election to help her opponent, resulting in violent threats against Richer and his family. In its motion for dismissal, the university clinic argues that Richer’s suit is an attempt to squelch Lake’s free-speech rights.

Opinion.

Ryan Goodman:

Wisconsin State Journal:

One of the three former Wisconsin Supreme Court justices whom Assembly Speaker Robin Vos asked to explore the prospect of impeaching newly minted liberal Justice Janet Protasiewicz argued in court Friday the group is not subject to the state’s open meetings law.

Former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser, a conservative and the only former justice to confirm being on the three-person panel, said the group “is not a governmental body by any stretch of the imagination” and is no different from a legislator meeting with a private citizen….

Both Prosser and Vos’ attorney Matthew Fernholz refused to name the other two members of the panel when asked by Dane County Circuit Judge Frank Remington. Prosser confirmed that the group has met at least once.

“Three people had lunch together,” Prosser said. “We had lunch together because we didn’t know what we were really supposed to do.”

MORE:

Politico:

A majority of voters are willing to support an effort to disqualify former President Donald Trump from the 2024 ballot, according to a new POLITICO | Morning Consult poll.

After a series of questions about the Constitution and Trump’s conduct after the 2020 presidential election, 51 percent said the 14th Amendment prohibits Trump from running again because he engaged in insurrection, compared with 34 percent who said the opposite…

The first question asks if Americans “support or oppose” that section of the amendment. Broadly, voters agree with it — 63 percent said they either strongly or somewhat support it, which includes a majority of Democrats, Republicans and independents. Just 16 percent said they somewhat or strongly oppose it.

But as Trump is introduced in the following questions, respondents separate into their partisan camps. When asked if they believed Trump “engaged in insurrection or rebellion,” 51 percent said either definitely or probably yes, and 35 percent said definitely or probably no.

That number is divided sharply on party lines: 79 percent of Democrats — and 49 percent of independents — say that he did, while just under a quarter of Republicans agree. The margins are similar for an additional question that asked if Trump gave “aid and/or comfort” to those engaged in insurrection and rebellion.

LA Times:

With the death Friday morning of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Gov. Gavin Newsom now must decide who will fill her U.S. Senate seat until the next election.

Who will it be? Here is a breakdown of what we know from the pages of The Times…

Earlier this year, the governor appeared on MSNBC and was asked by host Joy Reid if he’d “restore” Harris’ seat by appointing a Black woman. Newsom leaped at the question.

“We have multiple names in mind,” he said, “and the answer is yes.”

Feinstein announced last year she would not run for another term.

The leading candidates to replace her are Reps. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland) , Adam B. Schiff of Burbank and Katie Porter of Irvine.

Lee has criticized Newsom, saying he should not limit his choice to a caretaker.

Although not mentioned in the article, my money is on California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, if she wants it.

NYT:

President Biden issued a broad and blistering attack against former President Donald J. Trump on Thursday, accusing his predecessor and would-be successor of inciting violence, seeking unfettered power and plotting to undermine the Constitution if he returns to office in next year’s elections.

In his most direct condemnation of his leading Republican challenger in many months, Mr. Biden portrayed Mr. Trump as a budding autocrat with no fidelity to the tenets of American democracy and who is motivated by hatred and a desire for retribution. While he usually avoids referring to Mr. Trump by name, Mr. Biden this time held nothing back as he offered a dire warning about the consequences of a new Trump term.

“This is a dangerous notion, this president is above the law, no limits on power,” Mr. Biden said in a speech in Tempe, Ariz. “Trump says the Constitution gave him, quote, the right to do whatever he wants as president, end of quote. I never heard a president say that in jest. Not guided by the Constitution or by common service and decency toward our fellow Americans but by vengeance and vindictiveness.”

Mr. Biden cited recent comments by Mr. Trump vowing “retribution” against his foes, accusing NBC News of “treason” and suggesting that the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark A. Milley, might deserve to be put to death. The president also decried plans being developed by Mr. Trump’s allies to erode the independence of major agencies, wipe out much of the top ranks of civil service and make senior government officials personally loyal to him.

“Seizing power, concentrating power, attempting to abuse power, purging and packing key institutions, spewing conspiracy theories, spreading lies for profit and power to divide America in every way, inciting violence against those who risk their lives to keep Americans safe, weaponizing against the very soul of who we are as Americans,” Mr. Biden said. “This MAGA threat is a threat to the brick and mortar of our democratic institutions. It’s also a threat to the character of our nation.”

The gloves-off assault on Mr. Trump represented a marked shift for Mr. Biden, who has spent months mostly talking up the benefits of his policies while ignoring the race to choose a Republican nominee to challenge him. But repeated speeches claiming credit for “Bidenomics” have not moved his anemic approval ratings, as many voters tell pollsters they worry about the 80-year-old president’s age.

