Back on March 16, the Maryland Court of Appeals struck down a Maryland statute preventing candidates and political parties from paying “walking around money’ to workers on election day. The court applied strict scrutiny, and held that the ban was not justified by a compelling interest in preventing corruption, in light of the lack of evidence that the money indeed facilitated vote buying. The case is State v. Brookins.
Today, the Ninth Circuit decided a case under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Unsurprisingly, the court held that section 2 does not exceed congressional power under the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments. (I discuss this issue on pages 120-33 of my new book.) It also held that Blaine County, Montana’s use of at large voting violated section 2 of the Act. United States v. Blaine County. (Thanks to David Ettinger for the pointer to the second case.)