NYT:

A well-funded group of anti-Trump conservatives has sent its donors a remarkably candid memo that reveals how resilient former President Donald J. Trump has been against millions of dollars of negative ads the group deployed against him in two early-voting states.

The political action committee, called Win It Back, has close ties to the influential fiscally conservative group Club for Growth. It has already spent more than $4 million trying to lower Mr. Trump’s support among Republican voters in Iowa and nearly $2 million more trying to damage him in South Carolina.

But in the memo — dated Thursday and obtained by The New York Times — the head of Win It Back PAC, David McIntosh, acknowledges to donors that after extensive testing of more than 40 anti-Trump television ads, “all attempts to undermine his conservative credentials on specific issues were ineffective.”…

Win It Back did not bother running ads focused on Mr. Trump as an instigator of political violence or as a threat to democracy. The group tested in a focus group and online panel an ad called “Risk,” narrated by former Representative Liz Cheney, that focused on Mr. Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, 2021. But the group found that the Cheney ad helped Mr. Trump with the Republican voters, according to Mr. McIntosh.

NYT:

The judge overseeing former President Donald J. Trump’s trial on charges of seeking to overturn the 2020 election denied on Wednesday his attempt to disqualify her from the case for supposedly being biased against him.

In a strongly worded order, the judge, Tanya S. Chutkan of Federal District Court in Washington, rejected claims by Mr. Trump’s lawyers that she had shown bias against the former president in statements she made from the bench in two cases related to the attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob on Jan. 6, 2021.

In the order, Judge Chutkan not only chided Mr. Trump’s lawyers for putting words in her mouth, but she also asserted that the remarks did not betray any animus or unfairness toward Mr. Trump that would warrant the extraordinary step of removing her from the election interference case.

“The statements certainly do not manifest a deep-seated prejudice that would make fair judgment impossible,” she wrote.

Votebeat:

In North Carolina, Local Labs wanted obscure voter records that would take weeks, or even months, to prepare. In Georgia, the company requested a copy of every envelope voters used to mail in their ballots. And in dozens of counties across the U.S., Local Labs asked for the address of every midterm voter.

Local election offices across the country are struggling to manage a sharp rise in the number of public records requests, and extensive requests coming from Local Labs in at least five states have stymied election officials, according to a Votebeat review of hundreds of records requests, as well as interviews. The requests are broad and unclear, and the purpose for obtaining the records is often not fully explained, leaving officials wondering in some cases whether they can legally release the records.

Local Labs is known for a massive network of websites that rely mainly on aggregation and automation, blasting out conservative-leaning hyper-local news under names such as the Old North News, in North Carolina, and Peach Tree Times, in Georgia.

Local Labs CEO Brian Timpone told Votebeat the company is using records requests in an attempt to expose election fraud that he is sure exists. The company is sometimes getting paid by GOP-backed clients to do so, Timpone acknowledged, characterizing the work simultaneously as both political research and journalism. 

“We’re just trying to push for more free speech and more transparency,” Timpone said. “And no one else is doing it.”

Veteran journalists and those who study journalism ethics say he’s wrong. Arizona State University journalism professor Julia Wallace — previously the editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution — said doing reporting and paid-for work at the same time is not ethical. “That’s not independent, so that’s not journalism,” she said.

Timpone is no stranger to journalism controversies: Among his previous companies was one that sold cheap content to local news organizations and was ultimately closed after a series of ethics scandals, including plagiarism. 

PlanScore is now updated with partisan fairness data about congressional and state legislative plans through the 2022 election. Below are maps showing the biases of congressional plans in 2022 and 2012 (in that order). The improvement in 2022 in states like MI, NC, OH, PA, and VA is dramatic, and helps explain why the House map as a whole was almost perfectly balanced in 2022.

Ohio Capital Journal:

After discussion, LaRose’s office said it would provide a spreadsheet identifying the number of allegations per county, broken down into broad categories of potential offenses. It took five months for the office to provide that document.

As of June 23, 2023, LaRose had referred 641 cases of potential voter fraud to state or local authorities. Since he took office, Ohioans have cast more than 14.7 million ballots. That tally includes primary and general elections with federal candidates. LaRose’s office doesn’t publish state-level turnout figures for odd year local elections. Because August’s statewide ballot measure happened after LaRose’s office complied with the request, the 3 million plus ballots cast in that election are not included.

Still, even if every single incident LaRose flagged turned out to be voter fraud, it would translate to a fraud rate of just .0044%.

To determine how many of LaRose’s referrals resulted in charges, Ohio Capital Journal requested information about voter fraud prosecutions since January 2019 in all 60 counties where a referral originated. As of Sept. 22, 55 counties have complied with that request. The 5 counties that have not make up 12 of the 641 incidents LaRose’s office identified.

In all, prosecutors reported 18 incidents that resulted in charges during that timeframe. Another 12 remain under investigation. But a handful of the incidents they reported likely didn’t come from LaRose’s efforts.